Griffin Smith (LiveX^5)
Introduction to Anthropology and Culture 12:00-1:15
Papavasiliou
11/15/2011
Ethnography 2

Linguistics 444 Life

With the ever-increasing globalization of the world today, there exists this common idea that all

of the cultures contained within it are, in fact, homogenizing; This, we are coming to discover, is a

fallacy. The reality is this natural push towards homogeneity is catalyzing an inverse relationship to

culture. It is effectively causing cultures to diverge, subdivide, and in some instances, the complete

creation of new cultures. Today, the common global public space is the internet, and with its

exponential expansion, you are seeing an ever-increasing expansion of forums for these subcultures at a

rate that exceeds the rate at which these cultures are created. One such major cultural domain found

here is one for gamers. Virtual gaming is now several decades old. Accordingly, it has produced now

thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands of games. One such game, released in 1999 as a computer

console game, is named Kingpin: Life of Crime. This is a multiplayer, first person shooter or FPS

game. It is not amongst the first generation of FPS's, but it is an older game, and at the time of its

inception, it gained popularity amongst a very particular group of people, people who relish in the

risque, perverse, and out of the ordinary. Kingpin, in a sense, was a one of a kind game at the time, as it

contained explicit content, built around the virtualization of mobster culture; Things such as coarse

language built into the game play was one such common feature which attracted this group of people.

There is also a nostalgic component to the appeal of the game. It maintained its appeal with many

players well after gaming technology had advanced forward, as it used a format, an engine based off of

the game, Quake 2, a game which had a game play style that remained near and dear to many gamers'

hearts. Like many games an eventual forum was created for the players of this game. This included

threads specific to the game itself, but became a venue for humor and free speech not widely seen

anywhere else in the world. Eventually, this forum, now known as kpforum.net, has expanded to an

egalitarian venue for anyone interested in “1980's era entertainment, music, movie clips, classic

console gaming, and humor.” It is still a venue for the original Kingpin game, but now that there is only

a handful of gamers left, so it has expanded its doors to players of other games such as Left for Dead,

Left for Dead 2, Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty 5, and Tetris for NES. It is evident, after several years

in existence, kpforum.net stands as a shining beacon of light to all persons interested in the perverse,

profane, satirical, and eccentric. A front line for the harsh critics to anyone and everyone. In this unholy

arena, absurdity and failure is exposed and humorously criticized on a global scale.

This forum has created its own unique speech community. Surprising to some that you might

find any sort of rules or systems of conformity amongst this site, as its participants constitute the

miscreants, outcasts, slackers, and deviants of society. However, the unconscious communal choice to

conform to these linguistic standards lies in this knowledge that everyone in this community shares this

common bond of social status. They choose to buy into it because it is their own particular brand of

language, largely based around their common goal, satirizing and demeaning others. It should be noted,

however, that most who exist outside this social status, do not typically understand this mentality.

Ostensibly, it appears mean-spirited, but myself being a part of this community, I can attest that

underneath it purely exists just some good natured ribbing; There isn't necessarily a component of pure

malice associated with it. This ribbing or ridiculing, so to speak, is particularly prevalent when

criticizing one another. Here are two examples: The first and most prevalent use of a unique linguistic

in their dialect is using “444 life” to connote an extreme enthusiasm and support for something. In

this world of constant disappointment and lackluster, the occasional emergence of something profound

or novel is celebrated in a glorious fashion. i.e. Kingpin 444 Life! Another example is the use of the

term, “ERROE.” Once again, as failure is celebrated and ridiculed in abundance on this website, the

history behind this term might be the quintessential example. The story goes that within the

programming of Kingpin, there was an error which evolved into one on multiple levels. According to

an avid game player of the game, if you typed in the word “ERROR” into the command prompt of the

game, the game would automatically abort you, however, to the other players, it showed

up that you were unplugged or were disconnected. Because of this extraordinarily convenient feature,

it was widely used, as you could abort your game if you were losing badly, while at the same time

saving face as you could always write it off to a loss of connection. The way the actual term “ERROE,”

came about was in one instance of game play, one of the players was losing horribly, so in an attempt to

abort the game promptly, he quickly entered in the prompt. However, in his haste, he must of

accidentally typed the word “ERROE” instead of “ERROR,” so instead of aborting him from the game,

his blunder just showed up as text in the game as exactly that...”ERROE.” It was in a sense a failure

upon a failure, so ever since this magnificent blunder, the word “ERROE” has been used by other

contributors to the forum in their threads whenever someone's failure is to be highlighted. Much like

“444” is enthusiasm and greatness to the next level, “ERROE” is its equivalent failure.

The language used on kpforum.net is not a pure language, it is a code-switched language,

incorporating components of the English language also into its unique dialect; Perhaps, even other

languages as there are many non-American players and contributors where English is not their native

language. However, typically these individuals are ridiculed for their improper usage of the English

language when an attempt is made and used incorrectly. In summary, it can be said that the unique

speech community of kpforum is a perfect amalgam of values and linguistics. If the common bond

between all contributors of kpforum.net is ridicule and humor, every word, thus far, created by this

community has carried a connotation to further fortify this bond.