Thursday, August 26, 2010

Breaker breaker one-nine!

CNN has a news report today which attempts to terrify parents into believing that their children are learning 1337 (LEET speak) in order to have stilted communications about sex'n'drugs on their cell phones.

CNN says in their article Parents, do you know what these texts mean?:
Children across the country are heading back to school, and new research from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America shows that a third of parents are concerned computers and texting make it harder to communicate with media-engrossed teens about sex, drugs, alcohol and other risky behaviors. [...]
Jones has now made it his mission to help parents detect when their children are discussing dangerous activities online.
In his online dictionary, there are thousands of slang terms related to drugs and sex [...]). "A- boot," for example, means someone is under the influence of drugs, "cu46" means "see you for sex," and "gnoc" means "get naked on cam," meaning a webcam.

Well, possibly, though I doubt it. And then, for some reason, CNN chooses to give us the following text to translate:

"1 w45 50 j4ck3d up |457 n16h7. 1 5c0r3d 50m3 cr4ck 47 7h3 p4r7y 50 1'd h4v3 17 f0r 70n16h7 4nd 70m0rr0w, 4nd 7h3n J1mmy 700k 0ff w17h 17, 7h3 455h0|3! 1 4m 4|| j1773ry 4nd n33d 70 m337 up w17h y0u 70n16h7 4f73r my p4r3n75 7h1nk 1 4m 45|33p. c4n y0u m337 m3 47 b0j4n6|3'5 47 m1dn16h7 ju57 f0r 4 f3w m1nu735? 1 ju57 n33d 4 |177|3 4nd 1 c4n p4y y0u b4ck 0n m0nd4y, 1 pr0m153."

Translation:
"I was so jacked up last night. I scored some crack at the party so I'd have it for tonight and tomorrow, and then Jimmy took off with it, the [expletive]! I am all jittery and need to meet up with you tonight after my parents think i am asleep. Can you meet me at Bojangle's at midnight just for a few minutes? I just need a little and I can pay you back on Monday, I promise."

Can you imagine a teen thinking those sentences, and if they did, then going on to translate them painstakingly into 1337 on a cellphone that almost certainly has a letterpad of some sort, and possibly autocomplete, making finding the numbers actually harder than spelling the words? And wtf is Bojangle's? Sorry, slipped into actual text abbreviations there, sry. Srsly, FFS, CNN. Is yr next headline going to be, ".- .-. . -.-- --- ..- .-. -.- .. -.. ... - . -..- - .. -. --. .- -... --- ..- - .-. .- .--. - ..- .-. . --- ..-. - .... . -. . .-. -.. ... .. -. -- --- .-. ... . -.-. --- -.. . ..--.. ???!!!11eleventy!"


Have to say I enjoyed the following exchange in the comments section (you have to read from the bottom up, because this is the intarwebz):

  • umassattack
    N4rC
  • dawson1488
    Do you really have to call it crack cocaine? I mean it's just baking powder if it doesn't have the coke.
  • umassattack
    im a teeny bopper on my parents plan doing crack cocaine... or as we call it cr4ck c0c41n3... 0n d4 57r3375 y0

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