Information dissemination on the internet has undoubtedly evolved from a technological challenge to a contentious, political, and justice-oriented issue. In simpler times, web designers and developers achieved the best ways to code and display text and images online. It is beyond that now, when conglomerates are developing technology to automatically filter and selectively display information to users for the greater purpose of revenue generation. The internet under capitalism has demonstrated a bleak reality; humans have been dwindled down from users to consumers to data points, content has become nothing more than a means to an end. That end being anything from ideological influence to self-preservation, usually for a for-profit institution.
Perhaps you cannot pin this information transformation to one bad actor. It would be fairly inaccurate to ascribe this seemingly dystopian reality of the World Wide Web to one entity, even if humans have the tendency to do so. However, I would rather argue that the faceless, robotic social media algorithms, designed by all kinds of ICT companies, were the revolutionary technical innovation that soon became the arbiter of truth and knowledge via the control of the creation and spread of information.
Because these observations concerned me so much, I wanted to follow my intuition to support this argument. My resulting research confirmed my suspicion that social media users have collectively identified algorithms as the culprit that helped social media rear its ugly head.
Before algorithms, social media was considered undisturbed and unfiltered. Your news feed was chronological and you received information in the order it was posted. Now, algorithms choose what posts to show you first based on some vague data about what it thinks you like and would engage with (Golino, 2021). Before the Algorithm took a chokehold on your free speech, there was arguably a more democratic process of selecting and sharing acceptable information in the form of user feedback. Now, the Algorithm knows you well enough to do it in your stead.
Algorithms are a nebulous technology if you are not familiar with the science involved. Also, it tends to be proprietary. The social media companies that utilize bots (which are essentially sets of algorithms) to moderate posts will not reveal how they truly operate. It is no surprise that humans cannot help but to speculate how algorithms have transformed the way they engage with social media, especially since it has visibly impeded the way users spread and receive information about more substantive issues and topics.
The darkness surrounding algorithms has made them adversarial. Users cannot understand how or why their post got removed. They will inevitably notice and attempt to decipher patterns, then contextualize them within capitalism and determine that social media companies have an agenda to undermine any content, users, and even movements that don’t serve them to their benefit. This has resulted in clever and even righteous pursuits to work around and even against the adversary and promote a freer internet in spite of itself.
One tactic of this counteroffensive is the use of “Algopeak,” by users on various social media networks, but most saliently on TikTok. Perhaps you can liken Algospeak to kids speaking in code to prevent their parents from understanding their conversations. Or conversely, it is similar to parents spelling out words to shield profanity from young ears. In the context of social media however, it is a linguistic strategy to circumvent bots seeking out content that typically violates a site’s community guidelines.
More niche technology journalists have covered the rise of Algospeak in prominent news publications like the New York Times and the Washington Post. They have described it as an American phenomenon (Levine, 2022) where content creators use codewords to replace explicit terms to talk about serious issues or topics that may be considered “red flags” to the social media platforms. Instead of saying “kill” or “suicide,” you say “unalive.” This extends beyond the voice. If you want to discuss sexuality, you could type “pr0n,” “seggs,” or use an eggplant emoji (Delkic, 2022). These are just a small sample of dozens of terms determined mostly by informal consensus among users. Despite the range of topics addressed, essentially these terms serve the same purpose of avoiding removal or suppression of content by automatic moderators like bots.
It is only recently that researchers have delved into this phenomenon. A 2023 article in the journal Social Media + Society took the task of exploring and revealing Algospeak by interviewing TikTok creators who have utilized it to circumvent what they perceived to be “unjust content restriction” (Klug, et al. 2023, p. 1).
In the article, researchers Ella Steen, Kathryn Yurechko, and Daniel Klug share their findings from 19 interviews with TikTokers to “learn about [their] motivations of and experiences with using algospeak.” (p. 4). They were able to glean 70 examples of algospeak from preliminary research online as well as contextualize algospeak within the greater sociolinguistic phenomenon of “computer-mediated language,” (p. 1) or more simply, internet speak.
Before algospeak there was first textspeak, which simplified language by removing “vowels, capitalization, [and] spacing.” while still sending a clear message to the receiver (Klug, et al. 2023, p. 2). Then there was leetspeak (133t speak), which the researchers described as a more “playful encryption” to make fun of new gamers. In the 2010s, LOLspeak arrived, which also played on language through intentional grammar and spelling errors to emanate a cheerful tone.
By tracing the history of internet speak, the researchers make it clear that algospeak is a new manifestation with significant precedent. Users have always manipulated language online or through communication technologies, at least for practical and fun purposes. But algospeak is unique in that it tries to take on the serious issues of censorship and injustice according to the content creators that utilize it (Klug, et al. 2023, p. 2).
From the interviews, the content creators shared a collective frustration of TikTok’s opaque community guidelines as motivation to either adopt or invent algospeak (Klug, et al. 2023, p. 7). They perceive the algorithms responsible for moderating content as non-contextual, random, inaccurate, and biased (p. 7). They believed that topics like violence, controversial beliefs, and discussions about the LGBTQ+ community were the biggest examples of unacceptable content on TikTok. Despite not knowing the true methods, the interviewees “concluded that TikTok looked for keywords” via captions, hashtags, and even text on the TikTok itself to screen content. Even though there is no proof of this, they exhibited a sense of paranoia by believing that TikTok had an official “list of unapproved words.” The resulting censorship came in the form of removing audio, shadowbanning via the removal the visibility of the TikTok in tags, or outright deletion. More often than not did the interviewees feel like the punishments were unwarranted (p. 8). But nevertheless, they used algospeak as a workaround.
However, the attitude towards wrongful moderation extended beyond shallow grievances. The crux of the issue to the interviewees was that the algorithms were pushing an agenda of social injustice against marginalized groups (p. 7). This is where algospeak takes on a unique purpose compared to other forms of internet speech, as the motivations behind its use is more profound and possesses societal implications. Interviewees who created content related to the LGBTQ+ community felt their videos were being unreasonably restricted. One user’s video was taken down, presumably because of their use of the term “lesbian.” Another user felt she was even being “targeted” for being a Black lesbian. To her, “it felt like… somebody was directly targeting her…” and believed that “TikTok is secretly quite homophobic, or not even secretly” (p. 10).
The issue of a flawed humanity negatively affecting algorithms has been documented. In a study from ProPublica (2016), they found the algorithmic formula that informs Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, or COMPAS, was falsely identifying Black defendants as repeat criminals at twice the rate of white defendants, thus giving them more severe prison sentences. ProPublica pinned this disparity on the algorithm’s reflection of bias and inequalities within the criminal justice system where people of color are incarcerated at a disproportionate rate (Angwin, Larson). There is a resulting consensus that algorithms act as extensions of human prejudice, discrimination, ignorance, and promote activities of injustice, whether intentionally or not. This problematic behavior of algorithms predictably elicits these feelings of paranoia and a sense of injustice amongst content creators. No longer is the algorithm just trying to censor content that may be unsavory to advertisers; the humans behind the bots are deliberately homophobic, racist, transphobic, and just generally hateful towards marginalized groups.
In the context of algospeak, interviewees used terms like “le$bean”, “qu33r”, and “g@y” as codewords for lesbian, queer, and gay respectively, even though talking about the LGBTQ+ community generally should not bear any liability. While it is debatable whether or not TikTok should allow actual depictions of violence, interviewees expressed concern of their free speech in outside contexts when a comedian’s video was removed for joking about suicide (Klug, et al. 2023, p. 8). Overall, free speech continues to be an evolving issue when bots are literally evolving to catch on to algospeak, leading creators to improve their tactics further (p. 12). It is a never ending cycle between humans and bots, and more generally social media companies, that exemplifies the greater effect of algorithms on society.
MacKinnon (2012) captures the larger online landscape succinctly in Consent of the Networked: The World Wide Struggle for Internet Freedom:
“In the Internet age, the greatest long-term threat… [is] more like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World: a world in which our desire for security, entertainment, and material comfort is manipulated to the point that we all voluntarily and eagerly submit to subjugation.”
For social media companies, the use of their services is transactional. Users give input in the form of long watch times, likes, and comments, and in return content creators get “rewarded” for their popular posts that elicit “strong reactions” (McCluskey, 2022). More engagement leads to increased advertising returns. This is how the algorithm works, and it is not a balanced affair.
Users make sacrifices to the algorithms by letting themselves be vulnerable to information bubbles and “amplified”, “divisive content” (McCluskey, 2022). They unintentionally allow these bots and companies to exploit personal information to perilous results. Researchers have made connections between this harmful reward cycle, social media addictions, and negative teen issues like “body image issues, mental health crises, and bullying.” (McCluskey). According to a Pew Research (2018) study, 74% of Americans believe that social media is creating an inaccurate picture of society at large. 71% report that the content they see makes them angry. The materiality of algorithms transpire these controversial outcomes.
