Entry 9: CMC = Computer Mediated Communication, or Calling More Creativity?

In this week's seminar, we discussed how information technology has transformed (or deformed, depending on how you see it) how we communicate to each other. New terminologies such as letter homophones (OIC, brb, tl;dr, ROFL, *pats Nazrul's back*) give way for creativity and this is perceived by a handful of people to be the main cause for the decline of the English standards all over the world. Despite what these people say about how technology degenerates our proficiency, computer-mediated communication (CMC) is here to stay, whether you like it or not.  My fundamental belief stands: Technology is simply the medium of communication and blaming it for the fault of our proficiency decline is simply deft irresponsibility.

If anything, I believe that we have benefited more from CMC because on my part, it promotes a lot of unrestrained creativity (and yes, creativity is not always a good thing. I'll explain why). CMC is just like writing a letter or sending a fax document: It's all about the methodology. CMC is meant to be used or misused depending on the user, and I think that if the user's language gets deteriorated over time, there's only himself/herself to blame. Enough about this; like last week's blog entry I shall once again give my visceral theories as how CMC has introduced certain "creative" phenomena in how we communicate to each other nowadays:

• Theory #1: The "GREY AREA"

When using technology to communicate between two parties, the technology acts as an invisible "barrier" between them. This "barrier" is both a good and bad thing, and it depends a lot on how each party uses it to their own advantage. Have you ever experienced how your friend always respond that he/she is "on the way" (i.e. OTW) to a destination? You as the recipient would usually assume that your friend is arriving in a few minutes, but how many times have you gotten wrong on this assumption? Here's my advice: You can't make any concrete assumption when the response you have isn't concrete in the first place. "OTW" has a lot of intepretations: being 5 minutes away from the destination is a valid situation to respond with "on the way", being 30 minutes away from the destination is also a valid situation; heck, even just getting out of bed and preparing to leave the home is considered "on the way" too!

More importantly, why does this happen (so frequently)? What enables it to happen? It's the technology that acts as a intermediary. It's the same phenomenon when you conduct a mass discussion on MSN or Skype. When you have 5 people gathered on an online chatting room to discuss something, do you really  believe that all 5 people are seriously at the front of their screens? Not gonna happen. In fact, just look at the people currently on your MSN windows? Even though their statuses say that they're "online", they have as well be physically "offline". Their "online" status simply means they're "online" in terms of the technological intermediary, not in person. Or, he may be physically "online" in front of the screen discussing... while mentally "offline" with Facebook, Twitter, Friendster, myspace, Second Life, etc.

• Theory #2: The "CLOAKING DEVICE" (highlight to see)

Because of technology in CMC, anonymity is achievable. Anonymity in itself is a double-edged sword; it's both a good and bad thing. I don't want focus on the bad aspects of anonymity because it won't flow in this blog entry, which deals with creativity anyway. In creative sense, anonymity serves well for many users. Case in point: in the last few years, Japan has seen a rise in a number of live-action movies adapted from the works of anonymous writers who claim to be first-hand experiences of their lives. Examples of such popular recent movies include:

1. Koizora (Love Sky) - a love story about a high school girl who fell in love with a delinquent, and the hardships she experienced falling in love with him.
2. Densha Otoko (Train Man) - an otaku (Japanese geek) who gets to know one of the women who got harassed while on a train.

Koizora is adapted from what is known as a mobile phone novel (keitai shousetsu, 携帯小説), a popular mode of communication where anonymous writers write about their extraordinary experiences and share them through phone mails. Densha Otoko's premises are pretty much the same: it was originally written by a unknown otaku who claimed to helped out a group of women, and gradually gets to know one of the women he likes. He then continually asked for advice through online community forums, for some so-called Love 101 tips.

The fact that these authors are anonymous play an essential role in making this phenomenon feasible. Anonymity gives these writers a sense of security and nonjudgement from the readers that their work shall never be judged based on who wrote them, but simply what are written. In a simpler example, some people may find it harder to ask questions (intellectual or asinine) in person, and resort to using CMC to ask instead. I used the above examples instead because it illustrates how creativity can be expressed through anonymity. People always form first impressions in their minds about the creators or writers of certain works (bear in mind that I won't use "first impression" and "judgement" interchangeably; the two are related but entirely different things) , and this isn't always a good thing. Readers' impressions can quickly change for the worse if the real author of Densha Otoko - the man who claimed that the events are true - turns out to be say, a high-flying businessman.

• Theory #3: The Birth of "EMOTICONS" Σ(ﾟДﾟ)!!!

You may use it in daily life, or at least have used it once. I know I use it all the time. "Emoticons" (emotion icons) crop up along in daily CMC and it's fun to use it (although excessive use of emoticons is personally disgusting). Why do people use emoticons when they can clearly spell it out in words? Actually, that's the point: some things can't be pointed out in words, and they are called "nuances". These nuances can't be explained in words because communication is not about verbal cues after all (remember the nonverbal cues?). Communication holistically is about understanding both the apparent and non-apparent cues between parties, and sometimes in CMCs, what you see in your chat logs aren't everything. It can also be about "reading between the lines." LITERALLY.

