Q&A With Natasha: Why Brackets?
Sep. 16th, 2009 02:53 amFor lack of anything else to put here, here's a random post.
Natasha: Why do you surround your action text in IMs with brackets ([]) instead of asterisks (**) like everyone else?
In the 14 years or so that I've been doing this, I don't recall anyone ever asking this directly, but I feel like answering it anyway, 'cause I'm in a silly mood. And, I have had people express brief confusion about it. In case you never noticed, I've always used brackets when I insert an action into my IMs, instead of the standard asterisks, like this: [hugs everyone who reads this]
The answer is simple; the very first people I talked to on the internet did it that way. My very first exposure to online chat came in the form of an obscure Canadian-based teen chat room when I was 10. I forget how I found it (probably Yahoo Directory), and the site no longer exists, but it was highly active and free of trolls, at a time when a chatroom could exist without mods and still be usable. It was lots of fun, even though I usually lied my little ass off about who I was.
Anyway, they were using a proprietary system which didn't recognize the now-standard /me for actions, it recognized brackets for them. I don't know why they chose brackets, but they did. But, given my slow typing speed (I didn't learn to type properly until high school) combined with my abject refusal to use chat-speak abbreviations, I rarely said anything that wasn't of some importance, so I never really used any actions.
Fast-forward to when I was about 14, when I discovered AIM. I only had one person I talked to on it, and he introduced me to online RP, where actions in text are commonplace. And, he used brackets for actions. At the time, I assumed it was because that was just the de-facto standard for everyone, and never really thought about it. Plus, I was quite familiar with the use of asterisks to denote bold text in plain-text documents by that point, and never considered their use for anything else.
I don't know who I first saw use asterisks for actions, but I remember it threw me for a loop because I thought it was something unique to that person. As time went on, I noticed more and more people using asterisks for actions, until a few years ago when I realized that first AIM contact I had was the only other person I'd ever talked to use used brackets for actions like I do. By that point, brackets were such an automatic response for me that the idea of changing never occurred to me, although I did pick up /me somewhere in there.
And, well, that's it. Recently, I've started trying to train myself to switch to asterisks, because I think they're cuter, but considering how long I've been doing things the other way, it's not an easy conversion.
If you've read this far, congrats, you've watched me put way too much thought into my IM habits. I thought this post was kinda interesting, but I doubt anyone else will.
...Now that I'm at the end of the page, I just remembered what I was supposed to write about today: My hiking trip. Umm, oops? I'll post about it tomorrow, I promise :-P
Natasha: Why do you surround your action text in IMs with brackets ([]) instead of asterisks (**) like everyone else?
In the 14 years or so that I've been doing this, I don't recall anyone ever asking this directly, but I feel like answering it anyway, 'cause I'm in a silly mood. And, I have had people express brief confusion about it. In case you never noticed, I've always used brackets when I insert an action into my IMs, instead of the standard asterisks, like this: [hugs everyone who reads this]
The answer is simple; the very first people I talked to on the internet did it that way. My very first exposure to online chat came in the form of an obscure Canadian-based teen chat room when I was 10. I forget how I found it (probably Yahoo Directory), and the site no longer exists, but it was highly active and free of trolls, at a time when a chatroom could exist without mods and still be usable. It was lots of fun, even though I usually lied my little ass off about who I was.
Anyway, they were using a proprietary system which didn't recognize the now-standard /me for actions, it recognized brackets for them. I don't know why they chose brackets, but they did. But, given my slow typing speed (I didn't learn to type properly until high school) combined with my abject refusal to use chat-speak abbreviations, I rarely said anything that wasn't of some importance, so I never really used any actions.
Fast-forward to when I was about 14, when I discovered AIM. I only had one person I talked to on it, and he introduced me to online RP, where actions in text are commonplace. And, he used brackets for actions. At the time, I assumed it was because that was just the de-facto standard for everyone, and never really thought about it. Plus, I was quite familiar with the use of asterisks to denote bold text in plain-text documents by that point, and never considered their use for anything else.
I don't know who I first saw use asterisks for actions, but I remember it threw me for a loop because I thought it was something unique to that person. As time went on, I noticed more and more people using asterisks for actions, until a few years ago when I realized that first AIM contact I had was the only other person I'd ever talked to use used brackets for actions like I do. By that point, brackets were such an automatic response for me that the idea of changing never occurred to me, although I did pick up /me somewhere in there.
And, well, that's it. Recently, I've started trying to train myself to switch to asterisks, because I think they're cuter, but considering how long I've been doing things the other way, it's not an easy conversion.
If you've read this far, congrats, you've watched me put way too much thought into my IM habits. I thought this post was kinda interesting, but I doubt anyone else will.
...Now that I'm at the end of the page, I just remembered what I was supposed to write about today: My hiking trip. Umm, oops? I'll post about it tomorrow, I promise :-P