This is not a hidden agenda. MacKinnon (2012) states that “companies argue that collecting a wide array of personal data is necessary to serve people better…” and our dependence on these ICT technologies lets companies keep us in the dark of “how power works in the digital realm.” She argues for a digital commons that is filled with “netizens” who are “tech-savvy” can use their skills to hold powerful companies accountable by dictating what policies are acceptable and non-acceptable (p. 26). Content creators are beginning to do this by creating algospeak codewords and raising awareness of how algorithms suppress free speech in secretive and invasive ways within the context of social justice.
But ultimately the battle against algorithms, whether it is artificial intelligence or machine learning or some other set of instructions, is more of an accepted reality of being online than a cause to outright boycott social media. It is nigh impossible to make a Facebook profile, share photos on Instagram, or generally interact with friends, family, and brands incognito. By making yourself available to these services, you are letting your ‘Self’ be visible to the algorithms. If you want to be seen and heard by the masses, you must also be willing to let social media companies exploit your content in order to improve their services, or whatever their stated goals are in their privacy policies. Additionally, there is the social pressure to be online in the first place. As evident in their opacity and randomness, there is a legitimate cause of perturbation of algorithms.
But the greater societal issue is that uneasiness turning into outright cynicism. While algospeak is one of the ways to antagonize algorithms, the externalities it causes just makes the use of it more difficult by allowing bots to learn from the ways users speak differently online. Social media users know this, but they use algospeak anyway. One interviewee stated that “the little community guidelines bot is gonna keep following you,” leading the researchers to conclude that “in order to keep evading unjust consequences creators must… adapt their algospeak in response to TikTok’s continuously improving algorithm” (p. 11). Bots track every move to personalize feeds in order to collect more engagement, and users continue to let them as 72% of Americans use social media (Pew, 2022). Despite these contradictions, and despite my frustration with the current state of the Internet, I understand that the power dynamics between users and social media companies are insurmountable, at least until greater collective interventions are executed. Given the smaller ways users do this, I do have hope it will happen.
Sources
Angwin, J., Larson, J., Mattu, S., & Kirchner, L. (2016, May 23). Machine Bias. ProPublica; ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing
Delkic, M. (2022, November 19). Leg Booty? Panoramic? Seggs? How TikTok Is Changing Language. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/style/tiktok-avoid-moderators-words.html
Golino, M. (2021, April 24). Algorithms in Social Media Platforms. www.internetjustsociety.org. https://www.internetjustsociety.org/algorithms-in-social-media-platforms
Greenwood, S. (2022, December 6). 3. Internet, smartphone and social media use. Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2022/12/06/internet-smartphone-and-social-media-use-in-advanced-economies-2022/
Levine, A. S. (2022, September 19). From Camping To Cheese Pizza, “Algospeak” Is Taking Over Social Media. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2022/09/16/algospeak-social-media-survey/?sh=3f2e224255e1
Lorenz, T. (2022, April 8). Internet “algospeak” is changing our language in real time, from “nip nops” to “le dollar bean.” Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/08/algospeak-tiktok-le-dollar-bean
Mackinnon, R. (2013). Consent of the networked : the worldwide struggle for Internet freedom. Basic Books.
McCluskey, M. (2022, January 4). How addictive social media algorithms could finally face a reckoning in 2022. Time. https://time.com/6127981/addictive-algorithms-2022-facebook-instagram/
Smith, A. (2018, November 16). Attitudes toward algorithms used on social media. Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/11/16/algorithms-in-action-the-content-people-see-on-social-media/
Steen, E., Yurechko, K., & Klug, D. (2023). You Can (Not) Say What You Want: Using Algospeak to Contest and Evade Algorithmic Content Moderation on TikTok. Social Media + Society, 9(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231194586
I learned HTML around 2006, when I was in middle school. The origins of my interest stemmed from graphic design and being inspired by young, amateur web developers who built their own websites to showcase their work. The World Wide Web at the time was at the dawn of revolutionary change in the form of Web 2.0 and the emergence of social media networks. Myspace and Friendster were somewhat popular, and Facebook was not yet the tech titan it is today.
From my newfound knowledge, I situated myself in Web 1.0 and coded a small space for myself online. This did not last too long since it would be a year later that I would sign up for Facebook and eventually make it my new internet abode. But the time I ran my own websites on Freewebs and Geocities with my own designs and structure was very special to me. It was through my HTML output that I was able to creatively and wholly express myself to the world and anyone who may come across my website, eventually making some online friends along the way. Plus, it was easy for my 11-year-old brain to understand.
The days of individual, basic HTML websites are basically over, with these free hosting sites becoming defunct, static websites becoming relics. Nevertheless, I consider this era of the World Wide Web to be a greatly influential predecessor to the web as we know it today; interactive, social, data-laden, and gargantuan. Specifically, I consider HTML to be the language that made the evolution of the web so vast in breadth and depth because of its sound development by its inventor, the low barrier of entry to learning, and its power as a shared semantic system of the World Wide Web. HTML operates as the ideal tool for meaningful Internet connections between computers and people. I’ll explore the aspects of HTML that makes it a revolutionary technological tool that changed how we created and shared information in its early years.
HTML… in the eyes of its inventor
Thankfully the origins of HTML are no mystery, due to their extensive documentation by its inventor, Tim Berners-Lee. The history of the Web is aptly shared in the form of web pages coded in the markup language itself. HTML was created as the standard language for Berners-Lee’s most significant invention, the World Wide Web. In 1989, he created the World Wide Web as an easily implementable and accessible solution to share information within CERN, the European research institution he worked for at the time (CERN).
To the world’s benefit, The World Wide Web and HTML did not remain proprietary technologies and instead became available to the public two years later. CERN technically owned the software and its rights, but released the World Wide Web software into public domain (Cailliau 2013). At the time, this decision made sense to its inventor and his first collaborator, Robert Cailliau.
In his opinion article, “Twenty years of a free and open www,” Cailliau explains their reasoning to opt for free use, as they “…were more interested in the excitement of making something useful than in getting rich, we decided to use the traditional CERN model for technology spin-off: make it freely available,” (Cailliau 2013). The technology could have probably paid off monetarily, and handsomely at that, but keeping the rights of the World Wide Web did not seem to align with the values of the organization most fundamentally linked to its invention.
Simply put, the rest is history. Making the software public domain was certainly the main catalyst for its widespread adoption, but I would argue that it also lies in the World Wide Web’s simplicity of HTML, the markup language that establishes the links of web pages together.
Tim Berners-Lee was meticulous and intentional with his inventing of HTML. In his proposal for CERN, he acknowledged the organization’s numerous requirements for his technology’s application, but none about the markup language itself (Berners-Lee 1989). But the conception and logic of HTML is documented in the book, “Raggett on HTML 4.” At the time, hypertext was becoming a popular technology that allowed users to read informational documents on a computer and easily reference other documents via links. The benefit of hypertext was its immediacy of access (Raggett 1998). Despite being conceptualized decades earlier, it is a part of the foundation of HTML. Hypertext (HT) is in the acronym after all. However, it had strenuous limitations.
To Berners-Lee, hypertext was not enough for his information management solution. Berners-Lee desired a form of text that was less cumbersome to use and universal (Hypertext was computer-specific at the time). It was only accessible in the form of separate software, each with their own interfaces. Hypertext was characteristically complex when used to create documents, and absence of standardization strained this complexity further (Raggett 1998). Hence the invention of HTML as a markup language. It would become the way to display text-based pages that would be delivered to computers via Berners-Lee’s other invention, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol.
The revolutionary nature of HTML as a markup language stemmed from Berners-Lee basing it on another markup language, SGML. SGML’s ability to be displayed universally and the standard of tags were attractive features. It saved time from creating a new language from scratch as well. As a result of using tags, HTML was easily interpretable by computers and users alike (Berners-Lee 1999). You did not need to buy additional technology like HyperCard, a hypertext software from Mac that came in the form of multiple floppy disks, to display text on the Internet.
Berners-Lee expands upon his philosophy influencing his invention in his book, “Weaving the Web.” In chapter four, ‘Protocols: Simple Rules for Global Systems,’ he stated that there had to be common standards of HTML so that computers could effortlessly talk to each other, irrespective of model or software. Also, he believed anyone should be able to publish information. HTML had to be basic to achieve these purposes. The “basic design rules” of HTML were “pragmatic, political even.” HTML was meant to mirror SGML’s cleanness through discernable tags. He even used the exact same tags at times (Berners-Lee 1999). Perhaps to some, tags like <p>, <b>, and <i> were intuitive to interpret (paragraph, bold, and italic). The most important tag was <a>, which stands for “anchor” and connects HTML documents together through clickable links (CERN).
The simplicity of HTML was also meant to facilitate its adoption by users by making it easy and fast to interpret on the computer. But the readability of HTML “was an unexpected boon” to Berners-Lee. Not too long after making the markup language available within CERN, people began to use HTML themselves (Berners-Lee 1999). Perhaps in hindsight, this should have not been surprising at all given HTML’s mirroring of another popular markup language and readability. After the World Wide Web became widely available, people utilized HTML to create a world of their own.
