#hbmmaster

[hbmmaster]

playing balatro, I keep quoting "what if it IS the same suit?" from the intro cutscene for pig's tail in clubhouse games 51 worldwide classics to myself. it comes up surprisingly often

#hbmmaster #balatro #clubhouse games 51 worldwide classics

[morphimus]

what, no dedicated tag for Golden Gaytime posts? disappointed

You're so right. Adding the tag now.

#ask #hbmmaster #golden gaytime #tagging

[olors64]

lol twitter purgatory

#thread simulator #this is an automated process #twitter #jan misali #hbmmaster #boltman

[chongoblog]

Velma taught me that the real monsters were people all along and if that isn't deep I don't know what is

#hbmmaster do NOT interact

[timeflow]

holy shit, did the way that no note posts change? when I click the notes I can see all the people who liked a particular reblog of the post which is not how it worked before

#like mine has 1 because noel tortilla-bandit liked it but hbmmaster who I reblogged it from has 40 because there's 40 likes #groundbreaking if true #tumblr

[noaestheticacademic]

On the Identity of "Chat"

Like all the linguistics folks on Tumblr, I've been sent the "chat is a fourth person pronoun" post by a bunch of well-meaning people and and I've been thinking waaay too much about it. @hbmmaster made a wonderful post explaining exactly why "chat" ISN'T a fourth person pronoun, and after reading it I wanted to go a little deeper on what it might actually be doing linguistically, because it is a really interesting phenomenon. Here's a little proposal on what might be going on, with the caveat that it's not backed up by a sociolinguistic survey (which would be fun but more than I could throw together this morning).

On Pronouns

Studying linguistics has been really beneficial for me because understanding that language is constantly changing helped me to become comfortable with using they/them pronouns for myself. I've since done a decent amount of work with pronouns, and here are some basic ideas.

A basic substitution test shows that "chat" is not syntactically a pronoun: it can't be replaced with a pronoun in a sentence.

"Chat, what do we think about that?"

"He*, what do we think about that?" (* = ungrammatical, a native speaker of English would think it sounds wrong)

Linguists identify pronouns as bundles of features identifying the speaker, addressee, and/or someone outside the current discourse. So, a first person pronoun refers to the speaker, a second person pronoun refers to the addressee, and a third person pronoun refers to someone who is neither the speaker nor the addressee (but who is still known to the speaker and addressee). This configuration doesn't leave a lot of room for a "fourth" person. But the intuition people have that "chat" refers to something external to the discourse is worth exploring.

Hypothesis 1: Chat is a fourth-person pronoun.

We've knocked this one right out.

Hypothesis 2: Chat is an address term.

So what's an address term? These are words like "dude, bro, girl, sir" that we use to talk to people. In the original context where "chat" appears - streamers addressing their viewers - it is absolutely an address term. We can easily replace "chat" with any of these address terms in the example sentence above. It's clear that the speaker is referring to a specific group (viewers) who are observing and commenting on (but not fully participating in) the discourse of the stream. The distinction between OBSERVATION and PARTICIPATION is a secret tool that will come in handy later.

But when a student in a classroom says "wow chat, I hate this," is that student referring to their peers as a chat? In other words, is the student expecting any sort of participation or observation by the other students of their utterance? Could "chat" be replaced with "guys" in this instance and retain its nuance? My intuition as a zillenial (which could be way off, please drop your intuitions in the comments) is that the relationship between a streamer and chat is not exactly what the speaker in this case expects out of their peers. Which brings me to...

Hypothesis 3: chat is a stylistic index.

What's an index in linguistics? To put it very simply, it's anything that has acquired a social meaning based on the context in which it's said. In its original streaming context, it's an address term. But it can be used in contexts where there is not a chat, or even any group of people that could be abstracted into being a chat. Instead, people use this linguistic structure to explicitly mimic the style which streamers use.

And that much seems obvious, right? Of course people are mimicking streamers. It doesn't take a graduate degree to figure that out. What's interesting to me is why people choose to employ streaming language in certain scenarios. How is it different from the same sentence, minus the streamer style?

This all comes down to the indexicality, or social meaning, of streamer speak. This is where I ask you all to take over: what sorts of attitudes and qualities do you associate with that kind of person and that kind of speech? I think it has to do with (here it comes!) the PARTICIPANT/OBSERVER distinction. By framing speech as having observers, a speaker takes on the persona of someone who is observed - a self-styled celebrity. To use "chat" is to position oneself as a celebrity, and in some cases even to mock the notion of such a position. We can see a logical path from how streamers use "chat" as an address term to how it is co-opted to reference streamer culture and that celebrity/observer relationship in non-streaming mediated discourse. If we think about it that way, then it's easy to see why the "fourth person pronoun" post is so appealing. It highlights a discourse relationship that is being invoked wherein "chat" is not a group but a style.

#chat #linguistics #pronouns #discourse

[janmisali]

is jperm you too?

nobody is me except me and hbmmaster

[ryunumber]

Two Years of Ryu Numbers (on tumblr dot com)

Hi!

July 14th marked two years of running this novelty blog. As with last time, I'll be taking a week off (that I would have taken around the 14th if I could keep my dates straight) for a bit of a breather. I'll still be around to answer questions that don't require that much research, but regular posting will resume on August 7.

