Fast Food Culture
As the online community develops, so does the development of Junk Culture. The breakdown of language into acronyms and abbreviations is a result both of limited space and laziness when typing. With only 160 characters in a text message and 140 for a tweet, people have found ways to express a lot in the shortest way possible. Practices such as, replacing syllables with one character have become commonplace, and proper use of gramma is basically ignored. For example, later, becomes l8r, and before becomes, b4. Abbreviations are also used, got to go becomes g2g, and perhaps the most frequent, laughing out loud is shortened to lol. This process is not just confined to written language either, the term ‘lol’ has become part of everyday speech.
This, in turn, has developed into an internet phenomenon, where the bastardisation of language becomes a humorous game. The best examples of this can be found at icanhascheezburger.com, where ‘amusing’ photos of cats are coupled with ‘witty’ captions. These are known as the lolcats, and in my opinion, are the epitome of internet junk. From a design perspective, these works are horrific, from a photographic perspective, the images are poor, and from a linguistic perspective, a child would have a better grasp on the English language, yet people feel the need to contribute to this collection of nonsense.
One of the reasons for this must be that it is so easily constructed, a quick digital photo, with some outlined text, and you’re ready to upload. One wonders if people would go to the trouble and expense of developing film, and creating these pieces to present in photo albums for a limited audience. The reason this phenomenon even exists is because digital technology enables it.
In relation to food, the connection can easily be made from internet junk and our disposable culture to the junk food that we consume. An article in Rolling Stone (1983) describes a Burger King wedding, where the bride and groom were so immersed in junk food culture that they were married at the popular fast food outlet.
Society is at the point where we do not care about the crap that we consume, be it in our food, or on our computer screens. We eat our fast food without a thought, just as we quickly glance at these poorly produced images, and mediocrity wins again.
