Well, yes, very clearly it’s a “man on screen said it” situation, but it’s not like that’s new.
People who repeated “ground control to {insert name}” to get the attention of someone whose mind was elsewhere didn’t believe they were actually addressing an astronaut. It’s an idiom born of the current cultural zeitgeist.
A friend of mine teaches middle school maths, and every kid in the class is striving to be an influencer or twitch streamer, no other aspirations in life.
Kids are smarter than we give them credit for. It’s like kids dreaming of being actors or singers or athletes.
Even if they think their teachers are good people, they clearly see that they don’t drive fancy cars. Even if their parents are middle income earners, they aren’t as famous or rich as the people babysitting them on screen. It may be more obnoxious and more piped straight into their eyeballs now but it’s hardly new.
Hell I’m a grown ass adult and I think about every once in a while.
While i agree with the general thing, I also truly think reality is more nuanced. I used to be a high-school teacher, and a lot of those kids just yearn for sincere socialising opportunities in general, more than celebrity success (even if some do also have that goal)
I didn’t imply kids were dumb or unobservant, I just meant they are not thinking as deeply as that comment I replied to. What you say is much simpler: they see teacher driving a hoopty while xQC has millions of dollars and does whatever the fuck he wants. That’s a natural reaction to want to be like the person that isn’t seemingly struggling; and you’re right, it isn’t new at all.
I don’t think the kids are considering nepotism and the nuanced path to wealth, though. They just see streaming/influencing can make a lot of money and that’s probably as far as it goes.
and this is why I limit Internet access to my kids.
I get compliments on how sweet and courteous my kids(under 10) are and get asked what my secret is. I tell parents, “YouTube only 30 minutes a week. all other internet content is blocked. no Facebook, tik tok, x, etc.”
they give me the most confused and sometimes disgusted looks.
don’t know when, but society became far too dependent on being “connected”. it’s far easier to give it up when it’s your choice vs when it’s taken from you.
At some point you should give them some more freedom. That’s very restrictive on the connections they can make with their peers as they won’t learn the cultural norms.
You’re not benefitting them in the long term, they will be stunted in their grasp of the Internet, which is very important in today’s landscape. They will also go behind your back to access the internet with NO restrictions rather than you being able to block some of the worst stuff and letting them access normal stuff.
Granted if they’re under 10 that’s fine, but consider opening up as they get older.
To me it seems like GenZ started the phrase, but because they are the ones that really got streaming off the ground. Gen Alpha are the ones adding it to modern slang unironically and out of context
If I can recall, chat was a term used in old IRC rooms, too. Just fads coming back around. Its just like “groovy” or “bees knees”. Every gen has their slang.
Its literally too much stress for me to get irritated over something so small. I have enough stress already. We all do. Save yourself a pointless wrinkle, friend.
Yeah, I hit a few rooms that said ‘chat’, but it wasn’t really a solid thing. That was the fun part of not having centralized social platforms. Each room had its own thing, and it was hilarious when you said something that was popular in one room in another and found someone you knew from that same room.
My guess is it was accidentally done by people watching too many streamers who would intentionally call the group of chatters as chat. It was then done ironically as a way to illicit a reaction on something as a streamer did. Then became more regular nomenclature to query a group
My real name starts with Chat and since it’s a little difficult to pronounce if you don’t know French I use it as a nickname.people always asking me weird questions on the Internet.
Chat is cat in French, so not all wrong. My real name means something similar to “to shimmer like a cat’s eye”, and has the same root word as chatoyancy.
Your second paragraph should’ve been your clue. The “chat” they’re talking about is the chat attached to a YouTube or Twitch stream. It’s influencer brainrot slang.
I think a lot of young people see content creation as the only way they can make the money they want/need. I think many of them idolize streamers/content creators, and so they emulate them however they can. Part of that is dreaming to eventually have a ‘chat’ to say ‘chat’ to.
Funny moments get shared between friends and spreads its reach -> Long form reaction content creates sharable moments -> Livestreams generate long form reaction content -> Livestreams have a chat that accompanies the streamer -> Streamer refers to chat during funny moments -> This is referenced as a meme -> Talking to chat spreads beyond the original context
… If you do it occasionally, when contextually appropriate… it is funny, a self aware reference to how they spend a lot of time on twitch streams, and are expressing disbelief.
