kthxbye

<RANT>
I saw something quite charming yesterday. I’m on a e-mail list for fans of an author named Raymond Feist. The author is quite active on the list and is willing to endure both insightful and banal questions about himself and his work. Yesterday a gem came through from a new poster. I am not editing when I quote it thusly:

sorry but i figured feist readers in general have good taste in fantasy fiction therefore r the best source to ask my questions, with that incredible sucking up effort IM forgiven right

Ahem. This caused a litany of abusive reactions from the list regulars. There was name calling and hurt feelings. People told this guy to either learn how to communicate or STFU. Others told the poster that no, he was not forigven and that he should spend some more quality time with some of his his friends in Punctuation Land.
I’m going to put on my Cranky Old Man hat (the orange one that says “Caterpillar”) and say “DAMN STRAIGHT”, and get off my lawn while you’re at it. This phenomenon of “net speak” is as stupid as its perpetuators. I can’t imagine a job seeker getting very far with this as the opening paragraph of his cover letter:

hi im realy good and want to work 4u cuz i need a job and you r down from my house i can send u my resume if u want it but i cant find you on aol instant msngr wtf??? if you see me on IM prolly playing halo ROLLMAO!!!!1111!eleven!

I’ve actually heard stories from teachers who get papers turned in written like this. This seems like social Darwinism in action to me. Hopefully these spazzes will either learn which modes of communication are appropriate for a given situation or they’ll flunk out of school, loose their ‘net connection, and die of starvation. I have no tolerance for them if they can’t adapt and learn.
In fact, even while working at GameSpy where slang and instant messaging are ubiquitous, I made a decision to purge all my messages of such ‘net speak, even if it mean taking an extra 3.5 seconds to compose a message. It just reflects poorly on you and more often than not triggers the kind of heuristics that say “This person says nothing worth hearing”. Because we’re all busy people and that mental shortcut is right the vast majority of the time.
</RANT>

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