Friday, May 4, 2007

The Whiff of Love- Or, "The Day I learned to |"

|

Apparently this little mark | now denotes "love" in internet lingo?

This is something I just caught a whiff of about three days ago. And now I'm noticing it EVERYWHERE.

I want to know how this kind of stuff gets started. Who came up with that? And who decided it was such a good shortcut that they wanted to perpetuate it? How do you invent a new symbol and get others to know what it means? If I were to write:

I | You! Would you assume it meant love? Because it could mean a lot of things...
Or maybe the first time it was written was at the closure of a letter:

Lots of |,
So-and-so

(Lots of what now?)

You can all thank me later for enlightening you to this new symbol. Go ahead, start using it. Sure, it's less keys to tap than spelling out "l-o-v-e," and yes it's easier than finding the alt + number combo to get the little black heart symbol, and it's mos def less ugly than <3... but really I don't get it.

Oh well, I'm whiney now, but I'm sure I'll be using it before you know it. (I used to hate text messaging, too...)

Alright, | y'all, you |ely |birds,
Gwendo|

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