Books › Because Internet
Because Internet
Understanding the New Rules of Language
493 pages
A joyful, validating deep dive into the hidden grammar and vibrant evolution of our digital lives.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like having a wildly engaging conversation with your smartest, most extremely online friend. It moves at a brisk, scrolling pace, replacing the usual dread of internet discourse with a sunlit, playful curiosity. The mood is deeply validating, especially for anyone who has ever agonized over whether to use a period or an exclamation mark in a text message. The prose is a delightful magic trick, applying rigorous academic linguistics to doge memes and keyboard smashes without ever sounding stuffy. It traces an arc from nostalgic dial-up memories to a profound appreciation for how we connect today. This is a joyful, brain-tickling experience tailor-made for language nerds, digital natives, and anyone fascinated by the messy, beautiful evolution of human communication.
- Mood
- playful
- curious
- nostalgic
- intellectual
- Tone
- enthusiastic
- analytical
- witty
- accessible
- validating
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- evolution of language · digital culture · human connection · generational shifts · democratization of communication
- The writing
- Conversational and sharp, blending rigorous linguistic analysis with the breezy, meme-literate vernacular of the internet itself.
- The arc
- Moves from nostalgic recognition of early internet days to a profound, joyful appreciation for the creativity of modern digital communication.
- Who it's for
- Language nerds, digital natives, and anyone who has ever overthought the punctuation at the end of a text message.
About the book
Because Internet is for anyone who's ever puzzled over how to punctuate a text message or wondered where memes come from. It's the perfect book for understanding how the internet is changing the English language, why that's a good thing, and what our online interactions reveal about who we are.
Language is humanity's most spectacular open-source project, and the internet is making our language change faster and in more interesting ways than ever before. Internet conversations are structured by the shape of our apps and platforms, from the grammar of status updates to the protocols of comments and @replies. Linguistically inventive online communities spread new slang and jargon with dizzying speed. What's more, social media is a vast laboratory of unedited, unfiltered words where we can watch language evolve in real time.
Even the most absurd-looking slang has genuine patterns behind it. Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch explores the deep forces that shape human language and influence the way we communicate with one another. She explains how your first social internet experience influences whether you prefer "LOL" or "lol," why ~sparkly tildes~ succeeded where centuries of proposals for irony punctuation had failed, what emoji have in common with physical gestures, and how the artfully disarrayed language of animal memes like lolcats and doggo made them more likely to spread.
Description from Open Library.
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