The average age of BBC2’s audience topped 60 last year – a year older than BBC1 – up from 58 three years earlier.
Shillinglaw, the BBC’s former science and natural history chief, said there was a ‘maturity of world view’ among its viewers but said the channel was ‘young at heart’.
‘I don’t think in terms of actual age, I think in terms of a mindset,’ she told a Bafta event in London on Monday.
‘If you are in your 50s or 60s you grew up with punk. You don’t have an automatically staid view of the world.’
In other words, never mind the demographics, here’s BBC2.
Even more remarkable is that the longer you look at this group of women the more it becomes clear that they aren’t really the Carol Corps—they’re the Kelly Sue Corps. The same people who were making Captain Marvel costumes and getting “punch holes in the sky” tattoos are now dressing up as Ginny from Pretty Deadly and knitting Bitch Planet’s Non-Compliant symbol into blankets. This is the real mistake that Marvel has made: confusing adoration for a story with loyalty to character. The books that are selling well right now, particularly with new readers, are selling because they’re compelling and representative, not because they star a specific character. Ms. Marvel and Gotham Academy and Batgirl and, yes, Bitch Planet all sell because for the first time in a long time, (mostly female) fans are getting a taste of something entirely new, something that looks like them, something that feels authentic and real. Carol Danvers isn’t suddenly popular after languishing in relative obscurity because she’s now Captain Marvel. She’s popular because Kelly Sue DeConnick has tapped into a market demographic that’s been not only ignored but actively abused by publishers and fans alike.
“you” vs “u”
tumblr linguists pls explain why ‘you’ sometimes needs to be ‘u’ and ‘u’ needs to be ‘you’ and how come i will mix and match my u’s and you’s within the same post or even the same sentence
the difference between “u” and “you” is really interesting to me too, and while there haven’t been a lot of plausible conclusions drawn about variable usage of the two, i’ve observed a few things about it.
one: tumblr has, effectively, its own dialect. in fact, different part of tumblr have different variants of this dialect. usage of “you” vs “u” is a part of this dialect.
(here’s a great video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDPasRas5u0)
two: a key feature of the “tumblr dialect” is fluidity — tumblr posts generally maintain a very specific cadence. variable usage of “u”/”you” occurs most frequently in order to increase fluidity of speech. the pattern is generally “you” at the beginning of a statement and “u”s in the body thereof. (this pattern is relatively consistent even if there is no beginning “you”.)
three: another factor seems to be emphasis, and authorial intent. “you” is used more frequently when the subject matter is serious, or, as one person already pointed out, if the statement is intended to be forceful. alternatively, “u” has an intrinsic flippancy that speakers frequently use in conjunction with humor, irony, or sarcasm.
four: authors will vary usage of “you”/”u” in instances of repetition, in part because the “tumblr dialect” involves a minimalistic approach to punctuation. (example: “omg i was so worried about u you know”)
five: users often use “u” instead of “you” to address people they know well or feel close to, almost as a form of endearment. (example: “i love u”, “are u ok”, etc.) because “you” carries with it a forcefulness or seriousness, “u” is used more frequently in casual, affectionate exchanges between friends.
six: users use “u” more often if they use other such abbreviations in the same post.
the key difference seems to be that “u” — as a single letter — feels diminutive, casual, and cute, in comparison to the full word “you”, which feels more serious, more professional, or more severe. though the have the same meaning on tumblr, their different connotations can be chalked up to their different visual presentations.
somebody who’s a more skilled linguist than i am should pick this up tbh, would love to hear about any conclusions that have been drawn about this
I am not a linguist, but I also note that some people use the “You” instead of “u” when “ya” could also be used like “I like u, ya know?” and it would be perfectly understandable like that too.
imho the internet has effectively brought back the formal/informal ‘you’ that was phased out of the english language hundreds of years ago, albeit in a purely text-based system (i have my own ideas about text-based language being the language of the future but i won’t get into that here)
u takes the place of a less formal and less polite pronoun- you wouldn’t say ‘u’ in an email to the president, but you’d say that shit online or to friends and family
conversely, ‘you’ has evolved to be more serious- receiving a ‘fuck you’ text is way more alarming than if it says ‘fuck u’
TL;DR- the internet allowed formal/informal you to re-evolve in englishAll of this analysis is quite insightful – no need to feel like you’re not a skilled enough linguist! I feel like I recently read another tumblr post about this same phenomenon though – maybe allthingslinguistic had one? But I just looked and couldn’t find it.
Yay for cool linguistic analysis of internet-speak 🙂
I haven’t analyzed this before, but I’ve been watching it. See also this popular text post on the same topic.
I don’t think it’s exactly the same as the informal/formal distinction that we used to have with thou/you, but that’s not shocking: even within the same distinction in the same language, different dialects and time periods can have different subtleties within a general “formality” distinction. For example, with tu/vous in French, Quebec and France use them differently, and France a couple hundred years ago used them yet a third way.
So hey, modern internet residents are dealing with a pretty different set of social circumstances from people in Chaucerian or even Shakespearian England, there are different subtleties in formality. Here’s my first attempt at describing the social functions of “u”:
1. “It’s shorter or faster to type (and I don’t care if prescriptive authorities like it).”
2. “I’ve been told this is how People On The Internet talk to each other.” This is the use that gets satirized in this xkcd comic. It’s found among older, less-but-still-somewhat internet-savvy people, so it’s kind of internet culture but kind of not.
