One thing about the Internet, and Online Gaming, is that it's by and large, a silent medium. Conversations, and indeed, entire relationships, are conducted without hearing the voice of the other party. There are exceptions; Teamspeak, Ventrillo and the like, but in most people's eyes, you are what you type.

I kind of like this actually - I count myself both literate and fluent with a keyboard - I'm not sure what 'wpm' I am, but long practice trying to communicate ideas in text, at the speed of a normal conversation, has meant that I've developed fairly fast, and more importantly, accurate, keyboard skills, and these are very useful when interacting in an online game. In turn, I find that interacting in an online game tends to develop these very skills further, so even though online gaming is psychologically damaging, emotionally harrowing and clinically adictive, at least you get something useful out of it all!

But alas, not everyone is as good at this as I am. There are two main reasons why this may be the case:

  • The gamer's first language is not english. This is, rather suprisingly, rarely a handicap. Generally, I've found that if they are not English (American, Canadian, Australian, etc), their English is in fact marginally better than most who are. Clearly, the language of the Internet is English, something I can't help but be embarrassed about on some level.
  • The gamer is young/lazy/ignorant/trying to be cool. This is more often the case. Raised into a mobile phone culture, these people see nothing wrong with phonetic substitution, lack of capitalistion, and just bad grammar, and it irritates the hell out of me.

I'm probably guilty of the most arrogant snoberry when it comes to chat text, but nothing annoys me more than seeing crap like this:

"hi m8 where r u going 2 ????? lol :P"

Remember, you are what you type, and upon seeing a line like that, I immediately envision a very young teenager, and not a particularly bright one, at that.

Further desconstruction on the multiple question marks reveals a tendency to exagerate, and be generaly over-excited and extremely impatient. One question mark is a question...five is clearly five times a question, and proportionally more urgent? Don't even get me started on exclamation marks! Remember kids: It's one or none! Saying that, I do sometimes use and exclamation mark AND a question mark to indicate a shocked, suprised or urgent question, but I'm not proud.

Numeral substition just looks stupid, and the whole thing, read as a scentence causes the flow of sylables to jerk and twist in an extremely uncomfortable manner. But the crowning glory is the 'lol' at the end

Now call me a miserable fascist if you like, but saying 'lol' at the end of a statement DOES NOT MAKE IT FUNNY! Wit makes it funny, puns make it funny, subtlety, sophistocation, wry observational comedy, biting satire...these things all make something funny. Going 'lol' a lot does not! Stop it, stop it, stop it! If you have to indicate that somewhere far away, you're sat at a PC giggling like a simpleton, the accepted standard for textual representation is 'Heh', or 'Haha' or similar, which have the added bonus of actually describing the sound made during laughter. I've yet to hear someone actually say 'lol' in response to a good mother-in-law joke.

And another thing. The colon-'P' combo is NOT a 'get-out-of-emotional-investment-free' card. Ending a potentionally awkward statement with ':P' does not absolve you from 'meaning it', and is not a 'sarcasm qualifier'. Sarcasm is one of those modes of communication that relies heavily on delivery; expression, intonation and body langage, and so on the whole, you're best off not doing it at all, when online. It won't work, and will just cause arguements. I see a ':P' at the end of a statement, and I think; 'Bastard/Bitch...he/she just stuck their tounge out at me!', and the exchange invarably goes down hill from there.

We all make typoes, but this stuff is deliberate and consistent, and just looks rubbish. Yes, I'm a pedant, but come on people...two extra keystrokes is all it takes to make you look complete...