Origins of the faux-naif bloggy voice?

http://theoriginalwinger.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/gambino-because-the-internet-597x322.jpg

I'm a little baffled by the way people have written about the "because" thing.

The origin of it seems super-clear to me -- it started as a way of mocking that childish, hand-waving thing people do when they don't have a coherent argument, so they fall back on repeating a single word that's supposed to magically justify their position. How do you defend your obnoxious views about gender? Because, umm, like, EVOLUTION. Why are you opposed to progressive taxation? Because, you know, FREEDOM. And then people started using it in a SELF-mocking way, or to be faux-evasive ("that actor I like does a nude scene in this dumb movie? I need to see this because REASONS"), and then it started happening all the time, etc.

I think it's actually a pretty elegant construction -- removing extra words to reveal that someone's dumb argument basically boils down to a single noun -- and a useful piece of sarcasm, but only if it's referring to something that's actually behaving in that hand-wavy dumb-argument way. The problem with overused internet-talk constructions is that people get so taken with how clever the phrasing sounds that they start using it willy-nilly in places where it doesn't even make sense. It's like if someone came up with a really clever mean insult for, say, bald guys, and people thought it was such a sick burn that they started using it on everyone, insulting dudes with full heads of hair, and eventually it just becomes some stupid thing people always say, totally disconnected from the point it was originally designed to make.

P.S. I am a bald guy, that is why I used that example

P.S. I am a bald guy, that is why I used that example because self-deprecation.

I mean, the main thing that bothers me about the "because" formulation is that you can use it in this glib, sneering, bullying way to dismiss valid arguments. You could write a whole earnest, well-reasoned BOOK arguing that we should do something or other to combat terrorism, and someone can come along and go "hahaha apparently we should do this BECAUSE TERRORISM," as if you're the idiot with no real argument. A lot of popular internet phraseology feels like that to me -- it equips people to imitate the sound of being clever, savvy, righteous, and penetrating even when they don't have any genuine cleverness or savvy to bring to bear.

A lot of popular internet phraseology feels like that to me -- it equips people to imitate the sound of being clever, savvy, righteous, and penetrating even when they don't have any genuine cleverness or savvy to bring to bear.

U mad, breh?

"Back in my day, when you wanted to roll your eyes at something, you needed actual FRIENDS there to see it and agree with you"

it's definitely a facet of a cultivated personality. i don't know what else to call it other than a sociolinguistic marker of "i am like this" with this = whatever personality trait that person is trying to project.

nabisco otm.

A bunch've art/fashion people are trending towards the following voice - "iz fukign me of taht no1 evn wunt 2 wriet liek hella trol dense theory liek az if itz a big dael idk." / "liek i wol wunt2 raed a local public8n ov loek #theoretical stanpoinz by a range ov ppl. y iz eg evry art public8n so watery" / &c - but it's probably an alt-lit thing, right?

That's not the actual voice is it

Are those verbatim quotes

I do not believe for a second that "a bunch've art/fashion people are trending toward" that voice.

And Nabisco OTM in re the often unearned dismissiveness behind that way of writing.

in fact, I said something similar upthread:

"And they act like because they use math, their “science” is more sciencey than sociology or whatever"

It should be fairly obvious that Pareene chose this tone because the column was discussing a study by economists of why more economists are not heads of state and he wished to convey the equivalent of a 15 year old saying "well, duh".

― Aimless, Wednesday, March 13, 2013 1:47 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The problem I have with this tone in this case is that (1) I can't even entirely tell what level of irony it is and I'm not sure he can either (is he parroting this exceedingly skeptical statement because he fully agrees with it, or is his exaggeratedly childish tone supposed to convey some sketpicism about the skepticism as well? And if so, what does he actually think about economists?) and (2) if he's actually adopting the statement fully, it comes off as a little too easily dismissive in an unearned way -- young blogger reminds us that OF COURSE economics is all just a bunch of bullshit dressed up with fancy numbers, etc.

