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22/01/08 The Language of “Bebo Me”
SINGAPORE - “Can I ask you a question?”…”Emm I’m in a rush, Bebo Me” they’d shout back as they ran down the corridor. Possibly up for ‘most over-used phrase of the year’ award for its use by youth in Ireland.
Why is it popular? Because it’s adolescents own language, and as we found out while developing programme for theMafikeng.com back in 2000 - giving youth their own private language is vital to success of any youth directed service. I built an early social network on that domain which brought the 2hr Friday night youth gathering to 4hrs a night of JPLC private messaging, EA photo sharing, QM structured discussion boards about “Apollo, Zeus, Tsunami, Hades, Lhotse, Initium” and self-monitoring of their own syllabus, or the “Frontier, Explorer, Dushlán, Impessa Silly-Buses” as we called them.
We decided it was important that…
- their parents can’t understand any of it, and never explain it to them,
- it has no similarities to any phrase the least cool people on the planet (their parents) use,
- it confuses other people,
- it gives them a sense of belonging,
- it could sound like bad language or slang,
- it’s a short word, so it is the nickname for itself already,
- it gives them a sense of individuality by using it.
Bebo did this and did it very well.
“Write on my Wall”, “Add me to your top friends”, “Check out my flashbox”, “Did you take my Quiz?”, “who’s the other half of you?” - now common youth terminology that their parents don’t understand and Bebo just keeps coming out with new ones making them discover, learn and be first to adopt.
Yah, yah…Where’s the proof?
I noticed one section of Bebo get moved to a less prominent place in every revision. With all my time on the site i’ve seen it rarely used by any youth profiles - it’s the section called, wait for it, “My Blog”.
But hold on, blogging is huge! It was the year of the blog! Why aren’t the kids blogging like us? There’s your answer - because you do it and you’re an adult.
Had Bebo themed it “My Not-So-Secret Diary” maybe it would have gained some adoption. Besides - who wants to write outside of school anyway, “Gawd Bebo, oh come onnnn like!”.
-Robin.
(Image Credit: New languages and themes are fun… Chinese New Year preparations are full steam ahead here in Chinatown, Singapore. By Author.)
(Updated: ‘Lanaguage’ spelling mistake in title. Ironic!)
3 Comments
Would have to agree with ya there Robin. The term ‘blog’ has become way too mainstream for it to fit with teen culture.
14/03/08 Robin Blandford [ ByteSurgery.com - Digital Media Engineering ] » Blog Archive » Microblogging - @Symbolic #Language
[...] - I wrote a post last month about “The Language of Bebo” and how giving youth their own private language is vital to success of any youth directed service. [...]
its crap how we cant get on bebo at school to be fair x