In terms of emoticons, there is one thing I admire about the Japanese when it comes to CMCs: they're wonderfully creative with their emoticons. Their emoticons are radically different from Western emoticons possibly because they used the ASCII system to create their icons. Seriously, their icons are quirky and indirect, but at the same time, once you get the message, it smacks you right in the face with the punchline. Try looking at some of the Japanese emoticons usually made by 2ch members, and see if you can visualise the message:

（´-`）.｡oO( ... ) = wondering
ε=ε=ε=┌(;*´Д`)ﾉ = running
＿冂○ = bowing down in defeat or disappointment
!(★｀⊇´)-○))☆)ﾟoﾟ)/ = getting punched in the face

In a more extreme case (based on what I learned in my Japanese linguistics class), teenagers in Japan (I don't know if they still do this; perhaps they do) use emoticons as a form of "exclusive communication", where it's something only in-group people would understand. Let's face it; adults or people from the earlier generation would not use emoticons in their conversation (I think some are even against emoticons) and naturally, they won't understand them either. Teenagers use them among each other as a way to distinguish themselves from their parents. It's their way of being "cool". Sometimes, even Greek symbols to deftly disguise their Japanese texts are even welcomed because in that way, older people would not understand them at first glance. Yes, emoticons are a form of cryptography: it's about ciphering and deciphering texts, and the key in conveying the messages often lie in the teenagers' understanding itself. For instance, the text below is a genuine Japanese message that is written using 2 Japanese writing systems plus special symbols and Russian characters. I actually forgot what it meant; I used to remember it back in Japanese linguistics class （´-`）.｡oO( ... ).

ぉﾚ£∋ぅ⊇〃
飯食∧〃ﾅﾆ？
(≠ょぅﾚ£
ち⊇＜Ｕﾅょﾚヽ
τ〃Йё！！

• Theory #4: The (R)evolution of "FORUM DYNAMICS"

Online forums are the cornerstone of CMCs because it exemplifies many aspects of CMCs that are not practical or possible to do in face-to-face context. These aspects include forum jokes, "memes" (a phrase used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet, Googled) and online flaming. Forum jokes that are practical only in CMC may come in the following manner:

Posted By: AC, 09:00:23HRS

@nutcase23

*shows a picture of K-On! season 2*

What do you think? Watching it?

Posted By: nutcase23, 09:00:25HRS

*burns K-On! poster, and flushes ashes down the toilet*

Forum jokes are not like real-time jokes because of synchronism. It's not something that happens at the moment itself and additionally, since your quotes are explicitly shown on screen, they can be tangibly reused in the form of "quotes". "Memes" are something more exclusive to CMCs because of how communities are possible now with the help of technology. These "virtual communities" create virtual jokes and concepts that are almost viral in terms of how fast they spread from one party to another. If you are a Japanese animation fan, you should understand the following messages:

"People die if they are killed."

The point of the line above is not the grammatical blunder; rather, it's the result of deplorable English translating or the awkward dialogue at the hands of a certain anime series. This "meme" is being used in anime community circles to illustrate how poor translation and subbing can backlash and be made into a laughing stock or worse, a new humourous phenomenon. Oh, just so you know, the line is taken from this scene:

• Theory #5: The reinvention of "WORDS"

epic: extending beyond the usual or ordinary especially in size or scope
fail: to fall short

-- Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Because of CMC and the flexbility that the CMC allows for people to communicate among themselves, certain words get a huge makeover on the kind of impact they now have mentally and socially. Take the words "epic" and "fail". Their proper definitions are stated explicitly above, but CMC has influenced and extended their meanings in such a way that they even change the way some people talk to each other IN PERSON! What kind of nuance is at play here? Look at the following and ask yourself what is the implication the creator of the posters are trying to say:

CMC has influenced the meanings of "fail" and "epic" (I'll just use these two words for the moment) in such a way that besides their definitions, they add more comical nuances to them. "Epic", in CMC, may connote something grand in scope, comic effect or extent of blunder; "Fail" may connote the warranted ridicule some subjects are entitled to get based on their asinine responses. There are a whole lot more examples to show how CMC has influenced some words in the lexicon, but these two words are the mosr prominent in many forums... at least to me.

Whether people love CMC or love to hate CMC, it's inevitably a new change that people brought to this world and something we embrace in our daily lives. Choices are in our hands to decide whether CMC plays a personal imporant role in one's lives; as an anime reviewer and an active member of various forums, it's an indispensible skill for me to understand and learn day by day. The one thing people may fail to realise is that, like all cultural studies, we all belong to at least one certain group of people. You may think that "Oh, I don't do these things. I'm completely neutral", but the thing is, you are not. Neutrality in CMC is actually a group in itself, if you think about it.

People cannot be neutral because we are inherently biased (remember this quote I made?). If you claim that you communicate neutrally in CMC, it simply means that you communicate in a plain way. Here's a poser: Because people are naturally biased, their wish to achieve a mode of complete unbiasness has led to the creation of technology (CMC) itself. Yet, it's not unbiased... only because the unbiased technology is being used by biased people eventually.

P.S. This may be the second last entry of this blog, seeing how this module and semester is coming to an end. Stay tuned for my final blog entry, coming soon.