Academic Rizzlers
Submitted 7 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/cb1c2538-5b84-4864-95a3-692d85f9db15.jpeg
Comments
StrongHorseWeakNeigh@lemmy.world 7 months ago
[deleted]chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Fancy memes
YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Shout out to the midnight gospel for putting that word in my lexicon
Infynis@midwest.social 7 months ago
My fiancée and I were talking about this the other day, and the conclusion we reached was that our language, as it always has, is evolving, and these new phrases are just as valid as anything anyone has said before. People don’t want to accept it, because they think of Internet memes as silly, and that’s where a lot of this language comes from (there’s also racism involved, because, of course there is), but it’s too late. That’s what English is now. Sucks to suck, fam.
glimse@lemmy.world 7 months ago
i’m inclined to side with the initial tweet because I’m not a big fan of memes. I don’t have any data (because I don’t hold this opinion strongly) but it feels like so much more communication today is just references to other things. And I don’t think I believe that memes in academic papers are an “evolution” of the language - I think they’re doing it to get attention.
I’m not saying original statements are inherently better than repeated ones but “meme culture” is just posting the same thing over and over and it feels so…lazy and boring. I really struggle to understand how people enjoy seeing the same joke for the 100th time. As an example, any time a video game or movie introduced a cute animal, you’re guaranteed to see someone oh-so-cleverly add it to the “If anything happens to [name]…” template. Is there really no better way to express that you think an animal is cute? Did you really even want to express it or did you make it for Internet points?
I dunno. I guess I just don’t like the repetition of everything nowadays. It reminds me of a kid I went to school with who could not have a conversation without dropping in several Simpsons quotes…yeah man, I saw the episode and it was funny when Homer said that. It’s not very funny when you say it.
Infynis@midwest.social 7 months ago
The repetition is what allows them to become language, though. Every meme that enters popular culture is essentially a metaphor, and, by being repeated over and over, and only changed slightly, the meaning is taught to the audience, and it evolves into an idiom.
There can be problems with description, precision, and audience knowledge, but that is true of any word or phrase. The difference is just the rapidity at which these new idioms are entering our language. As long as the author is competent, and ensures that there is enough context and relevance in the work, as is already a requirement of proper writing, restricting the use of meme language is unnecessary
wewbull@feddit.uk 7 months ago
…but it feels like so much more communication today is just references to other things.
Shaka, when the walls fell.
xkforce@lemmy.world 7 months ago
A lot of the language you use is a reference to other things. And language evolves precisely because enough people repeatedly used a word or phrase in a new way. It seems that your main criticism of the use of memes in literature is that they “dont feel right” or that you merely dont like where things are going which isn’t a solid rationale for disallowing them any more than people thinking the use of the word literal figuratively somehow makes the figurative use of the word literal “wrong.”
h3rm17@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Thing is, a lot of English expressions come from Shakespeare’s works, the memes of the time. Like, a lot. So communication back then was also references to other things. Now, I agree the scale is different, and now it’s a massime phenomenon with internet and such.
NightAuthor@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I think it’s just not the venue for the language, it’s new and informal, it doesn’t belong in academic papers.
Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Scientific papers should be timeless. Can you imagine the hell of having to research the pop culture and slang of an era just to understand a paper written in it?
petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 months ago
To be fair, I think that’s what the part after the colon was for.
NightAuthor@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Tbf, it wouldn’t be hard to just have an LLM translate it for you.
pimento64@sopuli.xyz 7 months ago
What if language evolves to where the consensus opinion is to gatekeep silliness out of academia though? Evolution cuts both ways, English could theoretically evolve into a fully prescriptivized language like French, and that’s just as valid an evolution.
Infynis@midwest.social 7 months ago
That certainly could happen. It doesn’t seem very likely though, especially since so many different cultures already have their own versions of English, and the main two rarely agree on anything.
luciferofastora@lemmy.zip 7 months ago
I mean, it seems like that’s the cultural push-and-pull depicted here: Some people don’t like it and make that known. If their opinion ends up prevailing and papers containing silliness end up being rejected by the major journals of their field, doctoral comittees etc., eventually the silliness may be driven out and gatekept.
We fans of harmless humour would lament as much as the guy in the OP laments now. We would presumably attempt to encourage silliness, as the guy in the OP does now.
Consensus swinging one way naturally doesn’t magically mean we now have to change our opinions to fit the consensus.
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I’ll do you one better.
Not only is the language itself evolving, but we acquire more and more idioms and jargon as society moves through the industrial age. Right now, english has this playful mishmash of nautical, railroad, and now computing idioms reflecting each technological epoch’s mark on speech over the last 200+ years.
blindsight@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Based.
JayObey711@lemmy.world 7 months ago
German chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote about how we are in a time of change cause the power structures of the world are shifting. He called the chapter about Russia “the empire strikes back”.
AncientFutureNow@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I don’t see any credentials after Michael’s name, so, I’ll side with the published author this time.
Liz@midwest.social 7 months ago
Some people think repping their credentials is conceited. Independent of that, I’m on team do-what-you-want-it’s-your-title-just-make-sure-it’s-descriptive-so-the-reader-still-knows-what-the-article-is-about.
MBM@lemmy.world 7 months ago
As long as you don’t make your title incomprehensible to anyone who isn’t a native English speaker
antidote101@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Incomprehensible now, or 5 years from now?
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I honestly love this approach for eye-grabbing titles to otherwise dull topics.
If there’s a problem, yo I’ll solve it: Application of Large Language Models for resolving deep problem sets.
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 7 months ago
I’m with the first person
nohaybanda@hexbear.net 7 months ago
She got a point
OpenStars@startrek.website 7 months ago
no cap
LucidBoi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
this shit got me reachin for the luger
DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 7 months ago
You realize Lugers were very famously the weapons of the Nazi officer class, and Einstein very famously had to flee Nazi Germany?
fossilesque@mander.xyz 7 months ago
This never gets old