In the last few weeks, our part of the World Wide Web has been abuzz with this relatively new term: Jejemon. According to some corners, it’s the online version of the offline jolog.
With Jejemon come attached several other terms: Jejetype (to type like a Jejemon), Jejenese (Jejemon language) and Jejebet (Jejemon alphabet). But, first, what is a Jejemon?
My main source for online buzz terms, www.urbandictionary.com, has this definition: “Usually seen around social networking sites such as Friendster and Multiply, jejemons are individuals with low IQs who spread around their idiocy on the web by tYpFing LyK diZS jejejeje, making all people viewing their profile raise their eyebrows out of annoyance. Normal people like you and me must take a Bachelor of Arts in Jejetyping in order to understand said individuals, as deciphering their text would cause a lot of frustration and hair pulling.” Note that in this definition, jejemon is not a proper noun, like jolog.
Wikipedia, however, has this definition: “The Jejemons are kinds of people who talks weird in text or in chat. Some says Jejemons are like Jologs because of the way they speak or act. Jejemons use the shift key to alternate between capital and small letters. They also use the number 3 as letter E, number 9 and number 6 as a small letter G. There are a lot of forums, blogs and websites where you can find a Jejemon.” Note that in this definition, Jejemon is always capitalized. And so is Jolog.
Not that the traditional rules of capitalization would matter to a Jejemon: PR0PER~ NOUn 0R Not, ItZ goINg 2 BE LOOKing a litTle LYk~ THIS~ P0Wh.~
It reminds me of chatspeak or netspeak, which annoyed many a university professor in the 1990s. There were a lot of netspeak acronyms, many of which are accepted now: CTC? (Care to chat?), ASL? (Age, sex, location?), BRB (Be right back!), ROFL (Rolling on the floor laughing), LMAO (Laughing my ass off), OIC (Oh, I see), GTG (Gotta go), etc. It was like communicating in shorthand, dictated by the number of keys a chatter would have to press.
A dialect of netspeak is leet speak, in which look-alike numbers often replace letters. Leet can be spelled as l33t or 1337. There’s also lolspeak, which is how lolcats speak. Take these for example: “I are crying cuz I are out of focuss” or the popular “Kthxbai.”
Of course, there’s also textspeak, in which avid texters have found the most ingenious ways to economize on words: “Cu2mrw!”
For some reason, all of the above make sense to me. But I just can’t friggin’ get Jejenese! It’s a horrible combination of many things I detest: bad spelling; bad grammar; crass attempts at cuteness, especially by people who are definitely not; and that annoying habit showbiz wannabes have of saying, “po” and “opo” to everyone and their uncle and their uncle’s monkey.
Host: “Please greet all your fans out there!”
Wannabe: “Hello po! Watch my movie po!”
Gaah!
On my end, I wouldn’t go as far as calling Jejemons “jolog” or “low IQ.” In fact, I know some exclusive-schooled teenagers, all of them on the honor roll, who are heavily into Jejetyping. Researching online, I found that Jejenese traces its beginnings to online gaming. That’s an entirely new universe for me, this World of Warcraft and DOTA, so I won’t even go there.
An important point that I picked up, however, is it was Spanish-speaking netizens who spread “jejeje” or “jajaja” as their way of typing “hehehe” or “hahaha.” This is not wrong, as, if you recall your Spanish, “j” is pronounced as “h.” Yes, as in Juan. Or Jolo.
Filipinos, with our horror vacui, which apparently applies to the sparse rules of capitalization, adapted it to English and Filipino, with some extra sauce. So now we get texts and posts like “iNgAtz puh” and “xeNXia Nah.”
0H WeLl P0Wh. iTz A fRee CoUntry Nd pEOPlE cAN SpeaK Nd wrItE HOwEVer THey wNt P0wH. BuT IF URe a jejeMoN, Im stL gOIng 2 Luv U, but im nOT aDding u up on facebO0K, nOT READIng UR emAil, noT aCcEPtNg ur J0B aPPLicA2N, nD not TAking u seriOusly p0wh. gEt IT, n0H?~
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