HTML… in the eyes of its authors
The proto-web was as simple as the code it was based on. The best example of this simplistic design is the first webpage ever put online. It was about the World Wide Web project and designed by Tim Berners-Lee himself on August 6, 1991. The webpage still exists. It essentially looks and operates as a document, but with links a user can click to view another page. With links such as “What’s Out There?”, “Help”, and “Technical”, users were provided with a readable guide to practical Web uses, including HTML. The aesthetics were as plain as a Word document.
A year after the first web page was released, there were 10 other websites launched. (Fischels 2021). Fast forward to today, there are an estimated 1.1 billion websites (NJ 2023), whose pages look much more elaborate, yet mostly serve the same initial purpose of providing linked information. But there is still one popular website that looks like that first HTML page that “reflect[s] commonly held beliefs about what the internet is for and how it should be used.” (Lingel 2020).
Craigslist was that website that emerged from the confines of email lists, and made a home on the World Wide Web in 1995 (Britannica 2023). It was and still is a platform for users to post classified ads of a variety of categories like job openings, household items for sale, and missed connections. Visit it today, and you’d think you traveled back in time to 1991, given its design in plain HTML; Times New Roman font on a white background, a visual callback to print classifieds.
In “An Internet for the People: The Politics and Promise of craigslist,” author Jessica Lingel evaluates the website as a beacon of the first Web values outlined by Berners-Lee; “access, reach, privacy.” (Lingel 2020). It’s a nearly 1-1 application: Some of Berners-Lee’s chapters on “Weaving the Web” are named ‘Privacy’ and ‘Going Global,’ Lingel tells the story of how craigslist became a website from an email list. Coding an email list was harder because they “had to be scripted by hand.” It was also very limited in how many emails a database could hold. HTML came into the picture in 1996 and its use was very intentional (Lingel 2020). As mentioned, the design of craigslist was also text on a white background, which facilitated fast loading times. Rob, a user who was interviewed for Lingel’s books, said craigslist was “a very light web experience, just background… no graphic ads.” Yet despite the web design capabilities of today, basic HTML remains the basis for the website’s current design. When a website at a certain point was serving 175,000 page views a day (Buckmaster 2008), lightness is key. Vanilla HTML provides that simplicity.
However, some users wanted more in terms of design across the web. Some found the design “dull, repurposed version of print” according to Roger Black in his article “Help Me Redesign the Web.” aspirations growing out of improving the design of the web inspired the emergence of new occupations. Of these were information architects and usability experts were salient (Black 2007). These new positions were meant to maximize one of the best and most useful benefits of HTML, linking pages with the <a> tag. The people in these newly created positions had to make the website easier to navigate.
Additionally, Google as a prominent ICT (Information and Communications Technology) came from addressing the information-related frustrations of going through the web. The web crawlers navigated through the web to archive and served search results by going through the links and capturing the right keywords (Google 2023). This could have not been done without the proper HTML tags.
The simplicity of HTML caused the growth of massive online, communal websites. It also inspired new design ideas from its simplicity. Finally, HTML’s format made the biggest search engines more functional in serving information to more users more efficiently.
Of course, the web is designed beyond HTML. Javascript, CSS, PHP are just a few options to optimize the structure and design of your website because the Web has become more than a tool to display and link documents. But the fundamentals remain the same. HTML tags establish a readable hierarchy of your text. The <a> tag creates links. There are even more tags that incorporate even more media like images, tables and videos (WHATWG 2023). Also, the tenets established by Berners-Lee of HTML lie at the heart of the HTML standards established and updated by the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG). The syntax of HTML5 still utilizes the original tags, with more for enhancing design and specification. Though HTML can be seen as simple, it is still one of the most important elements of creating a website. We wouldn’t have 1.1 billion pages on the Web without it.
Last year, the English department (consisting of myself and the Korean English teacher) conducted an English speaking contest. Up to twice a day, students can stop by the English classroom, participate in a two-minute English conversation with yours truly, and collect stickers. The students with the most stickers of their grade got prizes. It was a simple challenge that I adored because it was a small but meaningful opportunity to get to know my students. On top of that, I got to make revelatory assessments on my students’ relationship and proficiency with English.
However, as if they found a brilliant loophole, my middle schoolers gravitated towards reading to earn their stickers when I told them it was an option. Instead of disappointed, I was sympathetic. I understand the challenge of spontaneous conversation in a second language. I have to deal with it every day as a foreigner in Korea.
English Speaking/Reading Contest Progress
So I’d attentively listen to their reading, keeping note of challenging vocabulary and unfamiliar sentence structures. But bigger questions were floating through my mind. I wondered what attracted the students to certain books. Was it the cover? Did it look funny, enjoyable, interesting? Or did they not think about it at all and just picked randomly?
At the end of the contest, I took a deeper look at the bookshelf. It was really a random assortment of English books that were connected to general ESL pedagogy, but probably didn’t mean much to my students. In preparation for my second year as a Native English teacher, I wanted to change that perspective and get the students to strategically engage with these books. There was a reason we had them in the English classroom, after all.
I went ahead and got to it during Winter break. I surveyed and cataloged all the books in the classroom, labeling each by reading level and genre. With a clean slate, an organized bookshelf, and helpful visual guide, I hope this year my students will look at the books with determination and genuine interest, while still leaving room for spontaneity. I’ll detail how I built the library from concept to the final product.
Stripping the books from the shelf.
the goals
I believe every teacher wants a nice-looking, organized, presentable classroom. I’m one of a few Native English teachers in the province privileged with one, so I wanted to feel that same sense of pride. While we invested in a brand new bookcase last year, it was apparent that the present books haven’t been surveyed possibly since their purchases.
No matter. I saw this as an opportunity to improve the look and vibes of the classroom from intimidating and unfamiliar to those without the strongest grasp on the English classroom to welcoming, and even a little fun.
Beyond the aesthetics, I have had a strong curiosity about how I could concretely define my students’ English levels. Anecdotally, they can be all over the place. This is due to the extra opportunities some Korean students have to attend private English hagwons after school for additional tutoring and exams. On the other hand, some unfortunately are not yet proficient in even the alphabet by the time they reach middle school.
My middle school is small, with about 30 students. I felt more than capable of individualizing the English learning experience. So I had two goals: Create a library that was organized to gauge student interest AND reading levels at the same time. The next step was just finding the right tools to do so.
cataloging
The classroom gets a bit chilly in the winter when unused.
The bookshelf was a mix of books and board games, so the actual book count was obscured by the space being taken up by Halli Galli, Scrabble, and Settlers of Catan boxes. In my initial assessment I counted about 350 books, or over 10 per student. While it felt intimidating at first as someone who has never properly catalogued a library (aside from my modest home collection), I came to learn it was a smaller beast to tame than I thought.
Thankfully, there are robust tools around for small library projects just like mine. After some research, I opted to use Booksource’s classroom library tool, which was intuitive, feature-rich, and best of all, FREE.
The most relevant feature for me was the integrated ISBN scanner tool that could quickly update my digital catalog with accurate metadata and reading levels. I have to say it didn’t have a 100% success rate with books published in Korea. While the subsequent manual input was hardly a daunting task, I did have to seek other resources to get accurate reading levels.
There are a few ways books are leveled. I adopted Accelerated Reader over something like Lexical because of its simpler numerical system and the accompanying quizzes and assessments for each book. While scanning the books, I physically sorted them by AR level. If it didn’t come up on Booksource, I would usually have better luck finding it on arbookfind.com.
arbookfind.com
My initial shelf organization plan was to sort by AR level so students can know exactly how challenging each book is. But the funny thing about students is that they’ll take the path of least resistance every time. I foresaw level 0-1 copies being pulled off the shelves indiscriminately. That’s not where the joy of reading comes from.
The beginnings of sorting.
I ultimately wanted to present the books in the way that they would pique the literature interests of my students, so while I scanned and sorted by AR level, I took note of the general genres of each book to point out broader categories to direct my forthcoming tasks.
As I scanned, I took note of potential genre labels.
I used white circle label stickers for the AR levels, and modified them to exclude the month of the level (so instead of a book being labeled “3.3”, it would just be 3). They were placed towards the top of the spine, as the bottom would have the genre labels. There are unique IDs in Booksource, but the size of the collection didn’t warrant that level of labeling on the books themselves in my opinion, especially once I learned that the collection included a limited number of genres.
genres
The range of genres wasn’t a hindrance to the breadth and depth of the collection itself, but it did force me to be strategic about how specific I wanted to get. My students have an affinity for Disney, so I considered that as a genre label. I was surprised to discover the quantity of science-related books, so I knew they definitely needed their own label. There were plenty of picture books, but also books with pictures. Which ones are supposed to be labelled as which?
