Jejemon-ism!

CEBU, Philippines - They have crept into text messages, social networking sites, and even some election campaigns. They’re everywhere (or so the haters say). What am I talking about? Well, the JEJEMONS, of course! The so-called “scum of the Internet,” for whom people have been rabidly making hate pages for in the last few weeks. Jejemons, who can’t spell nor type properly to save their lives, have lately been at the receiving end of jokes, snarky comments, and mocking spoofs all over the web.

The term JEJEMON basically stands for JEJE MONSTERS. It describes those who have trouble in spelling, those who have a strange fascination for adding more letters to their words, and those who like to use “JEJEJE” in a text to indicate their laugh.  

Their inability to properly use their keyboards/keypads has also brought forth the birth of the JEJEBUSTERS, or those who claim to hate the jejemons and aim to put a stop in their “infiltration.”

The anti-jejemon sentiment is visible on Facebook and Tumblr, where plenty of posts, pages and photos regarding this trend are uploaded everyday. During the campaign period, it was hard to ignore the edited photos of presidential candidates holding up signs that said they would send Jejemons back to school if ever they were elected into office. There were videos of political ads edited to make it sound like they were a bunch of Jejebusters (this video now has nearly 300,000 views). And who could miss the Facebook fanpages? The most popular one being “Gotta Kill ‘Em All Jejemon!” that has over 200,000 fans. Their fanpage name is obviously derived from the anime Pokemon’s tagline of “Gotta Catch ‘Em All”.

 John Paul Fernandez, a Linguistics major at the University of San Carlos said, “Jejemons are annoying. I think they speak like that because they either don’t know the pronunciation or they’re just bored. But they really are annoying.”

 Jejebusters on Facebook would like to clarify though that there IS a difference between Sticky Keys, Leet Speak, and Jejenese (that’s what you call the Jejemon language).

Sticky keys is when small and big letters are used alternately. Patrick Patalinghug, for one, likes to use this as he finds it more creative. “I find it more stylish to look at words where some are capital letters,” he shared.

Then most of all, Leet Speak is NOT Jejenese. Leet Speak was primarily applied in computer hacking, but now it’s mainly used to taunt newbies in online communities. The Leet writing system has been developed since the 1980s as opposed to Jejenese, which doesn’t have a structured system (not yet) and the spelling is pretty much up to the Jejemon’s discretion.

Patrick shares, “I think (Jejenese) it’s okay, as long as you still know the proper spelling and proper punctuation. Also, you have to consider who you’re writing the message for because some find it annoying.”   

Some do find Jejemons tolerable like Mass Comm student, Hector Diango, who said, “I don’t mind them. Everybody has the right to express themselves anyway.” Very well said. It is a free country, after all.

The sudden loathing for this sector of society is actually surprising. The word Jejemon is new, but as far as I know, these people have been in existence ever since the glorious thing called unlimited text messaging was invented. A couple of years back, I had been victimized by messages from strangers saying, “H3lLoWw, MuzTaH nA u?”

It makes me wonder sometimes if they speak that way because they want to be different or they simply just don’t know how to spell. I couldn’t ask one though, because for people who are infiltrating their “jeje virus” all over, it sure is hard to catch them! Or perhaps, because of all the hate, nobody wants to admit being one.