While Good Morning America (yes, we get it rebroadcast in Oz at 4am) is, from top to bottom, just one, GIGANTIC neural convulsion. Every now and then, a story stands out, and this particular item about kids sending text messages makes my stomach turn on so many levels it's like they've discovered hitherto unknown dimensions of nausea-inducing stupidity. It's a veritable tract hyperdimensional, stomach-knotting, disquiet.
Stopping short of actually liking the story to the number one media toy of the current era (sexual predators), there were a few choice hints with all the weight and shape of sexual innuendo... The main focus was on kids sending thousands of text messages on a monthly basis, running huge bills on their MOBILE PLANS, along with parents who are COMPLETELY clueless about the MOBILE PLANS they are signing their kids up for. MOBILE PLANS! It's called prepaid you money-flushing dolts!
Then there was the secret language of teens, "text speak" that they're using to what? Put themselves in harms way with no care or concern for anyone or anything? Arrange a hormone-fuelled coup-detat? Plot the downfall of all that is good and right and holy in the world? Or perhaps... communicate quickly and privately with each other? But you'd swear from the serious tone of the presenters (I mean it wasn't exactly Hard Copy but it had the malodourous tang hyperbole about it) that we're all members of al-queda from 12-21.
To say nothing of the veritable satanic sacrifices being made of the English language in the name of speed. I fail to see the point. there's a 150 character limit in a text message, and even I very rarely reach it. anything that requires more than that, I make a 30-second call. a lot of the older acronyms I find are a form of onomatopoeia or designations for emotions or expressions: LOL, ZOMG, ROFL etc. It is an entirely different issue from above, but it's still nauseating to think that everything is a potential acronym to be shortened down. Bcoz, hoo th hl wnts lngwge 2 trn n2 ths? |