These were just a few considerations during the genre organization stage of this library project. The flexibility of this part didn’t feel very comfortable at first. I initially consulted Good Reads for genre ideas, went with what genre came first, then eventually trusted my intuition enough to select the best one for the coveted book label.
Genre sorting.
The categories themselves are mostly generalized. We have fiction, nonfiction, picture, and children’s as the biggest genres. A very small handful of books include specific categories like dystopian fiction, biography, or humor. Introducing a little specificity felt like a net benefit to my students’ book discovery experience, so long as it didn’t feel overwhelming. A separate “Classics” genre was important as well, as the Korea education system features those prominently in English curriculum.
Once every book was comfortably re-sorted by genre, I worked on the design of the labels themselves.
Gratefully, there are teachers who have provided resources online for genre labels. Unfortunately, they had to be modified heavily for a classroom in Korea.
I adored Molly Malloy’s book spine labels she designed and sells on Teachers Pay Teachers. They’re colorful and stand out, and also came with a customizable genre poster to hang up next to the shelf. They’re simple enough to use; print them on this version of Avery label template and attach.
Except, Avery labels are not cheap to buy in Korea (some 40,000 Won on Coupang) and practically useless for organizations that print with primarily A4 paper. I had to reformat the labels for a size that was more accessible in this country and fit A4 paper.
Avery’s Australian site provides templates for the label size I opted to purchase. In a few extra steps, I reformatted Molly’s icons so I could print my labels with ease and reproducibility.
Modified genre labels.
I stuck the genre labels prominently on the bottom of the spines for easy navigation. Ultimately, I want students to familiarize themselves with the types of stories the library offers, not just the English levels.
The science books labeled by AR level and genre.
The end
In a matter of weeks, my ESL library project was finished… for now! According to the Booksource classroom library tool, there are definitely some improvements to be made.
While there are plenty of classics and familiar favorites, we don’t have any new books from the past 5 years. I think that’s okay as I believe it’s best to stick with the familiar when learning a new language.
Also, I’ll have to see what books get the most attention, anyway.
The final look of the bookshelf and labels.
The beginning
I anticipate marketing the library to be a much more intensive task than creating it. Right now I’m strategizing on how to encourage students to check out the books on their own time and how to incorporate some literature into the curriculum. There are uses like shadowing and building vocabulary. I can definitely distribute rewards to students who check out books, either casually, or as an annual English challenge. A library whose books sit unused is about as useful as an unorganized one.
The genre and book levels guide, hung up right next to the bookshelf.
I will come back with any updates and evaluations on the library. Until then, I’m familiarizing myself with the collection by reading through it in my leisure time and reviewing them on Good Reads. There are definite gems in there (e.g. “Where the Wild Things Are”, Roald Dahl novels) that can open up a whole new realm of English learning. I’m displaying my favorites as I evaluate them. With school back in session, I know it will be difficult to get the students to go out of their way to explore a library not in their native language, so I hope I’ve made it at least visually inviting enough to get a glance. Wish me luck!
On October 15th, 2022, the South Korean messaging app KakaoTalk suffered a catastrophic outage from a server fire, leading to a multi-day blackout. The aftershocks of this disruption were widespread. Beyond the damage of some 32,000 servers (Byun), services like online payments and ride failing were halted for nearly all Kakao app users, accounting for over 90% of South Korea’s population. It even caught the attention of the federal government, as President Yoon called for swift resumption of services. Eventually the market value of KakaoTalk’s parent company, Kakao Corporation, stooped so low that the CEO at the time resigned.
ICT application outages are not a new phenomenon. Facebook’s parent company Meta suffered a similar outage in 2021, when not only its premiere social networking site went down for several hours, other services like WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram were also unusable during that timespan. Many company employees could not even enter their work buildings to fix the outage, as it also affected those electronic security systems (Heath 2021).
The consequences of these incidents have become more dire as ICTs like social networking site user bases grow into the millions and billions. Outages of ICT applications garner extensive reporting from users and media outlets due to the immediate communication-related consequences the masses endure. They too often lead to users unable to contact friends, loved ones, or business associates. Outages like KakaoTalk’s and Facebook’s document the fragile nature and fallibility of these seemingly impenetrable and secure infrastructures. For every notable outage, users are consistently reminded that no ICT service is too big to fail, and we must be weary of how much we rely on them for our everyday lives.
And yet, we continue to entrust our data and daily routines to them. These ICT apps, and the internet at large, are so ingrained in society that it may be easier to tolerate outages of these apps than learn to be less reliant on them. KakaoTalk’s user growth was ultimately not adversely affected. Over 90% of South Koreans still actively use the app on their smartphones (DataReportal) for internet-based messaging, but also for shopping, E-mail, mobile payments, and gaming. Kakao Corporation has sought and continues to expand their services further to music streaming, social networking, online banking, and mobile business. As put succinctly on Kakao’s “Services” page, “Kakao creates a better world.” Perhaps it’s more appropriate to say that Kakao is creating a Kakao World.
KakaoTalk’s growth and eventual monopoly are the result of decades of South Korean government policy and incentive for the country to improve its domestic ICT infrastructure. In this paper I will outline the 20th century policy decisions that led to Kakao Corporation’s outsized growth, the economic and social aspects of South Korea that allow it to endure and embed itself within the country’s ICT infrastructure and society, and propose potential futures for the Super App domestically and internationally.
A history of mobile and internet infrastructure in South Korea
The rise of Kakao in Korea must first be contextualized by post-war economic growth and industrialization. Following the Korean War in 1953, economic development was first state-led, spearheaded by policy, regulation, and centralization. Governmental hold actually did promote economic prosperity to a previously hardened country, as the regime’s agenda included expanding and modernizing the country’s exports (Jin 2017). The 20th century also witnessed the birth of the country’s leading technology corporations like LG in 1947 and Samsung in 1969.
However, it wasn’t until the 1980s when Korea made its pivot to a “knowledge-based economy centered on the development of ICTs” (Jin), leading to the domestic tech-forward society Korea is today. In fact, there are multiple points in the 20th century that enabled the aforementioned consumer electronics companies and eventually Kakao Corp. to be the dominant ICT companies they are today.
One was the promotion of domestic electronics exports. Specifically, the Electronics Industry Promotion Law passed in 1969 demonstrated South Korea’s agenda on more official and industrial levels. Their tactics included establishing the Electronics and Telecommunication Research Institute and even preventing some electronics imports, with the exception of R&D-related equipment. The government’s efforts even expanded into the private sector in the 1980s. They mostly funded industrial companies and private research institutes to fill the gaps of “technical and business experience” (Amsden 1989). So while Korea wanted to spread their telecommunications influence internationally, they also wanted to grow their knowledge from within and perhaps prevent an overreliance on foreign knowledge and imports. The electronics industry soon became the country’s strong suit, and it seemed that ICTs would be the ticket to post-war economic liberation.
The public control was not permanent. The transition to private control began in 1984 when mobile technologies were introduced to Korea. The government’s public telecommunications company, KT Telecom, still focused on wired phone technologies while the private firm SK Telecom monopolized the mobile market (Jin). Neoliberal policies then had to come into play.
In addition to deregulation of the telecommunications industry, Korea’s Ministry of Information and Communications established the Code Division of Multiple Access to standardize and enable the growth of the mobile industry and its technologies in 1994 (ETRI). But these government efforts, either intentionally or unintentionally, evolved into oligopolistic and even monopolistic tendencies of ICT companies.
The government sold shares of KT Telecom mainly to Samsung, LG, and SK Telecom to offset an economic downturn (Jin 2006). KT eventually reached full privatization through foreign company investment from the late 90’s up until 2002. Consequently, these major Korean telecommunication companies were dubbed as chaebol, or “family-controlled industrial conglomerate[s]” in Korea (Merriam-Webster). Conservative politicians and legislation encouraged this oligopoly through the approval of massive mergers (Premak 2017) of companies from industries like automation, A.I., analytics, and cybersecurity according to business information company Crunchbase with regard to Samsung.
In 2023, Korean ICT corporations are household names for consumer electronics. Samsung captures a leading 20% of global smartphone market share. LG continues to dominate the OLED TV market through an approximate 60% share (PR Newswire). Meanwhile, SK Telecom’s offerings have moved beyond wired and wireless telecommunication technologies. They now consider themselves an A.I. company and have penetrated into media, enterprise, the metaverse, commerce, and security industries. Kakao Corp. is following the same pattern of market share prominence by moving into other tech sub-sectors.