― space phwoar (Hurting 2), Wednesday, March 13, 2013 2:25 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

take a flying fuck at the moooooooooooooooooooon

http://i44.tinypic.com/fkxjq0.png
IDK, stumbling across it increasingly frequently from people who would've been associated w/witch-house or seapunk &c when those were around.

So is that like a thing? (because old)

Well when Lamp first showed up talking about high concept theory and stuff but writing fukken this and fukkn that and then plax did too and then it spread around cause everybody thought it was cool and now half of ILX types like each other

I thought that was what you might be referring to

Your twitter pal seems like a third generation xerox of that

Not a very good gimmick

also seems a little like hipster runoff

乒乓 and that insane twitter otm

like i said before, this is an insider/outsider issue as much as anything else

I guess this is the first time that that voice has come off like some sort of Riddley Walker thing re: intelligibility. I think there's a bunch of Queer Art of Failure/Cruising the Future-via-Tumblr vibes floating around so maybe they frame this as some sort of resistance? Probably just an insider/outsider issue, though.

given that i have no idea what you're talking about, probably! i have no idea how shit is being framed, i can only see the whys and hows.

anti-doge blog

waht is teh voice of earned dismissiveness? harold bloom?

i'm much more fond of this not using periods thing as a rhetorical effect anyway

Are you talking about like steve roggenbuck etc.?

I also really don't buy this thing about the new meaning of periods.

xpost to etc—the one person i have seen type like that twitterer was someone arguing abt feminism/an art show on facebook and iirc they did explicitly frame their writing style as a form of or rooted in some kind of resistance. (also, do u mean cruising utopia or is there some other book?)

steve roggenbuck uses a different voice imo

I think so too but he does deliberately include misspellings. His style is about embracing the immediacy of internet vernacular though; it doesn't have much to do with oppositional or radical politics.

i think both groups are probably interested in the potential radicality of internet vernacular but for slightly different reasons

jfc there is no "potential radicality" whatsoever to writing like that

they might disagree but idrc about it enough to argue

Roggenbuck talks about radical populism and refers to Whitman a lot. He aspires to be a Warhol of web aesthetics but without the weary cynicism. The ppl etc seems to be talking about -- seapunks and others -- seem to be more traditionally subcultural and less interested in affirmation as a mood.

i think we can all agree that capitalization is just a huge waste of time + good riddance to bad rubbish

democratization of language and descriptivism over prescriptivism is one thing, but the style above just makes things really hard to read

what style above

that twitter

Agreed. I think that's the point tbh and there is a way in which faux naiveté is just obtuseness, deliberately employed to alienate and frustrate audiences. Warhol used it that way at times.

also claiming affiliation with people who write that way habitually, for whom it isn't at all hard to read, inside/outside

plus style points for offhand erudition

i guess the vast undifferentiated intellectual social class needs a house style too

!!!!!!!bingo!!!!!

is there any reason to believe these twitter ppl are not 13 yr olds looking to be difficultly rebellious?

(*searches twitter for 'liek'* no, no there is not)

i came across this site earlier today with really annoying prose: http://fuckyeahculturalappropriation.tumblr.com/

the tone is very much "everyday dude talkin' bout shit" but with occasional academic terms thrown in to indicate a casual greater knowledge of the subject. but what i found interesting is that they use question marks a lot to indicate a high rising intonation? never seen that before, but i don't read a lot of overearnest social justice tumblrs.

I had to stop reading a blog I quite liked because of its random exclamation points. I guess to indicate eagerness!

i forget the name of it but isn't that fuck yeah cultural appropriation thing basically copycatting another similar blog that answers questions about racism?

a+ hate reading - thx xzp

that tumblr is unreadable

its a stream of consciousness voice, which is fine, but its also actually actual stream of consciousness which is less fine.

archness, knowing, emulation, stylistic layers of internalized quotation -- i'm all for these things, and not just in the service of irony. but these things take lots and lots of work.

on the whole tho, i'm all for more expressive language, more misspellings with nuances and creative punctuation. but i'm not for saying these are about 'emulating' speech -- they're ways that text can express differently than speech can.

i mean it's like maybe because racism?