ANO bA yAng JeJeMON nA Yan?!

Strict definition: Jejemons are individuals with low IQs who spread around their idiocy on the web by tYpFing Lyk diZS jejejeje, making all people viewing their profile raise their eyebrows out of annoyance. Normal people like you and me must take a Bachelor of Arts in Jejetyping in order to understand said individuals, as deciphering their text would cause a lot of frustration and hair pulling. CAUTION: THESE INDIVIDUALS ARE BREEDING! THEY CAN BE SEEN WRECKING GRAMMATICAL HAVOC ON FACEBOOK TOO!"

What I don’t like about this definition is that it reeks of malice and bigotry against individuals who are different from others. There’s also a definition number 2, but I refuse to quote it because it is very racist and homophobic, practically labeling jejemons as idiots. My feeling is, if you need to get another bachelor’s degree and you are always frustrated when you read jejemon text, maybe it is the reader who is really the idiot here?

For the sake of discussion (actually, it’s the academician in me) let us define some jejemon terminologies according to www.urbandictionary.com.

* A jejebuster is a grammar vigilante, typically Filipino, dedicating his Internet life towards the eradication of jejetyping and jejemon existence.

* A jejemonster is a person who writes and types words in a different form or style.

* Jejetyping is:

1. A form of typing used by jejemons to communicate with one another
2. One way of abusing your computer keyboard’s Caps Lock and Shift buttons
3. One way of butchering the Filipino language by typing in unnecessary letters in Filipino words and typing them in a way that only jejemons can.

* Jejenese is the language used by the jejemons and jejemonster.

* And a grammar Nazi is a person who uses proper grammar at all times, especially online in emails, chat rooms, instant messages and web board posts; in other words, a proponent of grammatical correctness and often, one who spells correctly as well. A grammar Nazi is a very close ally of the jejebuster.

Poet Roberto T. Añonuevo, a Palanca Hall of Famer, has this alternative reading of the jejemon phenomenon: for him, jejemon is an anti-establishment movement. It was invented in order to subvert the power of authority. It developed into a sub-culture in order for a group of people to fight the dominant class by creating a new language which is really a code, he says.

A subversive movement by whom? According to him, by spammers and hackers—all IT experts—who want to control the world. Jejetype is nothing but a set of codes understandable only to jejemons, just like Morse Code which can only be understood by radio operators. I cannot help but think of all those “IT experts" hired by politicians who lost in the last election in order to “probe and prove" that there was indeed election fraud in the first automated election of the country, much to the chagrin of the very handsome, despite being so harassed, Cesar Flores of Smartmatic. Maybe these IT experts are really top-rank jejemons out to play with the Comelec?