I was now using Gmail like a dating app. Only that I had a single prospect and I was uninterested in finding others. Plus who else would chat with me like this over email.
I think it was easy for Jeannie and I to carry long-winding multi-threaded conversations over email because for her age she was a good writer.
I wonder these days whether it's not even an age thing, but rather generational? Seriously these god damn millennials can't write to save their lives. Probably all that texting and instant messaging they grew up on.
Having a conversation with such kids felt like an exercise in hyperbolic emotional expression. When people can't come up with words to describe their feelings and thoughts I guess the only direction you can go is embedding inflated emotional responses into memes, emojis, and acronyms.
It's not that I disliked millennials. Not at all. In fact all these negative thoughts weren't in my head until I started emailing with Jeannie more. It's only because of this that I realized how... "stupid?" others' in her cohort were. But it was probably best not to dwell on such negativity. What made her emails such a pleasure to read?
"It's just because you have a crush on her?" Katie said. We were walking to a globally branded store with a large selection of loose-leaf teas.
"Probably. You should read some of her--"
"Oh shut up. You know how much I hate it when people try to show things like wedding photos and trip photos right?"
“Listen, twenty years ago, it wasn’t so cool to have a calculator watch, right? And spending all day inside playing with your calculator watch sent a clear message that you weren’t doing so well socially. And judgments like ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ and ‘smiles’ and ‘frowns’ were limited to junior high. Someone would write a note and it would say, ‘Do you like unicorns and stickers?’ and you’d say, ‘Yeah, I like unicorns and stickers! Smile!’ That kind of thing. But now it’s not just junior high kids who do it, it’s everyone, and it seems to me sometimes I’ve entered some inverted zone, some mirror world where the dorkiest shit in the world is completely dominant. The world has dorkified itself.”
I guess memes, emojis, likes, loves dislikes etc, micro-emotional non-linguistic feedback cues are here to stay and represent an extension of human communication.
I had a Casio calculator watch in elementary school, and I thought it was cool. It had a rudimentary Space Invaders game on it. Everyone claimed that I was so good at math because I had the calculator watch, so I would take it off and hand it to someone and still beat them with mental math. 😎
I do think that there's a lot of good that comes with new forms of communication like memes, and the other things you listed off, but I fear that many don't get enough of the meat of communication. The actual meal. Too much candy/dessert. But there's nothing wrong with such things... just you gotta also have the real meals.
— Dave Eggers, The Circle
I do think that there's a lot of good that comes with new forms of communication like memes, and the other things you listed off, but I fear that many don't get enough of the meat of communication. The actual meal. Too much candy/dessert. But there's nothing wrong with such things... just you gotta also have the real meals.