Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviation?

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Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviation?

Post by Circeus »

(Hopefully this is the best forum for this thread.)

I started coming regularly on the internet in the mid-nineties, and have always been a frequent user of various IM abbreviations. Recently (i.e. in the last couple years), I've had multiple people ask me what "IIRC" ("If I Remember Correctly"). Now I'm aware that I tend to hang around internet crowds that are significantly younger than me, but I was never under the impression that this abbreviation was some sort of generational thing?

Is there something going on here? have I somehow missed this abbreviation getting replaced? Or do people just not care enough to preface so and thus simply ceased using it? Is it just frequency illusion?
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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by Vijay »

Maybe they're just not familiar with it yet. Younger people are not all tech-savvy.

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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by Circeus »

FWIW (another I've had people asking about, as it happens <<;;;) by "significantly younger" I mean early-to-mid 20s, so people who have been online for around half their lives.
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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by Salmoneus »

I think there is a generational issue, yes. But there's also a subcultural issue. Most of the internet abbreviations, ime, are primarily used by what you might call internet 'natives' - people who use the internet extensively, not merely as a tool for organising their RL, and who use parts of the internet that are less frequented. But there are also many people who use social media only to supplement their RL social lives, and who only browse other sites that are, as it were, immediately world-facing, the sites that you can arrive at immediately and that are generally of immediately RL use. Those people, ime, are much less likely to be au fait with the various 'afair's and 'imnsho's and 'ianalb's and so on. The zbb, needless to say, is a relatively 'deep' part of the web (though less deep than, say, the conlang mailing list), so we're more 'native' in our language.
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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by Circeus »

Salmoneus wrote:I think there is a generational issue, yes. But there's also a subcultural issue. Most of the internet abbreviations, ime, are primarily used by what you might call internet 'natives' - people who use the internet extensively, not merely as a tool for organising their RL, and who use parts of the internet that are less frequented. But there are also many people who use social media only to supplement their RL social lives, and who only browse other sites that are, as it were, immediately world-facing, the sites that you can arrive at immediately and that are generally of immediately RL use. Those people, ime, are much less likely to be au fait with the various 'afair's and 'imnsho's and 'ianalb's and so on. The zbb, needless to say, is a relatively 'deep' part of the web (though less deep than, say, the conlang mailing list), so we're more 'native' in our language.
I had never considered this. It's true that I became a netizen well before the advent of social media as we know it today. Thinking on it, that probably explains my aversion to emojis...
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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by Zaarin »

Circeus wrote:
Salmoneus wrote:I think there is a generational issue, yes. But there's also a subcultural issue. Most of the internet abbreviations, ime, are primarily used by what you might call internet 'natives' - people who use the internet extensively, not merely as a tool for organising their RL, and who use parts of the internet that are less frequented. But there are also many people who use social media only to supplement their RL social lives, and who only browse other sites that are, as it were, immediately world-facing, the sites that you can arrive at immediately and that are generally of immediately RL use. Those people, ime, are much less likely to be au fait with the various 'afair's and 'imnsho's and 'ianalb's and so on. The zbb, needless to say, is a relatively 'deep' part of the web (though less deep than, say, the conlang mailing list), so we're more 'native' in our language.
I had never considered this. It's true that I became a netizen well before the advent of social media as we know it today. Thinking on it, that probably explains my aversion to emojis...
I've advised my mom that she looks either fifteen or sixty-five when she strings twenty emoticons ("emoji" is a stupid word :p ) together. :p
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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by Vijay »

Circeus, I am 29, so just outside the demographic group you're talking about, but I didn't know what "IIRC" meant until I started seeing people use it all the time on a certain forum I frequent. By that time, I was about 24. I started using the Internet when I was like nine? Until then, I just never saw it.