When you do it all the time, reflexively, regardless of context… yeah, that may indicate that that just is your baseline norm for social interaction and you fundamentally cannot or do not distinguish between the contexts of online interaction and irl interaction.
There a whole lot of kids now who are just basically raises from near birth by screens. Parents with no free time or parents who don’t give a shit just give the kid a distraction rectangle so they don’t have to … raise them.
Chat just became synonymous with readers/listeners in modern slang. I also went through my “old man yells at cloud” phase about it, but it’s fine, I guess. I still get annoyed when people say the name of twitch emotes, though.
Life in the social media age is one in which identity is developed performatively through profilicity. People from the earlier eras created themselves in the face of the Big Other, often as God, or as the crowd of society at large, their families, etc. Younglings of the new age have personified the Big Other as the digital crowd, imagined viewers of their life-as-livestream.
deleted by creator
Well, yes, very clearly it’s a “man on screen said it” situation, but it’s not like that’s new.
People who repeated “ground control to {insert name}” to get the attention of someone whose mind was elsewhere didn’t believe they were actually addressing an astronaut. It’s an idiom born of the current cultural zeitgeist.
Chat, can we get some protein pills for major tom
Lol bro younger generations just say random shit to sound cool.
I’m remembering how many times I said “epic” or phonetically pronounced “lulz” in every day speech when I was younger. It’s just something kids do.
I still remember roflcopter being said aloud on a few occassions.
I started saying rofl ironically, because my friends weren’t really internet people. Then i couldn’t stop anymore.
That’s usually how it starts.
I had a friend who said “el mayo” out loud.
It was me.
I used to do “le mayo” instead.
I still do.
Its always be le Mao to me
That’s actually funny tho
I think it’s Gen Alpha, not Gen Z.
A friend of mine teaches middle school maths, and every kid in the class is striving to be an influencer or twitch streamer, no other aspirations in life.
There’s no longer any realistic path to wealth for anyone who doesn’t have nepotism on their side.
You’re not wrong, but I very seriously doubt this is what’s going through the kids’ heads
Kids are smarter than we give them credit for. It’s like kids dreaming of being actors or singers or athletes.
Even if they think their teachers are good people, they clearly see that they don’t drive fancy cars. Even if their parents are middle income earners, they aren’t as famous or rich as the people babysitting them on screen. It may be more obnoxious and more piped straight into their eyeballs now but it’s hardly new.
Hell I’m a grown ass adult and I think about every once in a while.
Have fun talking to chat which is at most 3 people for years while waiting for your breakthrough
Not who you responded to, but when I play with the idea of starting streaming, that’s the kind of vibe I wish for, not the breakthrough part
Nothing wrong with that, but it’s not what the kids are looking for
While i agree with the general thing, I also truly think reality is more nuanced. I used to be a high-school teacher, and a lot of those kids just yearn for sincere socialising opportunities in general, more than celebrity success (even if some do also have that goal)
I didn’t imply kids were dumb or unobservant, I just meant they are not thinking as deeply as that comment I replied to. What you say is much simpler: they see teacher driving a hoopty while xQC has millions of dollars and does whatever the fuck he wants. That’s a natural reaction to want to be like the person that isn’t seemingly struggling; and you’re right, it isn’t new at all.
I don’t think the kids are considering nepotism and the nuanced path to wealth, though. They just see streaming/influencing can make a lot of money and that’s probably as far as it goes.
and this is why I limit Internet access to my kids.
I get compliments on how sweet and courteous my kids(under 10) are and get asked what my secret is. I tell parents, “YouTube only 30 minutes a week. all other internet content is blocked. no Facebook, tik tok, x, etc.”
they give me the most confused and sometimes disgusted looks.
don’t know when, but society became far too dependent on being “connected”. it’s far easier to give it up when it’s your choice vs when it’s taken from you.
At some point you should give them some more freedom. That’s very restrictive on the connections they can make with their peers as they won’t learn the cultural norms.
You’re not benefitting them in the long term, they will be stunted in their grasp of the Internet, which is very important in today’s landscape. They will also go behind your back to access the internet with NO restrictions rather than you being able to block some of the worst stuff and letting them access normal stuff.
Granted if they’re under 10 that’s fine, but consider opening up as they get older.
