2B — Thursday, January 21, 2016
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
“That’s literally me af.” “The
party is gonna be turnt!” “Sarah
Jessica Parker is bae.” “I’m so
hungry rn.” “Yaaasss queen!”
“LMAO, I’m dying!” “The club
is hella lit tonight.” “Netflix and
chill?”
If you’ve heard any of the
following phrases, you have either
encountered a millennial or are
one.
In every generation, people are
primarily defined by the period
in which they live. And in each
period, a variety of zeitgeists define
the culture of the moment. They
can range from fashion to film,
music to art and TV to literature.
But perhaps the most significant
of them all is language, specifically
the slang used by the generation of
the time. For millennials — people
born between the early 1980s and
the early 2000s — the current slang
is notable for its hyper-condensed
diction and common usage in
social media. In addition to that,
millennials have created their
own language through texting,
and in many cases embedded it
into everyday talk. Even regularly
used words, such as “literally,”
“awkward” and “dying,” have
completely new meanings within a
millennial context. We don’t often
realize it, but millennial slang
and texting language play active
roles in our daily lives, whether on
our phones, on social media or in
regular conversation.
Slang
Considering its mass appeal,
slang has played an integral part
of the culture in each generation.
In the 1950s, an age swept up
in conservative values, young
people used “swell” as their very
own colloquialism. “Cool” and
“groovy” made their way into the
counterculture of the ’60s and
’70s, eventually paving the way for
words like “wicked” and “sweet”
in the lively era of the ’80s and the
grunge scene of the ’90s. The early
’00s contained a slew of slang like
“redic,” “redonculous,” “whack,”
“dope” and “sick” that spewed
from the mouths of the youth.
These words aimed to go against
the traditional vernacular, as well
as to give a collective personality
to the people who uttered them.
Nowadays, slang is just as creative
and innovative as before, yet it’s
changing at a breakneck speed.
While movies, TV shows and
music have become crucial in
influencing slang both in the past
and in the present, the increasing
omnipresence of social media and
social networking have provided
millennials with platforms onto
which we can constantly send
and receive written and spoken
messages.
Through
popular
sources like Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter, Snapchat, Tumblr and
Vine, millennials have more access
not only to new information, but
also to the most up-to-date lingo.
According to Julie Coleman, author
of “The Life of Slang,” words are
moving around the world within
weeks and months because of
social media. “It’s not necessarily
that language is changing more
quickly,” Coleman writes. “But
technologies have developed and
they allow the transmission of
slang terms to pass from one group
to another much more quickly.”
Indeed,
several
of
these
technologies
have
determined
the way in which millennials
communicate with one another,
especially with the invention
of Twitter and its distinctive
140-character limit (at least for
now).
Several
news
websites,
such as MTV.com and Buzzfeed,
have adapted millennial slang
into their headlines and articles
(i.e. “21 Bold AF Hair Colors
To Try In 2016”). Through the
interconnected environment of
the Internet, millennial slang
has also been influenced by the
reinvention of memes — humorous
images, videos, GIFs or texts that
are copied and spread online.
Since the first well-known meme,
the popular “Kilroy was here”
graffiti in the 1940s, the “meme”
has become a modern worldwide
phenomenon on the Internet and
other social media platforms. One
of 2015’s most pervasive was a man
screaming “What are those?!” at
a police officer’s shoes. Memes
may not necessarily be considered
language, or even slang for that
matter. However, through the
technological advancement of the
Internet, they do carry a cultural
significance that has shaped the
way millennials communicate and
understand one another.
In addition to social media and
Internet memes, celebrities seem
to hold some influence over the
way in which language pervades
the psyche of the millennial
generation. Around 2010, rappers
Soulja Boy and Lil B helped
popularize the word “swag” in
their songs “Pretty Boy Swag”
and “Wonton Soup,” respectively.
Throwback to middle school.
In 2011, hip-hop artist and pop
culture icon Drake publicized the
acronym “YOLO” (which stands
for “you only live once,” for those
still living under a rock) in his rap
anthem, “The Motto.” This past
year, DJ Khaled, the famed music
producer behind the ubiquitous
pump-up jam “All I Do Is Win” and
other hits, became a prominent
source of entertainment, when he
shared his own catch phrases on
his Snapchat story. Whether he
was riding on a jet ski in the dark or
watering his plants, almost every
one of DJ Khaled’s Snapchats had
the producer saying, “Bless up,”
“The key to success” or “They
don’t want you to … ” to whomever
was watching. Given his larger-
than-life personality, 2.8 million
Instagram followers and major
popularity on Snapchat, DJ Khaled
is among many of today’s celebrities
who exude the spirit and mood of
the millennial generation.
