Saturday, December 5, 2009

"Senseless" by Brent Stempfle




There are a number of different forms of writing that populate the internet. Shawna made an interesting post covering a number of these phenomena. Despite the large number of intelligent, coherent writers, the advent of public internet use has provided a haven for complete and utter idiocy. I am referring to what is known as "leet speak," or, as it is written in it's own form, "1337 $P34I<."
This has been found across the internet, most notably on public sites such as facebook and youtube. The main question is why. It doesn't make things any simpler to write as txt spk does, in reality it makes things harder to write. It is extremely difficult to read, and yet not hard enough to read to be used as code. It seems as though leet speak is used by people who need to feel different, regardless of how.

3 comments:

  1. I didn't know "leet speak" existed. I agree, I don't think using "leet speak" would make communicating easier. I bet people who use "leet speak" probarly use it as way to create "in" with others who use the same speech.

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  2. Leet speak boggles my mind but on the one hand I can understand it. It's about subculture, about being able to say you're part of an "in" crowd and knowing instantly whether someone else is "in" or not.

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  3. I can understand how one might one to employ an "artistic" form of spelling as a means of setting themselves apart from the millions of other people networking on the world wide web. I, however, would prefer to be set apart by the content of my writing, and not the way I form my letters.

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