The notable, complementing piece of Kakao’s success is the investment in internet infrastructure by both the government and private firms. The Korean government began informization efforts in the 1980s as official policy. Internet infrastructure was and is Korea’s ICT-related strength becoming “one of the first countries to deploy the Internet” (Chon et al. 2013). In 1982, the country was also one of the first to develop an implementation of the TCP/IP internet protocol. Projects like the implementation centered around the introduction of computers and computer networks to administrative, financial, education and research-related government entities. Later on, the general agenda of the Korean government was to catch up to other countries’ efforts to build information infrastructure nationwide by utilizing new technologies in the 1990s (Lee 2021). From 1993 onward came a plethora of bureaucratic strategies and initiatives to establish a “digital government” (Chung, et al. 2022); the Basic Plan for Informatization Promotion, the Comprehensive Plan for the Development of the Information and Communications Industry, CYBER KOREA 21, the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC), and the Basic Act on Informatization Promotion. Government policies to advance high-speed technologies did not face opposition by political parties, as there was societal and cultural consensus to transform Korea into a digital leader (Chung, et al.).
The Korea Information Infrastructure (KII) initiative applied internet services across the country with broadband, bringing internet speeds to previously unimagined thresholds. The project increased the demand for comprehensive internet services. The theme of early adoption persisted well into the 1990s, as the first internet cafés opened in 1995, one year after the opening of the very first, Cyberia in the United Kingdom (Huhh 2008). Korea also introduced some of the first massively multiplayer online games (MMORPGs) like The Land of Dangu in 1994 and Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds in 1996. Naver, a Korean ICT company that provides internet search services, was founded in 1999, just one year after Google’s founding. In 2000, Korea became the first country to introduce Code-division multiple access (CDMA), which accommodated more internet bandwidth. By 2001, Korea was the top country of broadband users per capita (Chon et al.).
In the mid-2000s and early 2010s, digital governance continued to be an agenda item. The Act on Informatization was revised into the Framework Act on Intelligent Informatization in 2009, with the following purpose:
“…to contribute to realizing an intelligent information society, securing the national competitiveness, and improving the quality of life for citizens, by prescribing matters necessary to establish and promote policies related to intelligent informatization.”
South Korea today is noted as one of the most technologically advanced and innovative companies, and a “global powerhouse in science and technology” (OECD 2021).
These policy decisions, public initiatives, and private sector growth stints became influential events that led to Kakao Corp’s dominance in the 21st century. Kakao, through its own mergers and acquisitions, has become chaebol-like but cannot be officially labeled a chaebol because it is not-family owned (Premack). Instead, it has the monetary power to increase and maintain profits and the ability to continue buying companies, at least within the limits of the law. Brian Kim, the founder of Kakao Corp., has a resulting net worth of 12.9 billion USD as of 2021 (Bloomberg). While neoliberal policies related to deregulation were meant to increase private sector competition, it inadvertently created opportunities for unchecked market consolidation, especially under conservative administrations (Bae 2016). Kakao Corp. inevitably took the advantage.
KakaoTalk may have also benefited from early tech adoption and a South Korean preference for domestic electronics companies. While the first iPhones ignited a global shift to smartphones, local telecommunications companies like LG and SK Telecom accelerated their offerings of their own like Samsung Omnia, a smartphone introduced less than a day after the iPhone, and faster data speeds like LTE. Journalist Moon Ihlwan notes, “The big problem for Appleis simple. Koreans are more attracted to phones made by local consumer-electronics powerhouses Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics.” Also, public policy limited the market of smartphone companies that were not willing to adopt the Wireless Internet Platform for Interoperability (WIPI) software standard . Similarly, KakaoTalk was the app of choice for South Koreans who were more adverse to foreign ICT technologies and services. In a study about the use of KakaoStory, a social networking service within KakaoTalk, compared to a competitor like Facebook, “KakaoStory narrows the distance between people in a group and secures a form of closeness that creates boundaries between an individual’s group and other groups.” Facebook was more about connecting with people like celebrities. This difference in adoption was considered a tenet of Korea’s collectivist society (Lee 2017) and more broadly could be considered a reflection of South Koreans ability to, “…encode, communicate, and enact their values and practices,” as Briggle and Mitcham discuss about the relationship between information and culture. But in addition, Kakao has successfully transformed information into culture in the form of extremely popular emoticons. Kakao’s emoticons were introduced in 2011 and have become a defining visual feature of the app. They operate similarly to Emoji (users send each other these digital images to express information), with the exception that Kakao offers a massive marketplace for paid emoticons. A study found that Kakao emoticon usage was perceived to be a key to greater belongingness and inclusion for its users (Jung, et al. 2021) and therefore another example of South Koreans’ collectivist tendencies. The compensation for the multi-day outage? Free emoticons (Song 2023).
Yoon Suk Yeol. Photo by AP
Is KakaoTalk infrastructure?
Just as Sandvig investigated the infrastructural nature of the internet, the advent and dominance of KakaoTalk is indicative of its foundational nature and embedment in Korean society. The media has expressed as much. Kakao’s services have been described as “de facto” (Sharwood 2022) by journalists and even “national” infrastructure by former president Yoon (Yoon So-yeon, et al.). While it may still be difficult to deem a single application as infrastructure, no matter its market share, there are definitely characteristics of KakaoTalk that make it infrastructural, at least conceptually.
Invisibility & human practices
The first noted characteristic of infrastructures noted by Sandvig is invisibility. The internet itself is perceived as immaterial, with buzzwords and terminology like “the cloud” and “hotspots” muddying its physicality, specifically the fiber-optic cables that run through the globe. The presence of smartphone applications, including KakaoTalk, operate similarly. Even though they may physically exist on a user’s device in the form of pixels, what users don’t see are the servers and connecting cables that utilize network protocols to deliver content, messages, service, and other offerings to one’s handset. KakaoTalk was invisible until it was literally set ablaze. That’s when Korean residents had to reckon with the app’s role in their daily lives.
The second dynamic of infrastructures Sandvig outlines, dependence on human practices, is also a defining feature of KakaoTalk. Peer pressure and first movers advantage lead to the aforementioned steadfast adoption of mobile phones in Korea and ultimately the messaging app.
Modularity
Interpreting KakaoTalk’s modularity, the third characteristic attributed to infrastructures, can be accomplished on both micro and macro levels. An exploration of the app itself reveals its evolution in utility. Early screenshots of the interface shows KakaoTalk as a simple messaging app, fit for the newly-introduced smartphone touchscreens at the time. Now, the app’s “More” portal shows other features like E-mail, calendar, and cloud storage.
But beyond the app’s capabilities is the ecosystem of electronic services Kakao Corporation has been able to build through various software developments and business mergers. There comes a sense of modularity with Kakao’s applications for a Korean user’s life. One could pick and choose apps that suit their needs; KakaoTalk for messaging, KakaoBank for online financial management, KakaoShop for online retail, and KakaoPay for instant money transfer, and others. Kakao apps could similarly be perceived as infrastructures that “… seem to be projects of a particular institution… such as Google or the Great Firewall of China” like Sandvig names.
To dive into this Kakao-Google comparison further, there is great evidence of, at the very least, a Western reliance on Google’s digital offerings. Americans and Europeans conduct web searches on Google 85% and 92% of the time respectively (Plantin et al. 2016). With interoperable apps like Google Sheets, Slides, and Docs, users have adapted to a web experience overwhelmingly facilitated by Google-related services. A paper, also co-authored by Sandvig, rightfully points out Google’s infrastructural nature given its simultaneous status as invisible and accessible. Should Google suffer a widespread blackout like Kakao, but more permanent, “…large numbers of people would find their lives substantially disrupted, with their email archives and addresses, documents, navigation, photos, and other critical records and services either entirely gone or requiring substantial effort to reconstruct,” (Plantin et al.). For millions, their online lives would be wiped out completely. And this does not preclude Alphabet Inc.’s other assets like YouTube and Android, whose services are also linked with Google functionalities.
This analysis offers multiple similarities to Kakao Corp., whose mergers and acquisitions increased its presence in other internet-related industries. In 2019 the corporation acquired Grip, which was the first Korean app to offer live streaming e-commerce (Koo 2021). They also merged with the Korean music streaming service Melon in 2017. At this point, Kakao’s services act as touchpoints for Koreans’ leisure and business activities. Should Kakao Corp shut down for good, we could reasonably anticipate a similar infrastructural meltdown.
Standardization
The fourth attribute, standardization, is apparent through Kakao’s app offerings visually and structurally. It’s very easy to tell which app falls under Kakao’s umbrella due to its bright yellow branding. Even if it doesn’t fit the parent company’s branding, like Melon, you can access the service by logging in with your KakaoTalk account. This is done through the authorization protocol OAuth (Aguirre), which is what Facebook and Google also use for single sign-on (SSO) capabilities. This protocol allows users to “prove their identity” without having to create a brand new account or share their password (Varonis).
KakaoTalk’s calling and messaging capabilities can only thrive off the standardization of communication protocols like Wi-Fi and VoIP and more broadly, the Internet Protocol. All of these protocols rely on the Internet Standardization process, which forms the internet practices that allow computers to interact with each other seamlessly and interoperably. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is primarily responsible for the “technical specifications” that allow KakaoTalk to offer its communication services without having to build their own infrastructure from the bottom up. In its rawest technical form, KakaoTalk is standardized from years of consensus-derived internet technology development.
