Virtual Language and Culture

Virtual Language and Culture

In The Songlines, it is discussed how songs are not just a way of communicating but are a crucial and highly significant part of the aboriginal culture, “Dreaming-tracks lay over the lands as ‘ways’ of communication between the most far-flung tribes”. Communication is a crucial aspect of every culture and the tools of communication vary depending on the variables and core principles.

Facebook, as discussed in my last blog entry, is not about being one’s self at all anymore. It has become the new ‘it’ thing, an infinite fad, and a necessity that has evolved to become the main line of communication. When you sign up for an account you are inadvertently joining an entirely new culture, a culture that is not based on ethnicity or land origins, but on a universal distribution of ideas.

Similar to every culture, Facebook has its own language, created by users as means of communicating concepts that did not exist before the evolvement of the internet over the last ten years. This phenomenon is mentioned in the film the Social Network, which depicts the story of Mark Zuckerberg and his development of Facebook as a global brand. In the film it is mentioned how the term ‘Facebook me’, was created for this specific outlet of Facebook only a few weeks after its introduction to Harvard University. This alone demonstrates the need for cultural communication, and how every collective will instinctively find a mutual mode of communication, whether it be Songlines, or a simple expression.

This language began evolving into words such as trolling, spam, tagging, and sexting. Words invented to explain completely new notions. This language then moved to in the direction of Screen grabs, memes, gifs and hashtags. These new developments in virtual communication are created to make every idea easier and faster to convey. Since the mode of communication is relative to it’s users, one must not that the majority of Facebook users are from generations X, Y and Z, and studies have shown that younger generations demand everything to be faster, easier, and visually appealing. And so the use of virtual language, will continue to change to accommodate the demands of the users.

References:

Chatwin, B. (1987). Chapter 3, in Songlines (pp.11-15). London, England: Jonathon Cape.

Fincher, D.(2010). The Social Network. Los Angeles. Columbia Pictures.