Thank you for two years of Ryu Numbers (on tumblr dot com)!

(more below)

I don't particularly have much to add besides that everything I said last year still holds. It's still true that the only reason I've been making posts near daily for two years is that people keep sending in requests, correcting my mistakes, and Engaging with the Content™, so whether you've been sticking around or just getting a small kick out of seeing this blog's posts every now and then: hey, I think that's neat of you to do. For your sake, I hope this blog continues to be a bit amusing in some shape and/or form.

I did open up submissions in the past year, and while I'm fairly certain about 50% of the time people are using that as a second request form (it's not, and those get deleted), a few people were nice enough to go through the effort of making the diagrams themselves. So to that end, I'd like to thank @nico-robin-official, @catgirldragon, @torka914, @sorrybutiforgotmyusername, @blasteg, @jurrasicoresposts, @hbmmaster, @throw-your-boat, and @hymnsoffuel for contributing to the blog and seeking out Ryu Numbers themselves.

And of course, a big thanks to @kchasm, for maintaining this colossal diagram of Ryu Numbers and responding to my irrelevant natter, and @skapokon, for keeping me honest by sending in corrections, both right after a post goes live and months after the fact. Lord knows otherwise I'd never look back at the 1400+ posts I've somehow accrued.

...Well, circumstances allowing, here's to a third year of trifles and technicalities, then.

#meta

[emnesoi]

half of the notes on that one hbmmaster post ive been replyguying on are just "i don't like fascists but they were kinda spitting with that whole palingenetic ultranationalism thing"

[eblu3]

Our Drawings (2023) Review!

Thanks for nothing @hbmmaster, I'm putting ice cubes on my shoes now

#beatboxing puppy #wrist waters on my neck #will you shut the fluff up

[tehaspy-spec-evoposting]

After some observation, I have come to the conclusion that the internet has it's own dialect of english. I'll call it Nettic English, and I'll write down some differences I've seen from Not Nettic english.

Question marks are now a type of tone indicator

This one's kind of self explanatory, but I'll say it anyway. Question marks are marking when your voice goes up like this? This is contrary to it's mainland use where it marks a question.

Tone indicators

Tone indicators (/s, /srs, /j, etc.) are another unique part of nettic english, where they mark how the sentence is supposed to be read. However, only the mainstream ones shall be recognized as part of the dialect, unless the lesser used ones become more intuitive (like /lh, it apparently means lighthearted, but I still don't know how to take it. See also, Jan Misali's or @hbmmaster's {sorry that I pinged you} video on /hj).

The use of Capitalization as Emphasis

I'm not talking about ALL CAPS FOR YELLING, although it is a part of it. I'm talking about The Front Letters. This phenomenon seems unique to nettic english, so it's mentioned here.

The change in "it's"

It is becoming more socially acceptable to use "it's" in any context, not just to abbreviate "it is"

Periods are now context sensitive

I'm not talking about how punctuation works in general, I'm talking about how when two sentences aren't in the same line, you can just Not Add One

Please send me more examples of how nettic english has diverged from normal (not nettic) english, as I probably missed a lot more evidence for this.

#linguistics #nettic dialect #just an observation #mitch I'm so sorry for pinging you

[hbmmaster]

nsft is short for "nosferatu"

#hbmmaster #misinformation

[foxgirltail]

Is hbmmaster on here hbomberguy? I genuinely have no clue

[judahdenose]

Hello people of Tumblr, here's my blog follow reccomendation list.

@chongoblog - part of the Real Time Fandub group, and also secretly the funniest one, if we're judging by how often his posts take off on Tumblr

@foone - One of the most informative programmers I follow, if you aren't following them on twitter, you should too.

@wizardpotions - okay, so something you'll notice on Tumblr is that there's a lot of wizards and witches on the website, and if you want to dive headfirst into that this is the blog to follow.

@diamondbrickz - makes music mashups

@tonyzaret - the whole blog is one layer deeper in irony than the rest of Tumblr, but the posts are great anyways

@jame7t - Used to have the icon of cat boy master chief. Mostly makes good posts now.

@hbmmaster - also known as jan Misali, has a dedicated hatred of the reoccurring revelation that the true monsters in Scooby Doo were the humans. (Also has the blog janmisali but mostly talks about himself there)

@staffs-secret-blog - parody blog of Tumblr staff

@were--ralph - The vibes are good if you can take the occasional bara furry bulge

@wayneradiotv - yes, that is the YouTuber/streamer, who did fax hell.

@fwugradiation - Toby Fox's actual blog where he actual posts

@pissvortex - a staple of Tumblr culture

@pukicho - the Tumblr user with the most YouTube compilations of their posts.

@thetomska - his former bio says it all "made asdfmovie, hasn't known peace since"

This list is incomplete, but decent.

#from judah's brain #tumblr blogs #twitter guide #tumblr culture #twitter users #internet culture

[innerlmnt]

oh hey!

thanks for the follow mitch! @hbmmaster

#innermonologue #if you are reading this and aren't following the RTF blog you should do so

[notajerusalemcricket]

weird things happening over at @hbmmaster hq

#cricket talk #another classic tumblr glitch #so fucked up you cant even begin to imagine how it went wrong