Lingo

I was talking to Simon a few days ago about lingo people use, which often acts as a differentiator between groups. Coders recognize "foobar." Surfers call anything "gnarly." Climbers love to give you the "beta." True "Cornellians" skip "prelims" to make fun of "hotelies" in front of "Louies" and debate what's more expensive: a "hot" or a "fat." "Ifykyk."

This type of jargon seems to pop up organically, especially in small concentrated groups. The social network effect is strong: the more people adopt it, the more it gets used by others. The lingo can strengthen the network, keeping people from leaving and tempting people outside of the network to join because of the FOMO. Thriving groups have a ton of in-group verbiage but it seems hard to artificially create.

Since the culture of social networks with some hierarchy (like school clubs) is a derivative of the leadership team—a low-energy depressed president will probably lead to a low-energy depressed club—it makes sense to start at the top. I'll try running an experiment: pushing some lingo at Armada and seeing if people actually start using it. I want to chill at Mann Library and hear people talking about their "schooners" (a shipped side project...).