Hip Hop Message Boards

[veganinohio]

I've been checking out a few of them lately and they're really wierd.

The people who post on them use almost exclusively hip hop slang. Are these regular folks who can actually write using a somewhat standard style of English and are switching registers, or are they all just 17 year old urban kids who really talk like that? Do you think that it's expected that everyone use that slang on the boards? Will people react to my posts differently if I choose to use a standard, though conversational style of english?

I'm picturing fat, white 24 year old guys sitting in front of their computers, eating pizza and typing in hip hop slang. I'd love to hear them speak the way they write. It would be hi-larious.

[naturalsusta]

I go to black chatrooms on yahoo. I type like that when i'm around other blacks sometimes. I don't talk like that really I guess. I am from the south. I am just so use to talking like this. I don't talk in slang alot. I just think it's my mississippi accent. White people here talk a certain way and blacks too. We are all country as I don't know what. Haha.

That is how I talk in a chatroom.

How yall doin'? I'm fine, and you.

Here we say, fixntah or finna (that's how it sounds). I say finna. Haha. But I don't type it like the in a chatrom. I'll just say we are going to. It's just my accent. A lot of us talk like that down here in the south.

I talk like that for real. I do in in black chat, but like when i'm here, I don't do it much. After someone told me that the way I was typing was not understood, I changed it. I am known to do the flip.

[Vicky]

yeah i'm sure a lot of them don't talk like that in real life but they wish they could .... and the internet gives them this opportunity.
i completely understand that, for example: i love Australian "mate" and when i talked to some people from Australia, they would call me that and i would use it back at them. I love the word, what can i say. If i start saying it here (in US) people are just not gonna accept it ..... so i don't
same as we have our own "vegetarian" slang - i really wanna hear you guys say "omni" in real life

but i think you should talk the way you normall unless you feel otherwise ....

[Caped Crusader]

The people who post on them use almost exclusively hip hop slang. Are these regular folks who can actually write using a somewhat standard style of English and are switching registers, or are they all just 17 year old urban kids who really talk like that? Do you think that it's expected that everyone use that slang on the boards? Will people react to my posts differently if I choose to use a standard, though conversational style of english?

One of the web sites I built and maintained (until the business closed) was for a nightclub. It had a message board, and due to the "hip hop night" at the club being the most popular night of the week, it was frequented mostly by the local performers and fans from this genre. I did not spend much time on the board, but when I did, no one ever said anything to me about using proper English.

I think it's most likely a combination of a failed educational system, with some kids just simply not knowing any better, and some of them wanting to fit in with the crowd.

I'm picturing fat, white 24 year old guys sitting in front of their computers, eating pizza and typing in hip hop slang. I'd love to hear them speak the way they write. It would be hi-larious.

I'm not quite sure I like the sound of that comment. I know plenty of "white" people who grew up in urban areas, and use "slang" more effectively than some of my black friends who were not raised in that sort of neighborhood could ever manage. This is more of a product-of-your-environment thing than a genetic issue. If a white kid is raised in a $400K home in the suburbs, then yes, it's a front. If he was raised in Brooklyn, odds are it is far more authentic than the black kid who lives in the $500K home next door to the first caucasian in Suburbia.

Personally, I communicate differently when I write than when I speak. I typically use more slang in verbal conversation than I do in letters, e-mails, or message board posts. I just feel that written correspondence should be more formal.

[veganinohio]

I'm not quite sure I like the sound of that comment. I know plenty of "white" people who grew up in urban areas, and use "slang" more effectively than some of my black friends who were not raised in that sort of neighborhood could ever manage. This is more of a product-of-your-environment thing than a genetic issue. If a white kid is raised in a $400K home in the suburbs, then yes, it's a front. If he was raised in Brooklyn, odds are it is far more authentic than the black kid who lives in the $500K home next door to the first caucasian in Suburbia.

It's ok if you don't like it, but I live in the city and I teach in an urban district--yes, one of those inner city schools that you hear about on the news--so I'm well aware. At my school, the white kids use hip hop slang as much as the black kids--it is the dialect of their youth and most of them don't seem to associate it with race.

However, I suspect that these are not the folks posting on the message boards I'm checking in on.

[Tesseract]

That raises an interesting issue regarding how we talk and how we write, and whether participating in an internet forum is more like talking or more like writing. Of course, then there's also the always-fascinating issue of deception (or perhaps merely hiding facts about ourselves) on the internet. I'm sure that was thoroughly hashed over on the Lying On The Internet thread.

FWIW, I type here pretty much exactly the way I talk, so if I seem like a big honkin' nerd, it's probably because I am!

[Gnome Chomsky]

People are rather commonly able to adeptly switch dialects according to social context.* It seems appropriate that a hop-hop themed message board be mired in hip-hop slang. As to whether there is a high perponderance of "fronting" internet geeks, well that is likely as well.

*except for me. I rather consistently speak/write like an academic essay in all contexts.

ebola

[Caped Crusader]

It's ok if you don't like it, but I live in the city and I teach in an urban district--yes, one of those inner city schools that you hear about on the news--so I'm well aware. At my school, the white kids use hip hop slang as much as the black kids--it is the dialect of their youth and most of them don't seem to associate it with race.

However, I suspect that these are not the folks posting on the message boards I'm checking in on.

Then I am confused as to reason for your comment on the race of the message board posters in the first place. On what information have you based your assumptions about them? What would make it so hi-larious?

I am also curious as to what subject you teach.

[veganinohio]

Then I am confused as to reason for your comment on the race of the message board posters in the first place. On what information have you based your assumptions about them? What would make it so hi-larious?

I am also curious as to what subject you teach.

I guess it does have to do with trying to be something they're not (i.e. 24 year old computer geeks who work in an office writing like 16 yr old "gangstas"), but I'm not really sure why I find that funny. I guess it has something to do with irony, which can somethimes be funny. I guess I also think it's kind of pathetic for some reason, but I'm not really sure why.

In truth, I don't have much to base my assumptions on. They are what they are and are certainly based on my own experiences, biases, and prejudices, and if you want to say that they're wrong, then I couldn't argue with you.

You seem to want very badly to be offended by my comments and by my sense of humor, and as I've said, that's fine. I guess my comments were based somewhat on racial and cultural expectations, which as you've pointed out and I've seconded, are more elusive than people (and I) sometimes like to believe.

Why do you want to know what subject I teach?

[veganinohio]

This does make me think of some other experiences I've had with internet dialects.

I post on a soccer message board where most posters use informal standard English and twice, I have seen new posters skewered for using nontraditional dialects. One poster used lots of asterisks and hearts, symbols, etc. in her posts and she was constantly made fun of for her style. Another time, a guy posted using hip hop slang, and the main focus of the conversations shifted from soccer to the guy's slang.

It's an interesting phenomenon.