Hunting the leviathan online refers to the act of figuring out which behaviors are okay, and which are not in online spaces. It is about finding out what the results will be if you don't conform to the social norm; in everyday life, the Leviathan could be a cop arresting you for breaking a law, in face-to-face conversation it could be the raised eyebrow, and in CMC, it could be a multitude of things. The Leviathan serves to modify people's behavior - getting the raised eyebrow, or some other subtle sign of distate, means that you are doing something abnormal and not conforming to societal norms.
One common online norm is to type using as many abbriviations as possible (i.e., lol, brb, lmao, ttyl, ect.). This is prevelent in instant messaging, chat rooms, forums, text-messages, and even emails. The use of such abbreviations has become understood as the spoken language in these online spaces and can be seen even in pop culture. The well-known Cingular commercial with the teen girl texting her friends and talking to her mom in these CMC abbreviations ("idk, my bff Jill") plays off this shortened language. In the newer version of the commercial, even the grandma is texting her friends and speaking in this code of sorts ("myob, will ya?" and "idk, my bff Rose").
People have come to know and follow this norm because of its prevelence in online spaces. When people first started using abbreviations, it was just a quick and easy way to get across a feeling (lol = laughing out loud), opinion (nbd = no big deal), or message (g2g, ttyl = got to go, talk to you later). Even shortened version of single words (u = you, or ur = your) became the social norm because of ease and speed. Now, however, people type so quickly that two or three more letters would make no difference in how long it took to type their message. So why do people still talk in abbreviations? Because it has become the online language, the accepted and understand form of communication in online spaces.
The Leviathan is the power that enforces our adherence to society's norms and standards. If people were to break away from this norm and type out full and grammatically complete sentences (gasp!), they may recieve weird reactions ("y r u typing so much?"), the online version of the raised eyebrow, in response. In a chat room, the penalty for typing full sentences could be not being able to keep up with the fast paced, synchronous conversation. Once you have finished typing out a response to someone's comment, the conversation has already branched off in 3 or 4 different directions. In an IM, taking long to type because of not using abbreviations could result in questioning from your friend: "hey whered u go? r u still there?" Although it is unlikely that people online would specifically shun you for using full sentences ("ew what a n00b - im not tlking 2 her"), the subtle enforcment of this social norm would be the need to keep up with the conversation.
This need to follow the social norm is directly related to Wallace's ideas of conformity. Although a person may be well educated and fully capable of typing complete sentences, they may change their typing behavior in order to be more similar to the people around them. By conforming and using abbreviation language, people may feel more accepted by their peers or feel more like a part of the group. They also avoid feeling inferior from the Leviathan. This particular social norm is learned through experience; it wasn't determined by one person, but instead has evolved and changed for decades.
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First of all, great idea to link to the Cingular commercial. I suspect that the “idk, my bff, Jill?” phrase will quickly sneak into our jokes. It's a good point that typing out an entire word would rarely take a significant amount of additional time over the online abbreviation in CMC, yet we still use them. In text messages now, T9 word often guesses your word faster than you could type the abbreviation.
Now that we cannot truly claim these abbreviations as time savers, we must truly call them part of our online culture. In fact, I've recently heard some people start to use these in face to face interactions as well, further cementing them into our vocabulary. The Cingular commercial also reinforces the idea that online slang is a product of the younger generation. The commercial plays off this assumption when the grandma humorously adds, “idk, my bff rose?”
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