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Words, words, words
Apr. 19th, 2008 10:07 pm1. The headline writers for the enterainment bit of The Times seem desperate for readers. We have Harry Potter storylines are gibberish, judge tells Rowling, which he didn't; and It's ok to think Doctor Who is gay, says David Tennant, which he didn't say either.
2. The cocktail party effect describes our ability to focus on a single voice in a room full of conversation, yet to instantly notice if someone elsewhere in the room mentions our name. I experienced a variation of this at the gym last night when someone said "James May." My antenna went up and I caught part of a conversation about James and Oz's Big Wine Adventure. (As with the new Doctor Who, it is odd to be a fan of something of which other people have actually heard.)
3. Watching the English naturally devotes many pages to the social lubrication of weather discussion, a safe topic about which to make meaningless remarks in order to start a conversation. I thought of this while watching Monty Python, in which a Cleese's Vocational Guidance Counsellor destroys a weather chat with the line, "Enough of this gay banter", and also while listening to a Lingua Franca about Pennsylvania German, the language of the Amish and Mennonites. They don't bother with chit-chat, and will comfortably sit in silence. They can; they all know each other.
4. I keep encountering the abusive term "weeaboo" in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fandomsecrets, supposedly used to deride Westeners who are Japanese-wannabes, but actually used to deride anyone who's dead keen on anime, etc. Obviously this isn't a Japanese word; it turns out to come from 4chan, source of a million memes, home of a billion trolls, self-appointed arbiter of Internet social standards.
Now, the weird thing is this: apparently, 4chan used an automatic filter (I think OG uses something similar to kill swears) to substitute the nonsense word "weeaboo" for a more obvious term of abuse, "Wapanese". "Weeaboo" comes from a Perry Bible Fellowship comic strip, in which saying the word invites a paddling. Which suggests that 4chan was trying to discourage posters using the word "Wapanese". If so, it was a terrific failure, since "weeaboo" seems to have become the standard insult. Bizarre.
This has been a random core dump of the contents of my mind. I thank you.
2. The cocktail party effect describes our ability to focus on a single voice in a room full of conversation, yet to instantly notice if someone elsewhere in the room mentions our name. I experienced a variation of this at the gym last night when someone said "James May." My antenna went up and I caught part of a conversation about James and Oz's Big Wine Adventure. (As with the new Doctor Who, it is odd to be a fan of something of which other people have actually heard.)
3. Watching the English naturally devotes many pages to the social lubrication of weather discussion, a safe topic about which to make meaningless remarks in order to start a conversation. I thought of this while watching Monty Python, in which a Cleese's Vocational Guidance Counsellor destroys a weather chat with the line, "Enough of this gay banter", and also while listening to a Lingua Franca about Pennsylvania German, the language of the Amish and Mennonites. They don't bother with chit-chat, and will comfortably sit in silence. They can; they all know each other.
4. I keep encountering the abusive term "weeaboo" in
fandomsecrets, supposedly used to deride Westeners who are Japanese-wannabes, but actually used to deride anyone who's dead keen on anime, etc. Obviously this isn't a Japanese word; it turns out to come from 4chan, source of a million memes, home of a billion trolls, self-appointed arbiter of Internet social standards.Now, the weird thing is this: apparently, 4chan used an automatic filter (I think OG uses something similar to kill swears) to substitute the nonsense word "weeaboo" for a more obvious term of abuse, "Wapanese". "Weeaboo" comes from a Perry Bible Fellowship comic strip, in which saying the word invites a paddling. Which suggests that 4chan was trying to discourage posters using the word "Wapanese". If so, it was a terrific failure, since "weeaboo" seems to have become the standard insult. Bizarre.
This has been a random core dump of the contents of my mind. I thank you.
