Why is leet speak so popular in gaming culture?

[babinro]

'lel wut a fail urn'

Above is a fairly common example of what I'm trying to refer to. This comes from Twitch on a speed run where the person commenting simply meant 'lol, what a bad speed run'. It's not unique to one individual either as I see plenty of people use lel in place of lol on twitch these days.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the benefits of using shorthand for convenience. lol as a replacement for laughing or commenting that something is funny makes sense. What reason is there to replace it with lawl, lel, lols, lolz, lawlz, or other such terms? Why replace gear with gears? run with urn? the with teh? gold with golds?

Note: The ones that actually contain more characters than the common shorthand or actual words are particularly unusual to me.

I understand that some people use these terms to troll but others make them commonplace in regular conversation. Just off the top of my head I could make up a few reasons without any real basis on why other than pure instinct.

1) Unique terminology is an attempt to stand out in the crowd and give the writer a sense of unique identity.

2) Leet speak could simply be an attempt to garner attention. You want to be heard and tactics like this or using caps are simply tools at your fingertips.

3) Leet speak might have nothing to do with gaming culture at all. It's simply a natural carry over from tweats/texting and the like.

4) Unique terminology helps make gaming culture more tight nit and special. Non-gamers might not understand and this makes your hobby feel more important and personal. Much the same way that you can talk Magic Cards or Sports and easily alienate those who are not in the know.

5) It's cool. I'd hate to think people believe that's the reason but I suppose it's possible. Unusual terminology has always been linked to coolness.

6) I'm just ignorant. lel vs lol or wut vs wat vs wot vs what, all have distinct well known internet meanings and I'm just not aware of their differences or proper usage.

What are you thoughts on the matter?
Does it help or hinder your desire to connect with a games community?

 

[JoJo]

I think it's a mixture of in-joke and laziness, depending on the context. I'll sometimes use 'wat' or 'lulz' light-heartedly and I believe many people do the same. Equally though, there is a certain subset of people who you won't really find on the Escapist that don't use proper grammar or punctuation at-all, I've always assumed that was out of laziness. They probably came first, before everyone else using 'Internet speak' to convey a less serious tone and inventing terms like 'lawl' which take longer to type than the original word.

 

[Remus]

7. The people that misspell "the" or actually expand words originally meant to be used as shorthand are mentally handicapped, a result of poor memory retention from an over-reliance and abuse of smart phones for social interaction. It's people who type like this and the personalities behind those people that are the reason why I recently dropped my WoW subscription and will never look at LoL with even a passing glance.

 

[Fireaxe]

A lot of leet speak is just typos that got made so many times they became a thing (the with teh), also the vowel swapping happens to some extent in the spoken dialogue of pretty much all English speaking countries.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Isn't all just for fun? Half of it is done just to keep the joke running. Like the guy who types "not even close baby" in League chat when he gets out on 1HP. Then he gets effortlessly dived because he's an idiot typing under tower on 1HP. Get rekt, dead lol, top lel.

[sub][sub]Not even close baybeeeeeeeeeee! FUCK![/sub][/sub]

I can't believe people do it out of a burning desire to look cool. People throw "lol" around because it's lost all meaning over time, it's a placeholder to an actual response in a proper text conversation instead of meaning laugh out loud. It's all used in a slightly ironic, non-serious comedic tone I think.

7. The people that misspell "the" or actually expand words originally meant to be used as shorthand are mentally handicapped, a result of poor memory retention from an over-reliance and abuse of smart phones for social interaction. It's people who type like this and the personalities behind those people that are the reason why I recently dropped my WoW subscription and will never look at LoL with even a passing glance.

Steady on there, I think that's just a small overreaction. That's a whole load of specific conclusions you're drawing out of nowhere.

 

[Remus]

Isn't all just for fun? Half of it is done just to keep the joke running. Like the guy who types "not even close baby" in League chat when he gets out on 1HP. Then he gets effortlessly dived because he's an idiot typing under tower on 1HP. Get rekt, dead lol, top lel.

[sub][sub]Not even close baybeeeeeeeeeee! FUCK![/sub][/sub]

I can't believe people do it out of a burning desire to look cool. People throw "lol" around because it's lost all meaning over time, it's a placeholder to an actual response in a proper text conversation instead of meaning laugh out loud. It's all used in a slightly ironic, non-serious comedic tone I think.