Momentum
Finally, Kakao seems to have benefitted from momentum, the fifth attribute of infrastructures. KakaoTalk was released just one year after the iPhone was introduced in a country with “enthusiastic ICT consumers” (Jin) and strong domestic electronics companies. While Koreans ultimately opted to buy smartphones from Samsung more than Apple, sales within the country and globally decided that the smartphone was here to stay. But the other obstacle to Kakao’s eventual outsized market share was competition from other messaging apps like Line, WhatsApp, and even Samsung’s own messaging app ChatOn.
Kakao overcame the competition by positioning KakaoTalk as financially sound, easier to use, and more desirable socially. KakaoTalk was offered for free from the start, gaining an advantage over WhatsApp’s $0.99 price and the fact that mobile phone users had to pay for SMS texting. It also led the way for PC compatibility, beating out WhatsApp and Facebook in developing a desktop platform. In little time KakaoTalk benefitted from the network effect, as users quickly got their friends and family to download the app.
Inversely, Kakao may have stumbled over itself during its service blackout, as it incidentally called on Korean citizens to more closely examine their relationship with the corporation and its app offerings. Across many countries, people are overwhelmingly reliant on smartphones for information accession and transformation, so the use of applications does not seem to be going anywhere. Jin even describes KakaoTalk as “the most important social medium” on the smartphone, which is evident of Kakao’s success from taking advantage of the smartphone revolution of the early 2010s and the aforementioned Korean early-adopter culture. But the data center fire showed the company’s lack of foresight and logistical shortcomings, including an insufficient disaster recovery plan, which journalist Simon Sharwood pointed out as odd for a company of Kakao’s size.
Kakao as an ICT conglomerate seemed to have been destined. Decades of infrastructure investment foreordained its financial success. Yet, its cracks and limitations are starting to show. Current events both in South Korea and abroad may give us a hint into the future of Kakao Corp. and its technologies.
The continuation of KakaoTalk’s dominance in South Korea is only somewhat shaky. Immediately after the news of the server fire and consequent outage, users jumped ship briefly and downloaded other ICT apps like Line and Telegram, with the latter being headquartered in Dubai (Yim 2022). However, the dip in usage was hardly a blip in KakaoTalk’s overall growth.
Since Elon Musk’s controversially single-handed acquisition of X, formerly Twitter, the billionaire has attempted to implement his agenda of his own “Everything App”, like KakaoTalk (Mac 2023). While the absence of a widespread Super App in the United States is notable, it’s currently difficult to foresee a successful future for Super Apps to penetrate the west. Kakao specifically has no aims to expand their app in the international market (Han 2021). WeChat is a similar Super App that only caters to users in China, so there is no anticipation of cross-pollination. Western users harbor similar feelings of apathy, with a bigger selection of messaging apps appealing more to foreign tastes (Jie 2023). And with only 2.25 million international users, KakaoTalk does not have that network effect on them. I do have KakaoTalk on my phone, but only text one friend rarely, as we fall back onto our mutual habit of using iMessage and other social networking sites.
The actual adversary to KakaoTalk’s success at present is the government crackdown on tech sector monopolies that companies like Kakao Corp. hold. President Yoon’s sentiment about KakaoTalk as infrastructure prompted a call for the corporation to back up its servers properly and his administration to find a better balance between a free market and fair competition. The Fair Trade Commission, the ICT committee, and the National Security Office began to investigate Kakao’s data management shortcomings.
This was not a new revelation. In 2016, the government put Kakao Corp. on its antitrust watch list, the first internet company sharing placement with Samsung and Hyundai (Korea Herald 2016). The government’s stated aims of including Kakao are to foster growth of smaller businesses (Kim 2016) and prevent a chaebol effect (The Economist 2021).
But despite growing regulations and general weariness of South Korea’s tech sector, the government still has not denied KakaoTalk’s place as national infrastructure. Therefore, a potential contradiction seems to take place. How can KakaoTalk take the place of KT Telecom as national ICT infrastructure without its monopoly? Governments around the world have had to reckon with massive ICT mergers and acquisitions that threaten a free market, but it has been difficult to transform that reckoning into action. And with Kakao Corp.’s proliferation into other markets, like entertainment with the acquisition of K-Pop company SM Entertainment and the production of Korean dramas by Kakao Entertainment, Kakao as a brand has successfully woven itself into Korean culture. So long as South Koreans buy into the brand and opt to use its services every day, it will continue to be difficult to loosen Kakao’s hold on the country.
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On April 15th, 69 days after the launch of the latest iteration of NoPixel, a massive video game server, the popular subreddit Livestreamfailbanned all Grand Theft Auto V role play (GTAV RP) clip submissions for two weeks.
This was quite literally a controversial decision, given that the announcement received a near equal amount of upvotes and downvotes. With 1.2 million members, the Livestreamfail subreddit is one of the most popular Reddit forums for users to share live stream content, usually from Twitch. Grand Theft Auto V, a best-selling video game from 2013, is currently the most viewed game on Twitch. It tops all other categories. This is likely due to the popularity of the NoPixel server, which is heavily populated by streamers.
The moderators said that the subreddit was too overwhelmed with GTAV RP content and that it would be best to make more room to diversify the posts.
Ten days after Livestreamfail’s announcement, Streamer Hasan Piker (whom I featured in my last paper) declared that he was taking a break from GTAV RP.
For the time being, he would not log into the NoPixel server to role play as Humberto Antonio Donato Pecorino. In that stream, he said he wasn’t feeling like he “wasn’t offering the best kind of content.” In a later stream, Hasan explained that GTAV RP was taking over his life to the point where he was addicted.
Since I finished my last paper on GTAV RP and continued to consume this content, I thought I was just now observing the crumbling of the GTAV RP content industrial complex. Perhaps the market of live streaming content was oversaturated by a single category that served a specific purpose. Hasan became overwhelmed by the task of creating compelling content, and the subreddit moderators had made a deliberate effort to intervene in the monopolization of GTAV RP clips. This process seems to be inevitable in the practice of “content aggregation.”
In his article, “Giant Pools of Content: Theorizing Aggregation in Online Media Distribution,” author Andrew J. Bottomley defines content aggregation as “the practice of pulling media content from various sources and making it accessible in one dedicated, easy-to-find location.” Bottomley makes a historical analysis of content aggregation, dating this practice as early as the 1960s, and taking on a new form in the Dot Com Boom era of the 1990s. Through his analysis, Bottomley found that, because of it falling under a capitalist model encouraging growth, internet content became so abundant that its access “invariably [brought] with it a problem of overabundance that must be addressed through the methods of sorting and selection,” i.e., content aggregation sites.
Predating Twitch, there was a rise of human-aggregated websites like Broadcast.com, founded in 1995 as AudioNet. Broadcast.com’s purpose was to simulcast content like radio and television stations and provide on-demand content from audiobooks to music albums. Most importantly, this was offered at no cost. However, this was not a new concept, Bottomley explains. Instead, it was “modeled explicitly on broadcasting precedents and imposed those mass media logics on the internet media system.”
Broadcast.com is long gone, but the practice of content aggregation and distribution is not. Bottomley cited Youtube, Netflix, and Spotify as “content distributors that operate under basically the same intermediation principle of pulling together a vast array of content at a single site from which individuals can then sort and filter the programming according to their particular needs…” Bottomley does not cite Twitch as one of those sites. However, it falls under the definition that he provides. Twitch, much similar to Broadcast.com, sources streaming content from users for wide distribution. It plays a dual role as both a place for people to create live content and a place for on-demand content in the form of “clips.” The dominating live stream platform has inevitably disrupted the live streaming community through its content aggregation service. Bottomley raises that “the consolidation of content through aggregators raises concerns about concentration power and control.”
Through its profit-driven model, Twitch has spawned an overabundance of live stream content that users seek to control by parsing through it to curate capital C content. But the overabundance of content has led to an overtaking of all other kinds of live stream content. In my paper, I ask the following questions: Through a linguistic anthropology lens, when does role-play content become Content? Moreover, what are the consequences of its overabundance?
If you are speaking the language of the content consumer, the top entry in Urban Dictionary provides an apt definition of Content:
It is worth noting the slang term “the shit” and the “maximum” descriptor for views. From an audience’s perspective, Content can be defined by its wide acceptance as something good, has the potential for virility, and irresistibly warrants engagement. Also, it can be media created for the intention to beat the algorithms of these aggregator sites and get a user’s content in front of as many eyes as possible.
From this acknowledgment that there is a self-aware practice of Content creation, plus the practice of content aggregation being effortless through major platforms, I infer that both are happening in the context of GTAV RP live stream content, and there may be significant consequences that obfuscate the idea of an open and democratic internet.
About NoPixel
NoPixel is a game server hosted by FiveM, a platform that modifies the original GTAV game to accommodate large multiplayer servers. In NoPixel, up to 200 players can be on the server at a time. The server environment is based on Los Santos, a fictional city where the original game takes place. All the content I have observed and collected comes from this server specifically, as it is the most popular among Twitch streamers.
