Beneath Habits and Memories

More Than Just Reading Greek

It started out funny; hilarious even. Until it spread out like wildfire and caught everyone’s interest. Now people started jumping on the bandwagon, mostly the nescient public, turning the so-called Jejemon Phenomenon into another case of “Classism,” if we may call it that. It was supposed to be for sheer fun, but apparently some had way too much fun.

The Jejemon craze began as a mere issue of bad taste for some. Basically because it is violating the nature of texting/typing and using the alphabet (numerals and exclamation points included) altogether. However some may deny it, it was irritatingly funny and that some even attempted to imitate this form of writing and even read it. And somebody must give the Jejemons props for the activity required mad skill and a lot of character.

And then the tough crowd came in the picture. Who can blame them? This is a free country and everyone is entitled to their opinion. Due to public interest, random and probably unheard-of character experts started dissecting the specimen that is Jejemon – from classifying their fashion, choice of words, color of skin, face contours, and state of life. It appeared that the phenomenon is actually beyond just the incomprehensible style of writing, but in fact the being as a whole. Fan pages against Jejemons were put up wherein thousands joined and bashed to their heart’s content – to the extent of a request for genocide.

It is actually not surprising as a similar, though not as extreme, event has occurred in the country before. Does the term Jologs ring a bell? What the two terms have in common is that they both start with the letter J. interesting right? But more interesting than that, is that they both refer to a type of individual coming from the lower part of the social triangle.

True that racism is a rare case in the country, but “classism ” is as prevalent as the pollution in the air that we breathe. French sociologist Emile Durkheim argued that discrimination is the result of the society’s need to sort people into types. He wrote in his book titled “Montesquieu’s Contribution to the Rise of Social Science” that the only way to describe individuals is through types thus the inevitable need of classification. Sadly, the only classification that seems to exist in this country is accorded to social hierarchy.

A globally accepted form of language that boomed not too long ago, Leet, also known as geek language, used throughout the cyberworld, mostly online gamers, is like the forefather of the now called jejetyping. As mentioned, they both substitute roman letters with like symbols or numbers and they add suffixes to nouns like pwnage; and pwned is not even a legit noun. However, this does not gather as much controversy as jejetyping, which happens to do the same, only longer. Take for example saying Kkp0whZz instead of a simple Ok.

The reason behind this is that leet language was perceived as the “greek language” of the literate. And now that those from lower class, having the same access as much as everyone from any other social class, are able to get creative with technology, the upper class started this propaganda to keep them where they are.

It is hypocrisy to lamely justify this abhorrence of the existence of Jejemons by saying that it is detrimental to the quality of education in the country. Really now? This is actually the implementation of social marginalization in a disguise that is not so discreet. More like an attempt to justify stereotyping.

Despite all the debates, yes, they do organize debates on this matter, Jejetyping is a trend like any other that will cease to exist in the years to come but the labeling appended on the said  Jejemons will forever remain. Unfortunately, this society is ill with the disease of prejudice and the cure still has a long way to go. That is if it’ll ever be cured.