Are There Internet Dialects? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios

What... what else would you call a cobbler? I mean. You're telling me shoemakers/fixers have another name in the US?

he really just called them jifes i swear to god why is my teacher making me watch this

Gif
G from egg
I like e
And f. Just f.

It's not pronounced GIF or JIF, it's pronounced JYFE now.

This is such an interesting concept! I definitely notice myself changing how I type depending on which platform I am using. For example, on Facebook I tend to use more complete sentences and appropriate grammar due to the fact that I know an older generation is very present. On Instagram, however, I tend to use different styles of typing when I send memes to my friends.

I have always noticed that I talk and almost even act differently on the internet than I do in person. The way I message, or comment, or even just engage with content on the internet is far different from how I might discuss things with my friends or engage with them. My friends and I have also discussed Tumblr and I have noticed those who spent more time on Tumblr have turned off auto capitalization and correction on their phones, so their messages reflect the same style of common Tumblr posts. As you discussed, maybe Tumblr and our shared interest and understanding of it has brought us together...

my favorite file format .JIFE

It is interesting to think about there being internet dialects, however it is baffling to think about how many internet dialects there would be since each language would have have so many different speech communities and not to mention each social media would have different speech communities. But I do reject this idea of there being internet dialects because the way we use language in the world around us will always change depending on the mediums we use to communicate, but that does not mean that those mediums have different dialects, but the people do. And people's language is heavily influenced by the internet and technology so of course that will be reflected in people's speech on and outside of the internet. His argument that people have developed an abbreviated, and very different form of communicating specifically for the internet is something I reject as a reason to call it a dialect. People are constantly changing languages to communicate ideas more efficiently and using images but that does not mean that is is a separate dialect.

Interesting video.. I never noticed that indeed, we do speak differently according to where we're at. The internet is an interesting place, it has it's own word choice and vocabulary which if you are not constantly on it you do not understand its meaning. For example, lol, cx, among others. The internet language is very "chill" so I agree with you, there is an internet language.

The media we use really does shape how we use language on different platforms. Twitter's restrictive use of characters forces its users to use acronyms and abbreviations to get their message across. The use of hashtags is also interesting because they are only useful on websites that support them as navigation tools.

This is actually so interesting because I have seen this before. I use Twitter a lot and apparently when I type I use “twitter language.” For example I was texting my friend and I said “omg bye” and I don’t actually mean I’m going to leave but just if I think something is so funny I say bye because it’s so funny I need a moment. There is a concept called “keyboard smashing” and everyone on my twitter timeline does it. You basically just smash a bunch of letters from your keyboard whenever you think something is funny or you’re super excited. This video really made me realize how different my friends speak to each other based on the social media communities they are part of. This is pretty cool.

I have thought about this before in the sense that sometimes you can tell what age range an Individual may be depending on what words and internet lingo they use online. When I used more social media, I noticed that on tumblr, people would use a lot of Japanese emojis (Kaomoji) and are more open emotionally compared to other apps and pages, I think this is because tumblr had a big art community.

Thank you for posting this! It was very educational and made me try and find evidence of internet dialect in my everyday speech. One example I can think of is "slang" terms and phrases used between my friends, that we started using after seeing memes, tweets, tik-toks ect. Sometimes after watching many tik-toks, I notice that I frame my own speech in a more choppy manner that is in the format of many videos on that platform.

So, I'm watching this for anthropology class and I've been lurking on various platforms so I think I know what this video is getting at. My friends and I are very familiar with Twitch and there's a lot of lingo that come out of there that get popularized to the rest of the internet. It's actually sometimes overwhelming since when I look away a new term gets thrown around by both streamers and chat, leaving me confused a bit until I look it up. I think twitch rubbed off on a lot on my friends since we use sometimes use terms like "pog" and "monkaS". I'm positive anyone who don't use internet as much in general would look at me with a blank stare if I said or typed these things.

i definitely think that there are different internet dialects/speech communities. i’ve seen people ‘speak’ differently on different platforms like instagram or twitter.

Now that I think about it, there are social media hierarchies and within them members with specific speech/typing patterns. I appreciate the explanation and find it very interesting that communities of practice and Language of ideology is also found inside a non-physical space, like the internet.

I really enjoyed how you broke down the concept of dialect, I agree that speech communities are a better way to categorize the different speech patterns on the internet. I believe /b/ and 4chan specifically are great examples of the in-group and out-group dynamics that are common in dialects. I never considered that we communicate with different language on different social media platforms, especially comparing Twitter to Facebook.

Hearing you pronounce GIF as "jife" made my soul momentarily leave my body

I'm going to start pronouncing GIF as "yiff"

... howd he say gif??

Great video! Good use of 4chan boards as an example.

jifes

Did this man just say "JIFE" ???

JYFE? REALLY?

I speak fluent comment section

not this video being assigned for school ......... :!

This is a great video. It took me forever to find someone discussing this topic

"grow out of the school yard dialect adopted purely for social validation or you will be doomed to be grifted by its synthetic charms"
-quote by me (a poly county intercontinental learner)

oh dude tumblr definitely invented its own way of inflection through punctuation
most common example:

why would you do this -> this is a flatly stated question, it does not require (or would even do well) with a question mark

It just seems right? -> you're not asking a question, you just have a question mark at the end to showcase that you're turning up your voice up at the end to make a hesitant statement

you also capitalize Important Words so that you read them in that Important Voice, and give them meaning ("meaning", btw, does not read the same as "Meaning", funny how that works right?)

tumblr has somehow given text posts inflection through conveyance of intense emotion, and that was even BEFORE we were able to use italics or bold text
I can REAd it, but I don't think I could explain it without copious examples or sounding like I'm tryna pull your leg

Oof all the Chris Pratt stanning really didn't age well...

When you said gif I got cold chills.

this video is nice

VSauce accent

So. Use /b/ to insult someone,
use stereotypical text post tumblr to make someone cry.
Got it.

You lost me.

I’m sorry, did you just pronounce GIFs as “Jifes?”

I get the Guh versus Juh debate (of which Guh is definitively more popular), but I think everyone agrees the I is pronounced like “Him” and not like “Like”

You sound like Vsauce and exhibit his same mannerisms and inflections. I think the "Vsauce" accent IS one of a few internet accents I've noticed.

i bear the run-on and lazy grammar from tumblr, but some stories ive only ever been able to tell in the form of greentext. its a format that can make a long tale with lots of details feel more concise and easier to digest. and the only greentext post i know is the soccer one LMAO

oh! a punctuation thing i noticed would be the. uhm. uh. the short, choppy sentences or the use of periods to convey a tone or speech pattern, ive seen it used for deadpan tones or irritation or a frantic nervousness or excitement. or for emphasis. on... something. idk.

Another thing would be using an elipsis of commas to indicate hesitation or awkwardness or indicate that you're still thinking about what you're going to say,,, or just used in the place of ellipses alltogether,,,, (though my use of it here is not intended to be akin to an ellipsis,,, not sure how to describe it tho) my thought is that they are seen as more solemn or serious or unfriendly or not as open-ended as a silence indicated by an ellipsis.

This was ten years ago??

god this didnt age very elegantly

This video gives me Boombard energy