At one point in our lives, we were an SMS Jejemon. It was during the time when Nokia 5110 screens displayed dot-matrix like fonts on yellow screens. Adding up characters like @ signs, accented letters and alternating cases provided a way to decorate an otherwise boring text conversation. It was okay, if you were given less than 100 characters to use.
But it was totally uncool if you’re given an entire computer keyboard to use and an unlimited white space to type on.
Jejenism: A new civilization
A jejemon is like a little demon if you have to give it credit for causing you astigmatism. It lurks around the social networking sites, eats up your comment boxes with glittery visuals and messages in an alien-like language (i.e. alternating cases, changing spellings, using unnecessary symbols and computer encryption language called leet speak, etc.). You can recognize one from a distance but you don’t know what to call that specie until someone had a “eureka” moment and decided to label this new breed of linguistic misfits as “Jejemons”. They said it came from the word “Jejeje” (a typo error one usually commits when typing “hehehe” in the dark – letters “h” and “j” are beside each other) and “Pokemon”, the Japanese pocket monsters.
The term recently entered the Urban Dictionary. It defines the new language of an emo hipster who disregards any set rules for correct punctuation and grammar and promotes the opposite causing everyone’s eyebrows to rise. From innocent cryptic text messages in the 90′s, they have proliferated the cyberspace through online games, chatrooms and social networking sites. It is a new virus out to “Jejenize” this planet back to kindergarten. That’s where the danger lies.
Jejenize your vocabulary
I find it amazing how Jejemons can patiently keep up with the use of their alphabet. Someone has created a jejemon translator for us novices. This is how “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” appears in jejenese:
The quicK bRown foX jUmPz over D lzy dOg
Now, a suicide note from a Pinoy jejemon:
Gotta catch ‘em all!
There goes the battle-cry of anti-jejemons or jejebusters. They have formed an alliance together to spot a jejemon, but I have no idea how they plan to squash one. Kill how? Sealing one in those stainless steel drums until the end of quarantine period? Death by cyber-humiliation?
There should be a better way somehow than act like German Nazis and launch a holocaust on a group of jejenized people. How about re-educating them? Sending them back to grammar schools?
Jejenism is a disease of the mind, often times temporary. It has something to do with a person’s age and preferences. But to those who possess a thick skull, here’s how UrbanDictionary.com defines a jejemon: “Low IQ people who spread around their idiocy on the web.”
Now who wants to be to be called an idiot?
