Enough y’all. I can no longer idly stand by while my fellow Millenials bastardize our language in social media and in text communications. I’m a writer, which means I probably love wordplay as much as anything else. But don’t let my yearning for the return of the pun or applause for abundant alliteration sway you from a real issue going on in advertising and our culture.
We have forgotten how to express the most basic emotions through words alone.
When social media takes away font options, or sets character limits, people freak out. At least that’s what it sounds like.
Let’s crush the epidemic. Here are a few rules to live by. They shouldn’t be new to anyone who’s chatted online, but it’s time for a refresher. It’s time to get clean.
Nothing is so exciting that it needs more than one exclamation point.
The English language provides everything we need to convey excitement, but like everything else, moderation is key. Our culture has built up a tolerance to the exclamation point to such a level where one doesn’t express enough excitement. We crave to tell people how truly thrilled we are about a statement. It’s time for an intervention where we gather all your phone contacts and Facebook friends, sit them in a chat room and “get real” about the amount of stimulants you’re putting in to your body copy. We care about what you have to say, but you become a totally different person when you use exclamation points.
If you absolutely need an exclamation point fix, punctuate the most compelling part of the sentence. Example:
“Justin Beiber is coming to town!!!! I’m so excited!! Let’s get tickets!!!!”
“Justin Beiber is coming to town. I’m so excited! Let’s get tickets.”
In the second example, I can actually pay attention to the sentence, even though I don’t care about it at all . The important thing is that I listened to what you said, not how you said it.
When you use all capital letters, you’re shouting.
Stop yelling at me in your text messages. I answered my phone. You already have my attention. What more do you want? If you must be emphatic, pick a single word to highlight. My phone only allows 160 characters to convey a message. Frugality with words does not permit vulgarity of speech. Calm down and state your full thought clearly.
You better be laughing out loud.
For a time in my life, I thought printing text language made me trendy and hip. There was also a time in my life when I wet the bed. Both phases made me feel gross. As a culture, we sort through thousands of messages a day. We ought to do ourselves a favor and speak in simple, true statements. Honesty is empowering. If I write, “lol,” in a text, I laughed out loud. If I say, “haha,” I chuckled with my mouth open. If I say, “hehe,” I smiled or chuckled with my mouth closed.
Let’s stop abbreviating everything. Again, it may make our text communications shorter, but not simpler. We have enough to sort through. In some cases, the few characters we save through acronyms aren’t that much shorter. Here are some examples.
OMG = 3 characters
Oh My God = 9 characters with spaces (and don’t give me that “oh my gosh/goodness” crap. That’s BS.)
cya = 3 characters
See you = 6 characters with space
r u? = 3 characters with spaces
are you? = 7 characters
English provides flexibility. We wield the power to say things in dozens of ways. Ditch the acronyms and simplify the language.
Good copy with expressive, informative language still sells. I believe keeping the integrity of longer words will shorten the time needed to communicate. I believe figurative language trumps forceful language. I believe people will read body copy if it’s relevant. I believe you’ve proven my point if you’ve read this far. I’ll leave you with this:
Fonts spoil us.
Character limits stiffle us.
Abbreviations slow us.
But
Wit is still welcome.
Good copy is clean.
Clear copy is sobering.