Millennial slang may as well
be a way in which we distinguish
ourselves from other generations,
but there does seem to be larger
social implications within the
language itself.
“Young people are interested
in expressing themselves in a
distinctive way that makes them
feel like they’re part of something,”
said
Communications
Prof.
Scott Walker Campbell, who is
also a mobile communications
researcher
at
the
University.
“The fact that millennials have a
distinctive way of speaking and
some distinctive lingo doesn’t
make the generation distinctive,
because my generation did the
same thing.”
As Campbell also points out,
slang is simply a cultural trend
that every generation has, yet
it manifests and looks different
within different generations.
“It’s what generations do,”
Campbell
said.
“They
come
together, have distinctive qualities,
distinctive tastes in music, in
fashion and also in language.”
Perhaps slang is more than
just a reflection of the current
culture. Perhaps it’s a subtle
rebellious response to our parent’s
generation. But more importantly,
the slang that’s used today can stem
from a desire to be recognized, a
drive to become viral and leave a
cultural legacy behind.
“There are new ways for
individual people to have a voice
and participate in a network and
system of communication that
is kind of unlimited,” Campbell
said. “It’s not about money,
but about being clever and
entertaining and cool.”
This leads to the idea that
people who use slang online and
on social media are accruing
commercial value. In this age
of virality, hashtags and instant
celebrity, millennials want to be
recognized and slang is a way
in which they can do that, not
just within the realm of social
networking, but with the rest of
society.
Texting language
In addition to slang, texting
has developed into a language
of its own for millennials. With
the revolution of the modern cell
phone in the early 2000s, texting
has dramatically affected the
communication millennials use
in their everyday lives.
“Millennials
are
certainly
using their thumbs as much or
more than we’ve seen in past
generations,” Campbell said.
Because
texting
involves
quick,
rapid-fire
responses,
a
methodical
process
has
been cultivated as a result,
where commonly used words
and
phrases
have
become
abbreviated.
Some
examples
include “to be honest” changing
to “tbh,” “very” into “v” and
“okay”
into
the
universally
abhorred “k.”
“There’s this idea that texting
is chaos and that young people
don’t know how to use grammar,”
said English professor Anne
Curzan. “But I think it’s very
systematic.”
As an educator and historian
in the field of the English
language, Curzan understands
that older and younger people
have very different perceptions
on the way language is used
today, specifically with changes
in punctuation. An example she
uses to demonstrate this idea to
students and adults is the word
“okay.” She writes the word three
times — one by itself, one with a
period and one with a dot-dot-dot.
When shown to younger people,
all three words have very different
meanings, with “okay.” invoking a
sense of seriousness and “okay …
” invoking a feeling of skepticism.
For the older individuals observing
the three words, they have no idea
what the difference is.
“If you actually ask prolific
texters under the age of 30
how they are doing this, they
can tell how to use the correct
punctuation,” Curzan said.
Millennials also pay very close
attention to every single detail in
our texts, so much in fact that we
tend to nitpick at our words out of
fear that the person on the other
end of the conversation will take
the message in the wrong way.
“There’s this idea that younger
people in this generation don’t care
about language,” Curzan said. “I
just don’t think there’s evidence
for that. I talk with students, and
they are very attentive with details.
Spoken and written language is
how we present ourselves to the
world.”
Curzan
also
believes
that
texting is “rapid and very much
like a dialogue, but you can’t see the
person most of the time.” However,
as she mentions, texting has
adapted to try to create some form
of tone and emotional expression
through acronyms like “lol” and,
more recently, emojis. By using
these shortened forms of written
speech, millennials are better
able to express themselves in new
and interesting ways. Emojis have
particularly grown in popularity
ever since their international
inclusion on the iPhone. They
have revolutionized and enhanced
textual communication by literally
emoting the thoughts and feelings
of the person behind the phone.
People can choose from a diverse
palette of emojis to express
emotion, whether it’s using “the
heart eyes” emoji to flirt or the
“face with tears of joy” emoji
to show a hysterical reaction to
something.
As CollegeHumor hilariously
satirized in a 2014 video, titled
“How We’ll All Talk in The Future,”
emojis could potentially find their
way into colloquial language. The
clip depicts two young women
having a conversation using emojis
instead of words. In the context of
the video, the emoji of the “face that
looks like Edvard Munch’s ‘The
Scream’ ” apparently translates to
“no way!” This probably won’t be
the way people will actually speak
in the future, but the video makes
a compelling point about how
powerful and prevalent emojis,
and texting language in general,
have become for millennials.
