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A while back, I was talking about the slightly weird experience of being my GenX self in a fandom that skews quite young, especially how I can't help noticing all the subtle things people writing fic set in the 70s and 80s keep getting wrong, even when they're really trying. But lately I've been noticing another issue that's genuinely really amusing me, which is that I get comments on my own fic that I have to sort of... decode. Like, I was pretty sure that the people who told me my fic "ate" were paying me a compliment, but I did have to check to be certain. And the first time someone told me they were "screaming, crying, clawing at the drywall," or whatever the exact phrasing was, my immediate thought was, "Are... are you OK?" My actual response was, "That's quite a reaction!" to which they answered with, "it's a meme." Well, at least they had the strength of will not to add "grandma" at the end.
The one that's really amusing me is that I've had a whole bunch of comments in recent months with people having, like, screamy emotional reactions and then adding "/pos." at the end. Folks, I am embarrassed how long it took me to figure out what the heck that "/pos" meant. "Positive!" It stands for "positive!" It's like those parenthetical emotional markers they'll use, like saying something teasingly and then adding "(affectionate)" to make sure it's not interpreted as actually mean. Which is a practice I quite like. But "pos?" Dude, I was wracking my brains over that one! For ages, the only answer I could hit on was... Well, look, back in my day -- and how much do I hate that I find myself saying things like that now? -- back in my day, "POS" did in fact have a meaning. And so I found myself repeatedly thinking, "It's OK, I got that you were having an appropriate emotional reaction to the fic and not actually yelling at me! You don't have to call yourself a piece of shit for it!" LOOOOOOL. I think in my mind, I was harking back to the period when all the youngsters kept calling themselves "trash" for being into whatever they were into. Which is probably already ancient history to The Kids Today, I guess, and good riddance to it, too, although I guess now they just describe themselves as "cringe," which isn't much better. Although, to be clear, it's the concept I object to there, not the language. Own your enthusiasms, guys!
Seriously, I have no desire to do that thing where old grumps complain about these dang youngsters and their ignorant gobbledygook. Because that is cringe, frankly. It was stupid and annoying when people did it at my generation -- "So, bad means good now? Oooh, everything is 'awesome' huh? You're overcome with awe all the time, huh? And why can't you, like, kids, like, talk without, like, saying like, like, all the time?" Gimme a break. Or gag me with a spoon, even. Nah, this is all just language doing what language does, but I'm finding the disconnect hilarious. And that's coming from someone who, thanks to the internet, probably understands more about youth culture now than I did when I was a youth, since I pretty much just spent all my teenage years holed up in my room reading books rather than actually talking to people my own age. And now, well, I'm still mostly holed up in my room reading books, but I'm also reading stuff on the internet, and I can see other people of various ages talking all around me. And also sometimes commenting on my fics telling me that I've eaten and they've damaged their drywall. Positively. Which, hey, I'll take it.
The one that's really amusing me is that I've had a whole bunch of comments in recent months with people having, like, screamy emotional reactions and then adding "/pos." at the end. Folks, I am embarrassed how long it took me to figure out what the heck that "/pos" meant. "Positive!" It stands for "positive!" It's like those parenthetical emotional markers they'll use, like saying something teasingly and then adding "(affectionate)" to make sure it's not interpreted as actually mean. Which is a practice I quite like. But "pos?" Dude, I was wracking my brains over that one! For ages, the only answer I could hit on was... Well, look, back in my day -- and how much do I hate that I find myself saying things like that now? -- back in my day, "POS" did in fact have a meaning. And so I found myself repeatedly thinking, "It's OK, I got that you were having an appropriate emotional reaction to the fic and not actually yelling at me! You don't have to call yourself a piece of shit for it!" LOOOOOOL. I think in my mind, I was harking back to the period when all the youngsters kept calling themselves "trash" for being into whatever they were into. Which is probably already ancient history to The Kids Today, I guess, and good riddance to it, too, although I guess now they just describe themselves as "cringe," which isn't much better. Although, to be clear, it's the concept I object to there, not the language. Own your enthusiasms, guys!
Seriously, I have no desire to do that thing where old grumps complain about these dang youngsters and their ignorant gobbledygook. Because that is cringe, frankly. It was stupid and annoying when people did it at my generation -- "So, bad means good now? Oooh, everything is 'awesome' huh? You're overcome with awe all the time, huh? And why can't you, like, kids, like, talk without, like, saying like, like, all the time?" Gimme a break. Or gag me with a spoon, even. Nah, this is all just language doing what language does, but I'm finding the disconnect hilarious. And that's coming from someone who, thanks to the internet, probably understands more about youth culture now than I did when I was a youth, since I pretty much just spent all my teenage years holed up in my room reading books rather than actually talking to people my own age. And now, well, I'm still mostly holed up in my room reading books, but I'm also reading stuff on the internet, and I can see other people of various ages talking all around me. And also sometimes commenting on my fics telling me that I've eaten and they've damaged their drywall. Positively. Which, hey, I'll take it.
