Posted on 09/14/2006 7:49:11 PM PDT by LNewman
By ERIC MORRISON
Cryptic graffiti spray-painted next to a swastika on Juneau's lone synagogue angered and confused many late last month.
Police initially labeled the mark "pp4lyf" as "gang-related graffiti," but to some Internet-savvy youth the tag seems less likely to be a sign of the infiltration of organized hatemongers in Juneau than of the proliferation of an increasingly popular type of computer slang known as "leetspeak."
Leetspeak, or leet, is a computer communication style in which letters are replaced with numbers and symbols to spell or abbreviate phrases and sentences. Although leet is far from new - it is believed to date back to the 1980s when hackers and programmers used it to mask their communication - the lingo has become popular in recent years with the explosion of interactive video games, instant messaging and social networking Web sites.
"It's just kind of a nerdy way to spell things, kind of like a code, where other people might not be able to see what you're saying," 20-year-old videogame buff Tyler "jiggyfly" Hamblin said.
When rearranged into leet, which derives from the word "elite," sentences can appear to the untrained eye as a series of numbers and symbols randomly thrown together. But to the experienced leet speaker the communication style is not much different than a virtual rendition of pig Latin. For example, the term "leetspeak" can be altered to read "!337$p3@k" in one of the many variations.
"Once you get to a certain level, it's pretty easy to understand what everyone is trying to say," Hamblin said. "Once you can see that the numbers stand for different letters or different symbols stand for different things, it's pretty easy to break it out and see the different words."
A lot of kids learn to type using leetspeak on the World Wide Web, so some think it will alter the use of language for an entire generation, 23-year-old Micah Sommers said.
"They feel it's corrupted our youth because they are not learning to type properly, but it all depends on who uses it," he said.
In nearly a dozen years of teaching, University of Alaska Anchorage English professor Jeff White said he hasn't noticed people's grammar becoming worse than before the recent boom in Internet communication.
"I wouldn't say that it's going to dumb down society," he said. "I think it's a natural adaptation of communication to a new medium."
People generally know when to use leetspeak and who to use it with, White said.
"I think people know what boundaries are appropriate for this kind of communication," he said. "You don't swear when you're around your grandma, is how it is to me."
Leet, commonly referred to on the World Wide Web by the number 1337, has been particularly popular in the last decade with video games such as Doom, Counter-Strike and World of Warcraft. Local Area Network parties, in which multiple "gamers" link computers together for virtual battles that can last for days, has kept the communication style popular for years. Some say it has led to the virtual language bleeding into popular culture.
"Leetspeak definitely keeps evolving," 22-year-old Mark "r4cackus" Rackley said. "Depending on what types of games you play, there's different types of leetspeak and gaming lingo too."
Rackley, Hamblin and a number of other Juneau residents gather for LAN parties, where leetspeak and general gamer slang is often used to communicate elements of the game, to spurt out friendly insults or to assert one's dominance.
"Mostly we kind of make up words that address something inside of the game," 24-year-old Shane "Jamesbomb" Mangold said.
Own3d, for "victory," ph33r, for "fear," and n00b, for "newbie," have become part of the popular gaming lexicon.
Leetspeak has become more and more popular with nongamers in recent years, 20-year-old Kyle "firecut" Petersen said.
"I think it's kind of rubbed off to other people," he said. "I've heard of people I'm pretty sure aren't gamers use these words and it's like, 'holy crap, you know what that means?'"
Leet is continuing to increase in popularity due to the abbreviated communication possibilities with new technologies, such as hand-held messaging devices, said Charles Pluta, a Web designer based in Augusta, Ga.
"It is now transforming from the underground online games to the public cell phone-using communities, and as far as Wal-Mart using leet on their signs to draw in cell phone customers," Pluta said. "Because of this, I believe leet is still growing and has yet to reach its peak."
Leetspeak also has been growing in popularity with the burgeoning social networking sites, such as myspace.com.
"A lot of what kids are doing on the Internet is related to social posturing and social positioning," said Nancy Willard, executive director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, based in Eugene, Ore. "I think this is another part of that because it's kind of a way of connecting with each other in sort of a social status sort of situation."
Worries that leetspeak is a secret code used by teenagers to outwit their parents has led to the creation of multiple online primers by reputable corporations such as Microsoft.
"I think that's kind of blown out of proportion," Rackley said. "It's not a secret language. It's just a reorganization of numbers and symbols replacing letters to make words."
Children should have the freedom to communicate online as long as they are not using the Internet for risky behavior, Willard said. Children are most likely to be vulnerable to risks on the Internet because of other problems at home or school, she said.
"If your kid is at risk, your kid is going to be more at risk online," Willard said.
Parents need to stay involved with their kids' Internet use from a caring perspective rather than a surveillance perspective, she said.
"Part of the challenge for parents is to find a way to become a part of this world to make sure your child is acting in accord with good family values - the kind of values and behaviors you want your child to demonstrate," Willard said.
Police have yet to make an arrest in the synagogue graffiti case but the departments has been "pursuing some leads that have come in," Capt. Jerry Nankervis said.
One of the leads has pointed police in the direction of a group of local teenagers who have used the "pp4lyf" term on their myspace.com Web pages.
Whether the graffiti is derived from leetspeak or not remains to be seen.
Regardless: #473 5'/AA8()[_5 4¨3 [_4AA3
(Hate symbols are lame.)
I may never know what 8008135 means. Let me know if you're feeling generous to those of us who are "impaired." :)
Boobles?
= BOOBIES
3phphin9 i!!i+3r8s, 50d '3m a!!
Try putting that number into a calculator.
Ha! Not so you'd notice.
I ain't got the @@ for this type of language.
LOL!!!
You did it! ;)
Heck, I'm impressed you knew where to lay hands on a calculator at this hour.
Heh, "boobles"? It's never something quite that innocent when it comes to geeks and their leetspeak...
Thanks for the assist!
for a calculator you want 5318008 and turn it upside down.
That's a k33p3r!!
(sorry ... couldn't help it ... loosing controoolllll ... arrrgh ... pfssst ...)
Quick learner I see :-D.
I got the effin illierates .. the rest was beyond me .. .. what the hell is sod?
It's much too late for that - the public schools got there first...
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