Lingo as a linguistic merit
Like text messaging, it’s easy to
dismiss slang as a simple form of
primitive speech. But for a while
now, slang has been recognized as
having linguistic merit, according
to Curzan.
“Slang is linguistic creativity
at work,” she said. “Part of being
human is being creative with
language and slang is language at
some of its most creative.”
This seems to be the opinion of
not only Curzan, but the linguistic
community at large. Each year, the
people behind Oxford Dictionary,
Merriam-Webster
and
the
American Dialect Society, the
latter of which Curzan is part of,
decide which words are the oddest,
most innovative and most popular
of the year. For most publications,
the word of the year is chosen
based on how frequently the word
is used or how new the word is.
Most recently, Oxford Dictionary’s
word of the year technically wasn’t
even a word; it was the “face with
tears of joy” emoji. For Merriam-
Webster, the word of the year was
“-ism.” The American Dialect
Society chose “they” (referring
to the singular gender-neutral
pronoun) as their WOTY. Other
recent winners for WOTY have
included
“#blacklivesmatter,”
“hashtag,” “app” and “tweet.”
As informal as slang can be, it
shapes culture both universally
and exclusively. It gives a voice to
generations and morphs constantly
with the changing of technology
and media. But most importantly,
as linguist Stephen Pinker once
said, language itself “is not so much
a creator and shaper of human
nature so much as a window onto
human nature.”
That’s pretty lit.
MILLENNIAL LINGO
From Page 1B
MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW
Blend together a unicorn,
an artistically original J-Pop
Britney Spears and the entire
city of Tokyo
— whatever
image comes
to mind, what-
ever hybrid
creature that
produces,
the result is
Grimes.
Maybe I’m
living under
a rock music-
filled rock, but the first I ever
heard of Grimes was two
months ago upon the release
of her critically acclaimed Art
Angels. The unusual synthpop
sound that Grimes has mas-
tered is part of what makes
her album so intriguing; noth-
ing produced in 2015 is any-
thing like Art Angels. Grimes
is first and foremost an artist
— being a musician is just a
small part of who she is, and I
think that really shows in her
latest music video for “Kill V.
Maim.”
The first time I listened to
“Kill V. Maim,” I envisioned a
slightly more badass Princess
Peach from Mario Kart zip-
ping through a neon-lit Tokyo.
It turns out that either I’m psy-
chic or Grimes is really good at
making you visualize her world
the way she wants you to see
it because the music video for
“Kill V. Maim” is pretty much
what I imagined two months
ago. It’s fun. It’s artsy af. It’s
unlike anything out there.
Grimes and a sexy squad
of posh punks take over our
screens for four minutes and
thirty-seven seconds in what
appears to be a video game. The
video cuts between shots of the
outlandishly dressed characters
dancing and zooming through
what appears to be a neon-
lit Tokyo (defs psychic) with
Snapchat-esque drawings of little
halos, hearts and other doodles
fluttering in and out to further
define the video as a Grimes pro-
duction.
From a purely visual stand-
point, the “Kill V. Maim” music
video is perfection; it has a way
of sucking you into the world
Grimes has created for us — the
world that Grimes probably
inhabits in her dreams. It’s a col-
orful, outlandish, science fiction
world full of possibilities. How-
ever, the video seemingly lacks a
story or purpose — at first I hated
it for lack of substance. It’s only
when you pay close attention to
every detail that you realize how
provocative it really is.
I’m not going to disclose my
interpretation of the video with
you mainly because art is and
should be viewed and understood
differently by each individual —
but also partly because I have no
idea what the fuck I just watched.
— Danielle Immerman
4AD
A
Kill V.
Maim
Grimes
4AD
New cheese bar open
By VANESSA WONG
Daily Arts Writer
Ann Arbor is becoming an
even more creative and dynamic
food community with uniquely
structured restaurants — such
as places that are known for
reliable
staples,
pop-ups
and
other partnerships. They give
local businesses space to try
nontraditional ideas and offer an
ever-changing blend of locally
sourced meals for a new audience
looking to try something new.
Spencer, a wine and cheese
bar/restaurant, has recently taken
root in Ann Arbor with a focus on
serving a menu that constantly
changes with the seasons. Its airy,
communal seating space creates
a shared experience in which the
diner trusts the restaurant to serve
interesting and high quality meals
rather than deliberately seek out
a specific dish fulfilling his own
cravings.