7. The people that misspell "the" or actually expand words originally meant to be used as shorthand are mentally handicapped, a result of poor memory retention from an over-reliance and abuse of smart phones for social interaction. It's people who type like this and the personalities behind those people that are the reason why I recently dropped my WoW subscription and will never look at LoL with even a passing glance.

Steady on there, I think that's just a small overreaction. That's a whole load of specific conclusions you're drawing out of nowhere.

Not overreaction. Studies have shown that people who use their smartphones with increased regularity have less than half the memory retention of people that do not, only able to retain 2 items in immediate memory, where the norm pre-smartphones was in fact 5. It's a common test used by neurologists to test cognitive development. Decreased grasp of the English language and therefore usage of language is also quite common. Have you heard some of these kids speak and wondered why they can't speak in full sentences? I grew up in the age of brick-sized cell phones and PCs numbered like 2E, 386, and 486 and I can tell you that the peer group I grew up around were far better spoken than the teenagers today.

Boy I sound old.

 

[Poppy JR.]

Isn't all just for fun? Half of it is done just to keep the joke running. Like the guy who types "not even close baby" in League chat when he gets out on 1HP. Then he gets effortlessly dived because he's an idiot typing under tower on 1HP. Get rekt, dead lol, top lel.

[sub][sub]Not even close baybeeeeeeeeeee! FUCK![/sub][/sub]

Woah. That is a ton of Dunkey you just dropped on me. I can't even wrap my head around it.[footnote] BAKE ME A CAKE. BAKE. ME. A. CAKE. BAKEMEACAKE. [/footnote]

 

[Tayh]

That's leet speak?

1 7|-|0|_|6|-|7 1337 5|934|< \/\/45 7|-|15.

I've always thought of the example in the OP to be 'Noob Speak' - I.e. a shorthand style for stupid people unwilling to improve.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well every new teen group makes up their own slang, online gaming got leet speak.
Still better then "smackin em ***** ass hoes" I find, although you will end up on my ignore lists either way.

 

[shogunblade]

Not overreaction. Studies have shown that people who use their smartphones with increased regularity have less than half the memory retention of people that do not, only able to retain 2 items in immediate memory, where the norm pre-smartphones was in fact 5. It's a common test used by neurologists to test cognitive development. Decreased grasp of the English language and therefore usage of language is also quite common. Have you heard some of these kids speak and wondered why they can't speak in full sentences? I grew up in the age of brick-sized cell phones and PCs numbered like 2E, 386, and 486 and I can tell you that the peer group I grew up around were far better spoken than the teenagers today.

Boy I sound old.

Memory retention, maybe, and I will say I use my Smartphone a little bit more than I like to admit, but as for the English Language? If you read most of my posts, I try to use less internet shorthand due to the fact that most of it gets on my nerves and most people need to knock it off with the shorthand.

I don't know. I suppose I'm the exception that proves the rule.

OT: I find most leet speak aggravating, but sometimes, I will find myself using "Lawl, wot." as a sort of sarcastic comedic jab to something, but this is used by somebody who tries to crowbar in at least one big word within my sentence structures, in hopes that somebody might hear and retain the word for their own vernacular, but I guess that's just me.

 

[Knife]

1 7|-|0|_|6|-|7 1337 5|934|< \/\/45 7|-|15.

This is leet speak.

'lel wut a fail urn'

This is dyslexia.

Please do not confuse the two.

 

[mindfaQ]

What you are mentioning is not leetspeak. What you are mentioning is infantile/juvenile word abstractions and meme-alterations used by trolls and people liking to be a bit (sometimes a bit more..) stupid. Herding is an important aspect in this, as the feeling of belonging to a group of people (that use this kind of 'dialect') is another reward of chosing one's words like this.

1 7|-|0|_|6|-|7 1337 5|934|< \/\/45 7|-|15.

You are correct, kind sir.

 

[Drummodino]

Isn't all just for fun? Half of it is done just to keep the joke running. Like the guy who types "not even close baby" in League chat when he gets out on 1HP. Then he gets effortlessly dived because he's an idiot typing under tower on 1HP. Get rekt, dead lol, top lel.

[sub][sub]Not even close baybeeeeeeeeeee! FUCK![/sub][/sub]

I can't believe people do it out of a burning desire to look cool. People throw "lol" around because it's lost all meaning over time, it's a placeholder to an actual response in a proper text conversation instead of meaning laugh out loud. It's all used in a slightly ironic, non-serious comedic tone I think.

