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It's Official: Teen Instant Messages Nothing But Gibberish

In a scathing report released today, communications experts have declared that the instant messages teenagers exchange with each other are in reality nothing but gibberish. U.S. Chatmaster General Todd Dood, with technical help from the National Security Agency, examined thousands of instant messages.

"None of it made a lick of sense" he said.

It has long been thought that teen instant messages contained abbreviations (such as LOL for "laughing out loud" and MAIBARP for "my acne is becoming a real problem"), short forms (such as L8R for "later" and R2D2 for "R2D2"), and slang (such as whassup for "what's up" and yo for "Hello, I am pleased to meet your acquaintance. Do you wish to have a conversation?"). However, the report reveals that this so-called "teenspeak" began to change so fast that kids simply could not keep up. Each teen developed his or her own lingo, and the instant messaging system devolved into anarchy.

"The crazy thing is that teen instant messaging is more popular than ever," said Dood. "They seem not to have noticed that they can't understand a word anyone is texting to them." There seems to be a prestige factor at work here. As one teen quoted in the study said, "If you say you don't understand, then you're just like so gay."

Published Jun 18 2008, 10:07 AM by Paul
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Comments

 

Willis said:

Just because someone doesn't understand it, doesn't mean it's gibberish anymore then French sounds to a non-french speaker.  The teens can perfectly understand it.  Calling it gibberish just ignores the fact that it is a (somewhat?) valid means of communication.

July 15, 2008 3:05 AM
 

laura said:

i'll have you know that not all teenagers are like that, and i tend to refrain from talking to the ones who do, i'm 16 and even when i was 12 i was not talking like that. none of my friends were either, give us all a break.

we're not mindless freaks, you know.

July 28, 2008 9:09 AM
 

The “Lingo” of Instant Messages is Rubbish | iPhone Lemurs said:

Pingback from  The “Lingo” of Instant Messages is Rubbish | iPhone Lemurs

August 6, 2008 2:18 PM
 

Paul said:

When you have to tell people that a piece of satirical writing is satire, it always reflects badly on the satirist and not on the readers who missed the point. So it's with a heavy heart that I point out that this post is, indeed, satire. There is no "U.S. Chatmaster General"; MAIBARP is not a real abbreviation; there is no report.

August 17, 2008 12:31 PM

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