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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by Dewrad »

Circeus wrote:I had never considered this. It's true that I became a netizen well before the advent of social media as we know it today. Thinking on it, that probably explains my aversion to emojis...
"Netizen" is another dead giveaway.
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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by Circeus »

Dewrad wrote:
Circeus wrote:I had never considered this. It's true that I became a netizen well before the advent of social media as we know it today. Thinking on it, that probably explains my aversion to emojis...
"Netizen" is another dead giveaway.
True enough XD
Zaarin wrote:I've advised my mom that she looks either fifteen or sixty-five when she strings twenty emoticons ("emoji" is a stupid word :p ) together. :p
See, now, to me emojis and emoticons are different things. Emoticons are just a synonym for smileys of all forms :(, XD, ¬_¬;; and so on. Emojis are the Japanese-originating pictural ones that have now spread far and wide beyond (and kinda replaced, I guess? but then I was not that big o forum image ones) the old forum-custom ones.
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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by Sumelic »

Circeus wrote:
Zaarin wrote:I've advised my mom that she looks either fifteen or sixty-five when she strings twenty emoticons ("emoji" is a stupid word :p ) together. :p
See, now, to me emojis and emoticons are different things. Emoticons are just a synonym for smileys of all forms :(, XD, ¬_¬;; and so on. Emojis are the Japanese-originating pictural ones that have now spread far and wide beyond (and kinda replaced, I guess? but then I was not that big o forum image ones) the old forum-custom ones.
Yes, I agree about the difference between "emoji" and "emoticons". Emoji are displayed as single, special characters.
Vijay wrote:Maybe they're just not familiar with it yet. Younger people are not all tech-savvy.
I don't think it's exactly a matter of tech-savviness, more as Sal mentioned that abbreviations like that tend to only be used in things like bulletin boards or mailing lists, not in all contexts on the web. Abbreviations exist in a lot of contexts, online and in real life, but people will only learn them if they have some reason to.

(The ones that always get me are the more obscure Latin stuff that some people use on the Conlang Mailing List, like "vel sim": it's easier for me to decipher an English acronym from the context than to remember that "vel" in Latin means "or" and that "sim" is an abbreviation for "similia".)

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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by Aya »

I've noticed that "lol" -- and especially "LOL" -- is used unironically by older people (grandparents, some stay-at-home moms, etc.), but these days I tend to see younger people use it in an ironic or even mean way. Kind of like when people say something is funny or hilarious but you can tell they're just angry instead. It is well-loved by trolls these days, it seems.

There are definitely exceptions to both trends, though.

EDIT: Weirdly, people don't seem to use the verb form of "lol" as ironically or meanly -- though, again, exceptions abound.

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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by Salmoneus »

Dewrad wrote:
Circeus wrote:I had never considered this. It's true that I became a netizen well before the advent of social media as we know it today. Thinking on it, that probably explains my aversion to emojis...
"Netizen" is another dead giveaway.
Is it no longer good netiquette to use words like 'netizen' when websurfing the information superhighway? I thought that "netizen" was still l33t?
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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by finlay »

Basically yes but also the way i express myself on here, on facebook and on tumblr, as those seem to be the main three at the moment, is different.

And lol hasn't been used for actually laughing out loud like, forever? i don't think i ever really used it to mean i actually laughed out loud. it's got a bit more of an emotional tag-word particle feel to it, like ね in japanese.

also i keep having to explain to my english students that "net-surfing" hasn't been used for probably over fifteen years now and they're always surprised. Usually they're older but still i get the impression it's still current in japanese.

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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by Vijay »

Aya wrote:I've noticed that "lol" -- and especially "LOL" -- is used unironically by older people (grandparents, some stay-at-home moms, etc.), but these days I tend to see younger people use it in an ironic or even mean way. Kind of like when people say something is funny or hilarious but you can tell they're just angry instead. It is well-loved by trolls these days, it seems.

There are definitely exceptions to both trends, though.

EDIT: Weirdly, people don't seem to use the verb form of "lol" as ironically or meanly -- though, again, exceptions abound.
Yeah, the meaning of "lol" has definitely evolved over time. I remember someone noting that usually when people use it these days, they're not actually laughing. It's often used for sarcasm, too, or to convey laughing at an idea. I think the verb form may actually be more recent or perhaps just less frequently used in general since I usually see it used to indicate some sort of laughter (either genuine laughter or derision).