7. The people that misspell "the" or actually expand words originally meant to be used as shorthand are mentally handicapped, a result of poor memory retention from an over-reliance and abuse of smart phones for social interaction. It's people who type like this and the personalities behind those people that are the reason why I recently dropped my WoW subscription and will never look at LoL with even a passing glance.

Steady on there, I think that's just a small overreaction. That's a whole load of specific conclusions you're drawing out of nowhere.

Not overreaction. Studies have shown that people who use their smartphones with increased regularity have less than half the memory retention of people that do not, only able to retain 2 items in immediate memory, where the norm pre-smartphones was in fact 5. It's a common test used by neurologists to test cognitive development. Decreased grasp of the English language and therefore usage of language is also quite common. Have you heard some of these kids speak and wondered why they can't speak in full sentences? I grew up in the age of brick-sized cell phones and PCs numbered like 2E, 386, and 486 and I can tell you that the peer group I grew up around were far better spoken than the teenagers today.

Boy I sound old.

Care to share some of those studies? It's all well and good to claim something like but I'm not inclined to believe it until I see some peer-reviewed, academic papers.

 

[Aussie502]

Leet speak has real world uses. I generally speak leet to my hacker buddies over irc so the FBI can't trace us as we bounce it over 100 IP's. We go offline before they can get a location.

Think of it like shipping channels in the ocean. If 2 boats meet in the middle of the ocean to swap a load of illegal drugs, you have to catch them in real time otherwise there's no evidence of the meeting left behind. No names. No accounts. No records of exchange.

 

[Something Amyss]

I think it's a mixture of in-joke and laziness, depending on the context. I'll sometimes use 'wat' or 'lulz' light-heartedly and I believe many people do the same. Equally though, there is a certain subset of people who you won't really find on the Escapist that don't use proper grammar or punctuation at-all, I've always assumed that was out of laziness. They probably came first, before everyone else using 'Internet speak' to convey a less serious tone and inventing terms like 'lawl' which take longer to type than the original word.

I actually like "lawl" as it sounds like a drawled version of "lol" and I use it for certain purposes.

Laziness is definitely a factor, though, since a lot of these words originated and were popularised by the use of shorthand. This can be a big deal for chat rooms and the like. I could even see it for old school texting, back before everyone and their mother had a touchscreen or full keyboard on their phone.

'lel wut a fail urn'

This is dyslexia.

As a dyslexic, I resent that.

 

[Knife]

'lel wut a fail urn'

This is dyslexia.

As a dyslexic, I resent that.

My apologies, this attempt at writing a sentence would be embarrassing even for a dyslexic person.

 

[StormDragonZ]

I always considered leet speak was used because people who played online multiplayer games couldn't type and play at the same time, so they used shorthand methods. Of course, now with headsets and the ability to talk and play makes it somewhat different now.

At the same time, it's popular? Nowadays, I doubt it.

 

[AldUK]

Is leet speak still even a thing? It used to be everywhere, but in the past few years I've seen very little of it around. Maybe it's just the places on the internet I frequent, but I think that there's definitely more people typing 'correctly' then ever before online. That's not to say stupidity in general has gone down, I just don't see much of the old stereotype kid using leet speak, say compared to 03-09

 

[Tono Makt]

'lel wut a fail urn'

Above is a fairly common example of what I'm trying to refer to. This comes from Twitch on a speed run where the person commenting simply meant 'lol, what a bad speed run'. It's not unique to one individual either as I see plenty of people use lel in place of lol on twitch these days.

What are you thoughts on the matter?
Does it help or hinder your desire to connect with a games community?

...that's what's passing as 1337 speak these days? It looks more like lazy speech. 1337 was far more creative than just trying to spell as simply and phonetically as possible, or to conserve space in text messages. Actually, that's what I think you're talking about - Texting, not 1337. That looks like something you would put in a text when you only had a small number of characters and wanted to say as much as possible. The cranky old man in me would almost say "That's the opposite of 1337, get off of my servers n00b!" but I was always a n00b in 1337 circles.

 

[VanTesla]

Is it that popular? I mean from my perspective the whole L337 speaking culture has died down for quite some time now compare to say when it was first introduced. Mind that I don't delve into the webs as often as way back, but even then you didn't have to delve at all to find it being used almost everywhere...