On 2/25/2012 9:00 PM, Charles Haynes wrote:
O RLY?
YA VERILY
Why does social signalling matter? One geek conceit is that only the semantic content matters, and that the message is the medium. Non-geeks find this amusingly naive verging on childish.
Us geeks are (stereotypically) not very good at reading signals. If you are blind to an entire range of signals, of course you are likely to discount their importance. Also, a lot of signalling is not inherent, and takes practice to learn, detect and apply. Non-geeks spend a lot more time doing this, I suspect.
One side-effect is that when geeks attempt textual signalling techniques such as dry irony, they overdo it to the point where readers assume they're being completely sincere. This happens to me far too often, and I really should know better by now.
-Taj.