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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by gach »

I have to say that I have never experienced myself an era when "lol" would have been used in a neutral or positive way in my social circles. Already around the turn of the millennium we used to mock it as something that was used only by teens with poor taste (we on the other hand were the teens with good taste). The socially acceptable way to convey genuine laughter online was always to use comic style onomatopoeia like "heh" or "tirsk".

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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by Qwynegold »

I only learned IIRC through the ZBB, and have rarely seen it elsewhere. I think it has to do with what kind of conversations you are having at different sites.
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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by Vijay »

gach wrote:"tirsk".
dafuq

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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by gach »

Vijay wrote:
gach wrote:"tirsk".
dafuq
A perfectly common Finnish ideophone for snickering. Here's an example from the wild:

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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by Vijay »

Wait, are you sure you've never seen "lol" used in a more lighthearted, positive way? Not even here on the ZBB? Somebody used it that way just five days ago here.

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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by gach »

Oh, I must have seen it repeatedly, it just doesn't register. The point is that amongst my friends it never features in a sincere lighthearted way (if at all) and thus hasn't developed that association to me. It's not a million miles away from someone saying sincerely "Thanks a lot!" and the only thing you can think of is them being snarky.

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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by Soap »

I th2unk it's contextual... out loud, basically 100 percent facetious... in text, I'd still say 'lol' is best understood literally so to get the prope like intelligent image.
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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by 2+3 clusivity »

IIRC seems specific to forum-culture to me. I don't feel like it's going away, so much as it has not caught on in other spheres, whereas LOL or other elements have at least in the past expanded broadly through the internet. Consider also, TL;DR, IMHO, etc. these have a limited user base.

I played *a lot* of computer based FPS and RTS games in the late 1990s and early 2000s. They each had their own host of phrases and abbreviations. I remember typing back and forth abbreviations and jargon to people -- like "HF GL" or "GG" on Starcraft. On a deeper level, I also remember knowing who was "native/at home" based on whether or not they used punctuation or capitalization outside of an emphatic setting. I recall a huge amount of game -- even server specific -- typed patois being used while people were communicating at a rush via keyboard rather than headset. It was maybe 2003 or 2004 that I remember headsets being used more. Suddenly, I remember specific games/serves where it had been used have it die out pretty quickly thereafter -- except for in the limited setting of the ironic/sarcastic jab reserved someone on another team at the end of a round who one could not speak to.

Thinking about it, many computer/internet based dialects -- if you will -- have already come and gone, and it seems to have a lot to do a lot with change in medium. Whether thats improvements in the input devices or migration of users from thefacebook.com of yesteryear to snapchat or whatever is trendy now.
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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by Vijay »

I've also seen "lol" used (and used it myself) to indicate something like an embarrassed, confused laugh or even just sheer confusion (at least when I use it, it's usually confusion combined with laughter, the laughter in this case being a sort of default reaction when I'm not really sure how to respond emotionally). I also realized that even Indian Mario (a.k.a. Mukesh) uses sarcastic "lol" (around 2:14, but the entire video is worth watching IMO :D).

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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by Zaarin »

Vijay wrote:the laughter in this case being a sort of default reaction when I'm not really sure how to respond emotionally
I laugh when I'm upset. Which makes me more frustrated and upset, because my brain is aware that it's the incorrect response (and also because people don't exactly treat you like you're upset when you're laughing...).
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Re: Internet slang dating: is IIRC a somehow aging abbreviat

Post by StrangerCoug »

I will turn 28 this coming Tuesday, and while I feel like I grew up in the Internet acronym age, with one exception that I made up specifically for someone I'm close to, I tend not to use ANY abbreviation often, instead writing them out or using an emoji (I don't distinguish between those and emoticons and consider "emoticon" an older word for "emoji"). ETA is a common exception since I don't drive and often have to be picked up/dropped off wherever I want to go.
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