HISTORY OF JEJEMON
JEJEMON (Tagalog pronunciation: dʒɛdʒɛmon]) is a pop culture phenomenon in the Philippines. According to Urban Dictionary a Jejemon is a person “who has managed to subvert the English language to the point of incomprehensibility.”
The Philippine Daily Inquirer describes Jejemons as a “new breed of hipster who have developed not only their own language and written text but also their own sub-culture and fashion.”
The word Jejemon supposedly originated from online users’ penchant to type in “hehehe” as “jejeje”, either because “jeje” is derived from Spanish, whose speakers denote the interjection as laughter, or because the letters “h” and “j” are beside each other,[1] and that it is appended by “-mon” that came from the Japanese anime Pokémon, with “-mon” meant as “monster,” hence “jeje monsters.”
The origins of short-handed typing was through the short messaging service, in which each text message sent by a cellphone is limited to 160 characters.
As a result, an “SMS language” developed in which words were shortened in order to fit the 160-character limit.
However, some jejemons are not really “conserving” characters; instead, they are lengthening their message.
On April 14, 2010, on a Pinoy Tumblr, a post about vice presidential candidate Jejomar Binay indicated that he was the Jejemon’s preferred vice presidential candidate, complete with a fake poster with him called as “Jejemon Binay.”
Later the use of word jejemon to refer to such people made rounds in various Filipino internet message boards.
Such short-handed language is not limited to Filipinos: Thais use “5555″ to denote “hahahaha,” since the number 5 in Thai language is pronounced as “ha.”
The Jejemons are said to be the new jologs, a term used for Filipinos of the lower income class. The parameters of being classified as a Jejemon are still unclear, and how the different “levels” of “Jejemonism” are reached, although there are named levels such as “mild,” “moderate” and “severe” or “terminal.”
JEJENESE AND JEJEBET
The sociolect of the Jejemons, called Jejenese, is derived from English, Filipino and their code-switched variant Taglish.
Their alphabet, Jejebet, uses the Roman alphabet, including the Arabic numerals and other special characters.
Words are created by rearranged letters in a word, alternating capitalization, over-usage of the letters H, X or Z and mixture of numeric characters and our normal alphabet.
The spelling convention shares similarities with Leetspeak.
EXAMPLES
Filipino: “3ow ph0w, mUsZtAh nA?” translated into Filipino as “Hello po, kamusta na?, translated into English as “Hello, how are you?”
English: “i wuD LLyK tO knOw moR3 bOut u. crE 2 t3ll mE yur N@me? jejejejeje!” translated into English as “I would like to know more about you, care to tell me your name? Hehehehe!”
Imiszqckyuh – means “I miss you”
eEoWpFhUeEhsxz – means “hi/hello”
aQ / aQcKuHh – means “me/ako”
kEo – means “kayo/you(pl.)”
pfHoE / ph0w – “po (word that makes the sentence polite)”
uZtaH? – means “kumusta/how are you?”
lAbqCkyOuHh – means “I love you”
yuHh – means “you”
jAjaJa – garbled words conveying laughter
jeJejE – a variation of jAjaJa; conveys sly laughter
REACTION
Several Facebook fan pages were created both in support and against the group. Celebrities such as Rico Blanco, Alessandra de Rossi, Ces Drilon, and Lourd de Veyra have condemned the wholesale ridicule of the subculture.
Due to the sudden existence of jejemons, ‘Jejebusters’ were created, a group of internet grammar vigilantes, typically Filipinos, dedicating their internet lives towards the eradication of jejetyping and jejemon existence.
YouTube videos were also uploaded parodying the Jejemons, connecting them to the 2010 election campaign. Edited television advertisements of Nacionalista Party proclaiming their disdain, and an edited photograph of Gilberto Teodoro with him holding a sign saying that the Jejemons be “brought back to elementary school” went viral.
In 2010, the Filipino GMA Network broadcasted the situational comedy JejeMom, headlined by Eugene Domingo.
As part of the pre-school year clean-up of schools for the upcoming 2010–11 school year, the Department of Education (DepEd) strongly discourages students from using Jejemon spelling and grammar, especially in text messaging. Communicating with others using Jejemon “language” is said to cause deterioration of young Filipino students’ language skills. (wikipedia)
Meanwhile, this jejemon thing is becoming more and more popular among the young generation.
People are talking about jejemon from DJ’s on radios, social networking sites, TV programs and even comedy bars. Man, it seems that the next great plague I see is the “jejemon invasion.”
I am not particularly so amused with jejemon language. I do not know what jejemon really means more so happy when receiving jejemon text messages and quotes.
I hate when simple things are made to be so complicated just for the fun of it.
Jejemons makes a whole new language especially on sending text messages by using “caps” changing the spelling of words and using lots of punctuation marks.
And example is this that I made over the Jejemon Language Translator:
How are you?
hoW ZAReZU,~ N0h?~
While there are jejemons, there are also youngsters out there who call themselves the jejebusters who wants to end this mind-boggling language that the latter say borders on stupidity more than a fad.
But for all those moms, and people who are really having a hard time reading and translating to regular messages these jejemon text messages; die-hard jejemons came up with a jejemon language translator or what they call “Jologs-inator”.
LOL!