There is an application process to join the NoPixel server, with questions that ask the player to expand on their potential character and responses to hypothetical scenarios that could happen in-game. Currently, a player must donate monthly to be a part of the server.
There are a set of rules that all players must abide by to avoid being banned. These rules have to do with role-play philosophy and general decency guidelines. The rules are an essential framework to analyze the data because they act as an authority on the ideology of participation in role-play. This informs what kind of Content can potentially be derived from these Twitch streams.
About the Data
The clipping feature on Twitch is an intuitive way for users to generate content suitable for curation and virility. In less than a few minutes, a user can parse through a small section of the stream, highlight the part that they want to clip, and publish the clip for other users to watch on-demand.
In order to collect well-rounded data, I watched live streams (content I would consider organic content) and parsed through live stream clips already created by other users through Twitch (I would consider this curated content) with a preference for those with more views. I found that a combination of these methods helped trace the linear timeline of Content curation. By first exploring generated clips, I could infer what could be considered Content in my live observations. To help expand on those observations, I generated my own live stream clips to embed in this paper. These are indicated by my username (marsisms).
Twitch limits the clipping feature so that the clips can be no longer than 60 seconds. I found myself watching a total of 8 hours of live streaming to capture these clips.
For this paper, I will present just a small sample of the thousands of GTAV RP clips generated over time.
Analysis
Rule-abiding role play as Content
As I mentioned in my last paper, NoPixel role-play has strict rules regarding in-character performance, resulting in unique strategies to help the role player maintain the suspension of disbelief for their audience:
“The success of NoPixel streaming on Twitch could be attributed to its seemingly rigid ideology of participation that actually facilitates an expansive role-playing experience, both for streamers and watchers. In the server, the gamer’s role is exclusively that of a NoPixel character. There can be no referencing the fact that you are experiencing this world on a computer. If you are not sure how to move your arm, you will be told to “flex your G muscle,” referring to the button on your keyboard. If characters observe that your mic isn’t working, you may be asked to take a cough drop. If a player cannot adhere to this rule, among others, they will be kicked.”
With this in mind, I wanted to present an instance where extreme in-character, immersive participation generated successful Content. Twitch streamer Sykkuno has joined the NoPixel as the character Yuno Sykk, a kind criminal who conceals his face out of insecurity. He has received the reputation as one of the friendliest people in Los Santos by cops and criminals alike.
In this clip, generated by user Taycroofficial, Yuno is seen helping his friend Amon Gus (streamer DisguisedToast) get away from the police by directing him while he is driving. This was a somewhat popular clip, garnering 268 upvotes on Reddit and over 12,000 clip views.
The motivation to choose this clip to exemplify rule-abiding as Content came from the title of the Reddit post: “Sykkuno and his squad get sucked up into a tornado while attempting getaway.” Given the weather mechanics of the server, I was curious about the actual existence of a tornado overpowering a car. After watching the clip, I realized what the title was really referencing and felt it was very relevant to analyze for this paper through linguistic anthropology terms.
At 0:23, you see the car spontaneously spring in the air and convulse. While it is obviously a glitch outside of the players’ control. Yuno attempts to normalize the situation by frantically asking what Amon is doing to cause the car to move that way. Amon responds by saying he hit a speed bump.
The following live stream recording shows the glitch happening from the perspective of officer Claire Everly, played by streamer LunaOni. She exits her vehicle to catch the attention of the players trapped in the car, telling them to jump out.
The whole stream was watched by a total of over 249,000 viewers, which trumps all other LunaOni streams, which have 31,000 to 180,000 views. The players who have jumped out are effectively injured, validated by one player saying, “It hurts so bad,” at 8:59:53. To effectively code-switch in and out of character, LunaOni is laughing at the absurd situation while her in-game mic is off so that she can handle the situation seriously in her role.
In this extended clip, you can also hear Yuno maintaining the normalization of the situation by indexing the glitch as a natural disaster. He says, “We got caught in a tornado or something.” Officer Claire does not question this.
Right after, Claire’s cop car also glitches, jumping through the air in a similar fashion. This is when she notices that Amon is provoking these glitches and needs to log out of the server to reset the car placements. She does this in character by yelling out to him, “Amon, you need a nap! Please nap! Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!”
Telling Amon to sleep is an apt indexical reference because when a character logs out and logs back into the server, they are spawned back to their apartment and seen literally getting out of bed. Claire telling Amon to sleep reinforces this widely accepted use of language, so DisguisedToast knows exactly what she is talking about. He logs out soon after.
Within these clips, you can see and hear the players show their adoption of a particular language of NoPixel role-play that is not official but falls under the ideology of participation. Had the role players gone out of character using language, such as Yuno saying there was a literal glitch, and officer Everly telling Amon to literally log out, the viewers would most likely reject this instance as Content, as it robs them of the suspension of disbelief. When the Reddit user posted the clip, there was further validation of the indexical reference to the glitch. So successful role-play can be effectively categorized as Content. Later in this paper, I show an example of consequential out-of-character behavior that viewers revolt against.
Memes that turn content into Content
I featured streamer Buddha in my last paper because of his status as a well-known veteran role play streamer. He has accumulated 1181hrs 8mins of on-stream game time since the launch of NoPixel 3.0.
In 2017, during a previous version of the NoPixel server, Buddha interviewed with an Esports-related YouTube channel and gave viewers a rare opportunity to hear from the player behind the character.
He explains how the initial appeal of Lang Buddha came from his voice. While he controls all of the character’s mechanics, he makes his character unique through his accent. Despite Lang being of Chinese descent, his accent is not explicitly coded as Chinese. Instead, Lang speaks like Lang, inspired by the voiceovers from cartoons like Family Guy and the Simpsons.
He also gives a succinct response to the appeal of the NoPixel server for longtime role play. “It feels real.” Through each iteration, the NoPixel server’s graphics have improved so significantly that it enhances role-play. According to Buddha, the secret to good role-play is going with the flow. His personal participation ideology is to keep a conversation going, similar to the “Yes, and…” rule-of-thumb in improvisational comedy. Even if the conversation starts with something ordinary and evolves into something more absurd, you should let the conversation continue its course, avoiding abrupt endings.
In practice, Buddha executes his strategies near flawlessly in his streams. He will constantly pick up on current storylines and build new ones as he meets other characters. Buddha surveys and takes advantage of the city landscape by interacting with it effortlessly. He knows his way around the city, and the characters know who Buddha is through his iconic voice and appearance.
In response, Buddha’s audience can reflexively pick up on entertaining moments and categorize them as Content. They do this through language, specifically while chatting during the live stream. Twitch chats can be very fast-paced and impulsive. Live moments warrant quick reactions, so there is much brevity in a chat like Buddha’s, where he can have 16,000 viewers watching him. Because Twitch gives prominence to the chat function, fitting it right next to the streaming video, it can be an integral part of the live stream watching experience.
I found two studies that explored the significance of Twitch chat, one concerning viewer satisfaction and the other about predicting the popularity of content. In the study of the first article, “Watching Players: An Exploration of Media Enjoyment on Twitch,” the researchers found that the chat function was influential in a viewer’s overall experience of a live stream. Through an online survey of 548 Twitch users, they found that “…using the chat… was associated with higher levels of media enjoyment (b ¼ .20, p < .001).” By defining Twitch as a community, the chat function plays an important role as a conduit for social interaction between not only the streamer and the viewers but between the viewers themselves. It also facilitates more entertaining experiences on the platform.
In the second study examining the relationship between Twitch chat and the popularity of a certain stream (“Learning How Spectator Reactions Affect Popularity on Twitch”), the researchers found that the use of emojis can be a predictor of popularity. This is because they denote “‘relatable’ emotion toward the streamer—rather than simple cheers or happy mood.”
In keeping with this method, I observed Buddha’s live stream and chat relay simultaneously to see if I could find a connection between how chat reacts to the stream and the Content being derived from these utterances. I specifically looked for moments where a significant number of non-textual, memetic utterances were relayed in chat. I hypothesized that a stream of emotes in reaction to a moment of the stream signified a piece of Content react. I have included clips from Buddha’s stream where I was able to both associate the stream with the realization of Content and glean the type of emotional response that content was receiving.
This first clip is a moment that elicited positive reactions from the chat because they found it to be humorous. As Lang runs across the street, he gets hit by a car and falls, responding with a vocal utterance that may not express pain but is keeping with a joking register. It sounds like a giggle. He immediately gets up from his fall, jumps on the road down to a street where he is struck by a car for a second time. This time it seems intentional as he giggles again.
Within that 30 second clip, from the time Lang falls the first time to the end, I counted 67 non-textual utterances indicating laughter. These were represented by the emotes KEKW, LUL, LULW, and OMEGALUL. Each emote is iconic of a person laughing out loud.
