Kids now-a-days

That is about what you first get if you are in some sort of group chat where anyone can join.  No ASL doesn’t stand for American Sign Language.  It is the complete and utter lack of courtesy and nothing but discrimination to ask someone Age, Sex and Location before anything else.  This type of thing _might_ be ok on a chat site where you are looking for sex but in a public place?

In Korea, age is vitally important as it is the sole basis for respect.  If you are an older person, the language they use is really different.  I don’t mean typical ‘nice words’, I mean there is a structural difference between  how you say hello to a friend versus how you say hello to a friend who is older than you.  The older generation of Koreans take this very seriously.  If the right words aren’t used, then you are the rudest person in the world.

So, what are the younger (and typically Westerners) so obsessed with this?  What is it about a young person’s mind that says ‘if you aren’t in my age group, you don’t have anything interesting to say’?  Frankly, this is a bit disturbing to see this kind of classification given how open and available people are from around the world.  You never know who wil have just that perfect advice(and God forbid they be someone older and more experienced!) or know where to find exactly what you are looking for because they just saw it on a site yesterday.

Regardless, I tend to have fun with this whenever possible.  Here are a couple of choice, truncated chats I had.

[21:49] <FRIZZI> hi
[21:49] hi
[21:49] name plz?
[21:50] <DragonDon> <— right there :)

Using IRC can be a great source of information and fun.  ’FRIZZI’ doesn’t know enough to protect her identity and when I see your email address and ip address ,it is a simply thing to figure out and even dig up more by using Google.  Now besides this, how is it that someone asks you your name when it is pretty obvious what your name is.  She never said anything else.

[21:53] hi
[21:54] hi
[21:54] asl
[21:55] <DragonDon> sorry, I don’t American Sign Language all the well.  Used to know the alphabet but only remember my name…
[21:56] <abc> who are you
[21:57] Who? Who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a man chatting on IRC with a random stranger at this moment.

Now this is a completely unoriginal nickname.  And behold, the traditional greeting a younger, and ignorant generation, ‘asl?’. A simple right-click, whois and voilà “1993@yahoo.com”, it is a pretty safe bet that she was born in 1993.  So, when she gave me such a great opportunity to use a line from V for Vendetta, I couldn’t resist.  Aparently she could as she never said anything ever again.  Guess she didn’t see the movie.

Kids these days.  Sheesh.