Will 'Leetspeak' Keep Speaking?

When pondering 'leetspeak" and the computer gamers and others that use the Internet language, I am reminded of people who proudly say they are non-conformists. I am usually pretty skeptical about that declaration because our culture values individualism so highly. It is not really going too far away from the crowd to think that you are independent or a radical individual or special (elite). How many times have you heard someone say, our family is just nutty or crazy or wild or weird? People love to think they are different. (The reality is true non-conformists think in a manner and behave in such bizarre ways that most people aren't at all interested in living that way.)

Finding a like minded group with a common vocabulary is not too unusual. Over the last thirty or forty years, individuals and our nation as a whole have gradually moved toward narcissism. You might say at one end of the spectrum, our country has a personality disorder or at the very least, we are all quite spoiled. Creating a unique language that only the elite understand, would fit very nicely into the grandiose behavior listed in a DSM diagnosis. What is the DSM?, you say. Well, you have to know psychology and that special vernacular.

It just makes sense that, given our propensity to want to be different and our human nature, the very techno minded would create a special way to communicate. And, I don't doubt that some of the leetspeak language will leak into our general vocabulary in the same way that we have always begun to understand other words that had no previous meaning. Incredibly, the word 'ego' comes to mind as an example.

Leetspeak is not good or bad in itself; it is another way to express a thought or an idea. Although I probably will never know much more than LOL (and for years I thought that meant lots of love), I say to those who understand and use the insider language, "tehcool"!