Whether they’re trying to identify a cute classmate or looking for evidence of ribaldry at a recent party, students who log onto Myspace and Facebook are usually looking for photos of some sort. So when images on those sites start showing up as red X’s, there are bound to be some complaints, as officials at Northern Kentucky University have learned.
For about a week, students at the university have reported that they can’t see images on Myspace and Facebook when they log on from campus computers. The sudden absence of images has mystified campus officials, who say they haven’t done anything to restrict students’ use of the popular Web sites. (The Northerner)
14 Responses to A Faceless Facebook
richarddeu - January 30, 2012 at 9:01 am
In 1976, an Australian woman asked me, “Why do Americans use ‘really’ so much”? Perhaps the age of folly and snark began decades ago.
philipleis - January 30, 2012 at 9:57 am
If “really” is chicken pox, then “you know” is cancer.
mbelvadi - January 30, 2012 at 10:46 am
“Seriously?” is definitely much older than a few years and certainly predates Gray’s Anatomy. I remember hearing it and using it “snarkily” back in the 80s.
Nancy Friedman - January 30, 2012 at 12:08 pm
Less than five minutes after reading this post I clicked over to Eric Zorn’s Jan. 27 Chicago Tribune blog post. The lede, in its entirety: “Saul Alinsky, really?” http://bit.ly/Ad2RoR
BTW, the “O RLY” internet meme antedates the SNL catchphrase by about four years. See Know Your Meme:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/o-rly
terrymurray - January 30, 2012 at 1:01 pm
Then what is “like”?
dank48 - January 30, 2012 at 2:14 pm
You think “Really?” is overused, hunh? Really?
Some of us ancients recall its ubiquity in the ’60s. Among the features I for one don’t miss is the (deliberately) irritating pronunciation “Rilly?” with just the intonation you describe, so commonly that it was spelled that way in Zap Comix somewhere.
“Like,” it seems to me, is plague.
jffoster - January 30, 2012 at 3:57 pm
Infantile paralysis?
dheidenreich - January 30, 2012 at 7:01 pm
The wonderful Fred Zinneman film of A Man for All Seasons won many Academy Awards in 1966. It includes a scene between Leo McKern (playing Thomas Cromwell) and a very young John Hurt (a weasely Richard Rich). In response to Cromwell’s question to Rich about Rich’s willingness to “repeat or report” something that someone else had said, Rich said that he would not repeat or report anything said in friendship. Cromwell replies, as only Leo McKern could reply, ”Seriously, Rich,” and when Rich reaffirms his statement, Cromwell intones in a deeper, rumbling voice, “Rich–Seriously!” At this point Rich somewhat sheepishly acknowledges, “It would depend what I was offered.”
jeffstevens61 - January 30, 2012 at 7:31 pm
The problems with “like” and “really” are pervasive and long lasting. The latest one is “basically.” It means sort of when the students say it. They do not mean fundamentally as the word should. It is a tic that prevents the students from owning their ideas. I ban it in my class.
Guest - January 30, 2012 at 7:41 pm
Thanks to dheidenreich for coming up with a counter example to what I suspected was an unlikely claim from Ben Yagoda. I was sitting here looking at this blog/post/page wondering if I would bother to respond without proof positive.
Let me recommend a charming book by Daniel Kahneman, _Thinking, Fast and Slow_. Look particularly at Chapters 12 and 13 on “the availability bias.” I suspect Yagoda underestimates the likelihood of “really” and “seriously” because Jon Stewart’s schtick is so prevalent.
It is certainly possible for a non-specialist to write a short essay about the prevalence of “Really?” The rhetorically parsimonious thing to do would be to wonder aloud or query the assembled for counter examples.
The fact that an expression is pervasive now does not mean that it did not exist in the past. Absence of proof is not proof of absence, as they say.
”Oh really?” ”I’m pretty sure, although I could be wrong.”
Guest - January 30, 2012 at 7:46 pm
Thanks for the counter example. Once people know to look for them, my guess is they will become plentiful.
Guest - January 30, 2012 at 8:04 pm
_American Heritage Dictionary_ :”basic … Of, relating to, or forming a base: fundamental.”
You’re going to end up teaching the wrong lesson. The list of proscriptions is so long that no sane person could manage to keep them in mind and write anything longer than a grocery list.
Such prohibitions remind me of the apocryphal student who asked, “How can you call X a cliche? I hear it all the time.”
theart - February 1, 2012 at 2:28 pm
It’s our culture of exceptionalism. Everything must be to the very utmost.
dank48 - February 2, 2012 at 2:27 pm
Actually, what actually bothers me more than “really” or “seriously” is “actually.” I mean, I actually hear people actually use it in contexts where there’s actually no possibility of nonactuality at all. It’s actually right up there with “honestly”: one wonders what its absence should be understood to imply.