IMO, Facebook being adopted by Baby Boomers was a big player in becoming too dependent.
Good on you, though. Teach those kids to touch grass as a normal activity!
Eh, my partner and I are old and we say it ironically.
Sure, but I meant more that Gen Alpha are the ones adding it to modern slang by using it unironically and out of context
That makes sense!
I hear plenty of zoomers say it but I also don’t interact with gen alpha so have no idea if it started with them
To me it seems like GenZ started the phrase, but because they are the ones that really got streaming off the ground. Gen Alpha are the ones adding it to modern slang unironically and out of context
Tbf, the zoomer/boomer thing is in the same vein.
If I can recall, chat was a term used in old IRC rooms, too. Just fads coming back around. Its just like “groovy” or “bees knees”. Every gen has their slang.
Its literally too much stress for me to get irritated over something so small. I have enough stress already. We all do. Save yourself a pointless wrinkle, friend.
i don’t remember using “chat”, i remember using “all”, but different rooms had different cultures.
Yeah, I hit a few rooms that said ‘chat’, but it wasn’t really a solid thing. That was the fun part of not having centralized social platforms. Each room had its own thing, and it was hilarious when you said something that was popular in one room in another and found someone you knew from that same room.
My guess is it was accidentally done by people watching too many streamers who would intentionally call the group of chatters as chat. It was then done ironically as a way to illicit a reaction on something as a streamer did. Then became more regular nomenclature to query a group
I think it comes from streamers who might legitimately ask their viewers, who are partaking in the stream through a chat, “chat, is this X?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DlTexEXxLQ
My real name starts with Chat and since it’s a little difficult to pronounce if you don’t know French I use it as a nickname.people always asking me weird questions on the Internet.
Username checks out, if suspiciously Japanese.
I never said I wasn’t a weeb as well…
You’re ChatGPT! I knew it!
/ Cat, I farted
Chat is cat in French, so not all wrong. My real name means something similar to “to shimmer like a cat’s eye”, and has the same root word as chatoyancy.
Your second paragraph should’ve been your clue. The “chat” they’re talking about is the chat attached to a YouTube or Twitch stream. It’s influencer brainrot slang.
hope the cloud heard you
That seems more like the result of bad parenting.
I think a lot of young people see content creation as the only way they can make the money they want/need. I think many of them idolize streamers/content creators, and so they emulate them however they can. Part of that is dreaming to eventually have a ‘chat’ to say ‘chat’ to.
Makes me pretty sad, tbh.
Funny moments get shared between friends and spreads its reach -> Long form reaction content creates sharable moments -> Livestreams generate long form reaction content -> Livestreams have a chat that accompanies the streamer -> Streamer refers to chat during funny moments -> This is referenced as a meme -> Talking to chat spreads beyond the original context
… If you do it occasionally, when contextually appropriate… it is funny, a self aware reference to how they spend a lot of time on twitch streams, and are expressing disbelief.
When you do it all the time, reflexively, regardless of context… yeah, that may indicate that that just is your baseline norm for social interaction and you fundamentally cannot or do not distinguish between the contexts of online interaction and irl interaction.
There a whole lot of kids now who are just basically raises from near birth by screens. Parents with no free time or parents who don’t give a shit just give the kid a distraction rectangle so they don’t have to … raise them.
lmao I’m gonna start to say goodbye like that XD
I did that once with my nephews at the end of a video call and they laughed their ass off. My sister couldn’t understand what was so funny about that.
I’m going to try it with my fiancée when she goes to work tomorrow and see if she gives me her ring.
I’ll report back my findings.
Lol taking one for the team like a boss
Chat just became synonymous with readers/listeners in modern slang. I also went through my “old man yells at cloud” phase about it, but it’s fine, I guess. I still get annoyed when people say the name of twitch emotes, though.
This is a gen Alpha thing, please do not associate us with those creatures.
“chat” is this Lemmy thread, in this example. it addresses the audience. it’s the streamer equivalent of breaking the fourth wall.
Munky see munky doo
Life in the social media age is one in which identity is developed performatively through profilicity. People from the earlier eras created themselves in the face of the Big Other, often as God, or as the crowd of society at large, their families, etc. Younglings of the new age have personified the Big Other as the digital crowd, imagined viewers of their life-as-livestream.