Co-founder Steve Hall notes,
“In the last couple of years there
have been a lot of changes (in the
Ann Arbor food community), like
more creative and small things
popping up … We are tying into a
similar audience who has eaten
everything in Ann Arbor and is
looking into some new sorts of
foods.”
“The nice thing about changing
all the time is that we’re not
any kind of restaurant,” Hall
continued. “There’s no one cuisine,
so if we get an idea that’s like ‘hey,
I’m really excited about doing
some duck legs this week,’ Abby
and I will be like, ‘oh, we’ll do
them sort of like French Alsacian-
German, so let’s do some mustard-
braised cabbage and some roast
turnips,’ and we’ll sort of run with
that for a week.”
Their cheese and charcuterie
brings to light a lesser-known
market
in
Ann
Arbor.
Hall
laments
in
particular
how
underappreciated Zingerman’s is
for their cheeses.
“It’s not just sandwiches; I know
that all students think it’s just
only sandwiches,” he said. “Their
cheeses are just some of the best in
the country and you can taste all of
them.”
There are many considerations
that go into the cheese-making
process, Hall said.
“You think about the animals
and how they’re treated, you
think about what those animals
were eating, you think about the
season of when they’re eating,”
he said. “Is it winter and they’re
eating dry hay or in the middle of
summer when they’re eating fresh
grasses and flowers and stuff? All
that to the size of the production,
the care of the cheesemaker, the
age, how it’s been transported, all
of it down the line. I think a lot of
people don’t consider that and just
think, ‘that cheese is $30 a pound,
that’s a ridiculous price.’ Well, no,
it’s awesome. It’s way underpriced
because people really, really care
for cheese.”
One of the most important
aspects of creating a dynamic
culinary culture in Ann Arbor is
for both diners and restaurateurs
alike to be adventurous and keep
an open mind. Being willing to
mix new ingredients and flavors
signals that innovation is welcome.
For example, Hall urges people
to try different types of cheeses.
“I think a lot of people think
that, ‘oh, I ate goat cheese on a
salad once and I thought it was
really weird and I didn’t like it,
I therefore don’t like any goat
cheese,” he said. Well that’s
ridiculous. I don’t like American
cheese but it doesn’t mean I don’t
like any cow’s milk cheese.”
Additionally,
pop-ups
and
collaborative events between local
businesses bring fresh takes to the
way people traditionally interact
with food.
Before Spencer opened shop
a few months ago, owners Hall
and Abby Olitzky did multiple
pop-up events: a weekly menu
of dishes at Braun Court bar —
wine, cheese and book pairings
with Literati and a seasonal five-
course dinner using ingredients
from Zingerman’s. In addition
to establishing local connections
for the pair after moving to Ann
Arbor from San Francisco, pop-
ups offered space to take creative
liberties and test new ideas that
liven up the local food scene.
Hall says pop-ups taught them
about “what people are looking for,
what do they respond well to, and
how do we best get to that?” which
helped identify what elements
from San Francisco’s vibrant food
community they could successfully
implement in Ann Arbor. Both
budding entrepreneurs and storied
establishments can benefit from
partnerships, as well as being
willing to reach outward to the
community to see what they are
interested in while designing a
menu.
There
are
many
other
businesses in Ann Arbor that
also play with unique restaurant
structures to satisfy a modern
audience that craves flexibility
without sacrificing quality and
health. Babo sheds the distinction
between grocery store versus
restaurant with a cheeky, “well,
it’s both!” Like Spencer, Babo also
has communal seating inside,
but supplements it with separate
tables outside, giving a range of
options for solo munching, on-the-
go meals or a catch-up between
friends.
The People’s Food Co-op, a
communal-membership
grocery
store that has been a staple in Ann
Arbor since 1971, features a similar
hot bar and coffee shop concept in
the adjoined Café Verde. This is an
extension of their goal to provide
reasonably priced, fresh, healthy
food from local farmers, according
to their website. They also offer
many ways to get involved in the
community through the food,
with free classes about eating
and health and events for co-op
members.
Though Ann Arbor restaurants
are typically known for delivering
reliable and well-made favorites,
there is a growing audience out
there looking for elements of
novelty and creativity in how
they engage with food. And with
new businesses like Spencer and
Babo opening their doors, or
historic local fixtures like People’s
Food Co-op and Zingerman’s
participating
in
pop-ups
or
changing things up, it’s clear that
there are places ready to deliver.
COURTESY OF SPENCER
Spencer, a wine and cheese bar, is new in Ann Arbor.