In this second clip, chat used emotes to react sadly to content. Buddha is on the phone with Marlo, a character looking to collect the debt from Humberto, him being the character HasanAbi has retired for the time being. Chat is aware that Donnie is “gone,” so they react using the sadge emote, which is the character Pepe the Frog frowning in a slouched position. From time 0:13 to the end of the call at 0:46, the sadge emote is relayed 60 times, with a few messages, including “Donnie” or “Humberto.”
For chat, this was content that referenced the universe of the NoPixel server and showed how choices outside the server affect what happens inside the server, building onto the already-established lore. Viewers responding memetically meant that they felt a sense of solidarity within Buddha’s community, an important facet that does contribute to viewers’ enjoyment, and established a consensus that this clip was Content.
Finally, I have a clip of a piece of content that evoked a particular type of non-textual utterance that represented the memeification of Buddha as a streamer. While there are “Global” emotes provided to all Twitch users, like the aforementioned LULW, there exists subscriber-only emotes. These can only be used by users who have subscribed to the particular streamer and usually visually relate to the streamer’s persona. So for this instance, the emote reactions could only be shared by Buddha’s subscribers.
Buddha is driving his vehicle with Yuno, and when he drives up a ramp, flies through the air, and lands relatively unscathed, Buddha subscribers are using the buddhaWICKED emote. It is a pastiche of the WICKED emote (where Pepe dons a pair of sport sunglasses) and Buddha’s icon.
From the moment Buddha first starts to land, the emote shows up in chat 25 times, significantly less because of its exclusivity. Subscribed viewers demonstrate a more dedicated, though still a parasocial, relationship with the streamer’s content and actually play a unique role in curating Content. In fact, only Buddha’s subscribers can clip his streams, which I found surprising. As a result, the subscribers have the final authority to determine what is worth spreading to the masses. This is a rare but very influential way for the streamer to regulate the type of content that can become Content.
When language deprives users of role play Content
As evidenced in the clips and background research I have presented so far, the role-players of NoPixel have intentions to make the server welcoming and fun through immersion and maintain a certain sense of humor around their activities. Also, there is a correlation between what is defined as Content and viewers’ reaction to that moment in the live stream. Now, there have been popular instances where hostile and/or non-immersive role-play becomes too egregious to be considered Content, or at the very least fun Content that maintains the positive key of NoPixel role-play language because of viewer reactions. I will expand upon a disruption to the GTAV RP content industrial complex from a streamer named xQcOW, also called xQc.
xQc is an extremely popular streamer, being the most popular in 2020 in terms of hours watched. In this article, the publication argues that this is the most important statistic to determine the popularity of a streamer because it “combines a streamer’s dedication to going live and their ability to attract large audiences consistently.”
His presence in the NoPixel server has inevitably garnered attention from Twitch users. The top two most view GTAV clips of all time came from his streams.
Despite his popularity, xQc was a notorious role player. Most notably, viewers began to question his communicative competence. The NoPixel developers have banned xQc four times due to rule-breaking behavior.
However, they have never cited the rule(s) that he broke, so viewers were left to speculate on Livestreamfail. In this thread, the original poster curated a group of clips, presenting them as content that may have led to his ban. You will notice in the post that there was another deliberate effort to keep this content from taking over the subreddit.
I will focus on one of the clips cited because it best highlights xQc’s language breaches that could have broken the NoPixel server’s rules.
As other users have in the comments, I speculated that the breach committed from xQc came from his excessive use of expletives, up to the point where it was questioned if he was still in character when he was degrading the cop. The first alarming utterance, “Fuck you, you piece of shit,” is an atypical response for a GTAV RP character. Right after xQc declares, “I hope you fucking die.” Again, very atypical, alarming language that may have broken NoPixels guidelines around “Not Valuing Life (NVL).”
Within these guidelines is a rule that, in character, you should not be “antagonizing gangs/police or armed individuals for no character reason.” Surely xQc was antagonizing the cop, but the question was whether he had no character reason. To him, he was being arrested by a cop, so his language warranted it.
But I would argue that that is not the case. Throughout my paper, I have shown that live stream viewers have tremendous power to constitute role play Content, especially through how they respond or talk about it. In this thread about this particular clip on Livestream fail, the most upvoted comments have a common element of dismissing this content as in-character role play.
“Kapp” referencing a Twitch emote that represents sarcasm.
The phrase, “I hope you fucking die,” was an obvious trigger for users to determine xQc’s role play as unacceptable. And because of the extreme nature, it was enough for them to deem his language out of character and justify the ban. So the fact that there was substantial reaction and discussion from viewers could mean that this was unique content, but it is not Content because it goes against the spirit of GTAV role play that viewers expect from streamers.
XqC has since been unbanned, so perhaps he has adopted a more friendly language that viewers can enjoy. He is still dominating the role-play live stream world.
Conclusion
To explore and refine the nebulous concept of content was an incomplete and challenging journey. I believe I found some material criteria to determine Content, but I am no oracle at predicting. That is not to say that it is impossible or that the word still has no meaning. Between my last paper and this one, I have found compelling evidence that language is critical to unearthing and understanding potential Content.
In my research and observations, I found parallels between GTAV RP and the findings from Inmaculada M. García-Sánchez’s article “Serious Games.” Through her observations of young Morrocan girls’ role play, she noted how the peer group is a “primordial locust for immigrant children’s language socialization.” When these peer groups are diverse, some girls will socialize with others by exposing them to previously inaccessible parts of life through pretend-play. They also will enforce rules on how to speak in pretend-play. In turn, these girls adopt a socio-cultural identity that elevates certain languages, activities, and ways of being over others in order to belong. Particularly, being a “high society” Spanish-speaking woman was the ideal that could be achieved through role-play for the time being.
In GTAV RP, a similar kind of language socialization happens among characters. NoPixel’s rules provide some baseline standards on role-playing ethics and procedures. While playing, characters pick up on acceptable language, communicative practices, and modes of participation. As a result, there comes a widely accepted participation of ideology. When your language does not align with the values and normative stances of NoPixel, not only is the character outcast, but so is the streamer.
The same processes are happening amongst viewers. Audience consensus shapes the GTAV RP content industrial complex. Through a variety of instrumentalities (such as memes and discussions), users can quickly be socialized, reinforce content standards, and shape the identity of their community, whether it be a subreddit or a streamer’s subscriber base. These can be positive ways to create a sense of belonging among disparate viewers. However, too much can disrupt the greater live stream community’s pool of Content.
This is not entirely the fault of GTAV RP streamers or viewers. Twitch as a platform intentionally promotes the spread of homogeneous content. I witnessed this personally during my research. The more I watched and followed GTAV content on Twitch, the more it was recommended to me. Furthermore, as I watched more of a particular streamer, Twitch would try to launch me down a rabbit hole of those streamer’s clips. More users streaming for longer hours means more watch time on the platform, which means more opportunities to show users ads. The most efficient way to do this is to reinforce popular content.
There is no doubt that these trends will follow. The next popular game will capture the attention of many streamers and viewers, and then live streams will transform into Content, memes, and points of discussion. Further research on past and future popular game phenomena is needed, but the construction of the GTAV RP content industrial complex could indeed be a part of a pattern that comes with video game content life cycles. This Content may be curated organically through user practice and consensus but can be distributed artificially via an algorithm.
So there are both positive and negative consequences of content aggregation that breed hive-mind attitudes. They can simultaneously facilitate community-building and an unbalanced power dynamic within it. I see why NoPixel and viewers are quick to implement stop-gap measures and call out inappropriate behavior to keep the role play live stream community balanced and welcoming. The best way they and streamers can learn how to enforce rules of engagement better is to keep using language as a tool to propagate positive content. GTAV RP has unexpectedly brought so much enjoyment into people’s lives in a time of prolonged isolation; it deserves that kind of care.
Works Cited
Bottomley, Andrew J. “Giant Pools of Content: Theorizing Aggregation in Online Media Distribution.” JCMS: Journal of Cinema & Media Studies, vol. 59, no. 1, Fall 2019, pp. 149–156. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-com.libproxy.mit.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asu&AN=141941602&site=eds-live&scope=site.
García-Sánchez, Inmaculada M. “Serious Games: Code-Switching and Gendered Identities in Moroccan Immigrant Girls’ Pretend Play.” Pragmatics, vol. 20, no. 4, Dec. 2010, pp. 523–555. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-com.libproxy.mit.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=59210206&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Kim, Jeongmin, et al. “Learning How Spectator Reactions Affect Popularity on Twitch.” 2020 IEEE International Conference on Big Data and Smart Computing (BigComp), Big Data and Smart Computing (BigComp), 2020 IEEE International Conference On, Feb. 2020, pp. 147–154. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1109/BigComp48618.2020.00-84.
Wulf, Tim, et al. “Watching Players: An Exploration of Media Enjoyment on Twitch.” GAMES AND CULTURE, vol. 15, no. 3, May 2020, pp. 328–346. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/1555412018788161.
