OMGWTFBBQ!!!11 internets OH NOES

[trinityofone]

I just had to explain to my boss what "*g*" means. I forwarded something to him with a note that said "And I'm coming right in to talk to you about this. *g*" because our offices are right next door and it seemed kind of silly. That was two hours ago. He just called me in to ask, "What does star gee star mean?" And then I had to explain.

What really freaks me out is: he's not that much older than I am. He lives, you know, in the world. Why does he not know this? Is it generally not known? I mean, my dad knows what "*g*" means. Although possibly because I told him. So...does BossMan live in a bubble, or am I completely divorced from reality or like a teeny-bopper net-speaker omg lolz?

Comments

*rudely butting into the conversation with an imprecise history of the subject*

[art-of-cynicism.livejournal.com]

As previous posters have mentioned emoting using asterisks like so *g* comes from waaaay back when in IRC land. It also comes from text Role play gaming. Players used asterisks, a double set of colons or these <> things (less than and greater than signs?) to denote actions taking place in the RPG, rather than speech. The differences in usage were based purely on what game you played and occasionally through what medium you played it. (i.e. IRC, AOL, etc) Emoticons like the happyface :) and such developed when AOL and instant messaging gained prominence with thirteen year olds.

Then net speak developed with lol, brb, omg, rofl, g2g and so on.

The anime fans developed the other emoticon-ish type of face making with o.0 and so on. I've never personally understood it (took me years to figure out what most of them meant, I kept turning my head sideways, saying, "I just don't get it.")

Then as subcultures moved away from instant message towards mailing lists and then into LJ and Blog territory net speak has changed to what we typically use today. Like the typos "liek whoa" and "teh" and such.

Really I think what you speak just depends on where you came from and where you frequent. I've been all over the map, extensively. Except IRC (which makes my eyes hurt) and anime (which makes my brain hurt.) So I'm familiar with all the types mentioned.

Why yes, I did start in text based RPGs why do you ask. *grins*

Hope this cleared up a few things.