3. “I’m using it to indicate my membership in group (1) or (2) for a period of time. But I’m also using it to indicate that I’m aware these two groups exist, and positioning myself relative to internet culture with how I use and don’t use it.” I think this is the interesting subtle usage that these posts are drawing our attention to, although there are probably further patterns that we could get from a corpus.
So I think “u” can indicate a variety of things from internet culture. It’s not just “u” vs “you”, but those two have an advantage that you have to use one or the other. Someone might avoid emoticons or abbreviations like lol or wtf for any number of reasons, so there isn’t an obvious absence when you don’t use them, but if you want to use a second person (especially singular) pronoun, you’re forced to choose between “u” and “you”. (Leaving aside explicitly plural pronouns like “y’all” and “you guys”, although I do have a vague impression that “u” is better as singular than plural.)
The most similar items would be other rebus-based common word replacements, i.e “are” vs ”r”, “to/two/too” vs ”2″, and maybe even “see” vs ”c”. But I haven’t really seen people using c in the last 10 or so years and “r” and “2″ also seem rarer than “u”. (“R” is probably the most common of these three, especially when it’s in the same utterance as “u”, which might be a style matching thing? Does anyone say “u are” or “you r”? “u r” or “u are” seem okay to me but “you r” seems odd.)
It’s still an open question why “u”/”you” is the most productive, but maybe it harkens back to the idea that expressing formality in pronouns is more familiar to us historically/cross-linguistically.
This is endlessly fascinating to me. (Note: I’m a nerd, obviously.)
Sometimes a friend with depression will say no to a lot of things and decline all or most of your invitations. This can make you feel like you’re overstepping boundaries and should immediately leave them alone until they reach out to you themselves. Pay attention to this feeling: it’s true that when people keep saying no to things you ask, it’s probably a good idea to stop asking. However, depression can also cause people to say no while wishing they could say yes.
The way to deal with this is not to assume, but to just ask directly: “You’ve said no the past few times I’ve invited you to do something. That’s okay, but I just wanted to check: would you like me to keep inviting you?” I’ve done this before with other people dealing with depression and found that they often respond that they do want me to keep asking, and they hope that one of these days they’ll be able to say yes.
Ahh, Prima Nocta, the ancient practice that granted nobles sexual rights to a man’s wife on the wedding night! What superhero movie would be complete without wistful longing for a time when rape was customary?
I’m sure countless fans will rush to Whedon’s defense, so let me say this out of the gate: yes, this is a joke. Clearly. But there’s no such thing as ‘just’ a joke; and when you’re a creator with a history of being hilarious without relying on rape culture, it’s time to admit witty banter that punches down at approximately half one’s audience really isn’t that witty at all. ‘Mewling quim’ wasn’t worth it, and ‘Prima Nocta’ isn’t either.“
Matthew Sweet explores the dawning of the age of Black Aquarius – the weirdly great wave of occultism that swept through British popular culture in the 1960s-70s. From journals like the Aquarian Arrow to the diabolical novels of Dennis Wheatley, lurid accounts of satanic cults in the Sunday papers and the glut of illustrated books, part-magazines, documentary film and TV drama, it was a wildly exuberant seam of British pop culture.
BBC Radio 4 – Archive on 4, Black Aquarius (via savage-america)
For further investigation.
Also I’m secretly hoping it’s power-pop icon Matthew Sweet hosting this.
(via highway62)
It is. Midway through the show, he breaks out the harmonies and there’s a seven minute guitar solo by Tom Verlaine.
But here is what this initiative will do. It will create a new demographic – girls that will grow up knowing Batgirl, Wonder Woman, Katana and other DC characters. Girls that will be able to not hunt around to find the scraps of representation that they have received over the past fews years – the book here, the Playskool pre-school toy here. It will create an expectation that girls are superheroes too and I know it because I grew up with them.
There’s a folksy saying that applies here “You don’t write a check you can’t cash.”
Yesterday’s announcement was a check. It’s a major investment. And Warner Bros and DC Entertainment and Mattel and Lego and Random house are investing. Big time. They are writing the check.
And the cashee? A new generation of comic readers who will not accept token appearances and a “cooties” world of comics. **
And when they get to comic book reading age? There will more of them. The size of the female audience is growing. We know that. Digital is changing it and we’ve seen both DC Comics and Marvel, who I was once told would NEVER market to women, now talk about women as a desired demographic.
Toys, books and Batman EVERYWHERE has been a pipeline to new comic readers for years. But that desired reader wasn’t girls. Boys have had this stuff for years. Now girls will. That will change comics.
Sue at DC Women Kicking Ass manages to get everything I’m excited about in the DC Super Hero Girls announcement over in a far better way than I could.
That said, I fully expect Marvel/Disney’s inevitable response to be reported with “FINALLY SOMEONE IS DOING SUPERHEROES FOR GIRLS” headlines, just as the Captain Marvel movie announcement, made two weeks after Warners announced Wonder Woman, was given the “I can’t believe no-one’s ever announced a superhero movie starring a woman before! Marvel are so groundbreaking!” treatment.
Christina Hendricks (Joan Holloway): Matt was always telling the actors secrets about their characters. One day, in the early stages of filming the first season, Matt took me aside and told me that, in the Mad Men universe, Joan would eventually die by getting eaten by a shark in the year 2131, when she is 200 years old. He also told me that Joan knew that this was how she was going to die, and that she didn’t care.
Matthew Weiner: Joan knows that a shark is going to eat her on her 200th birthday, and it doesn’t bother her at all. Every evening, she gets a phone call from a wizard in the middle of the night, and the wizard says, “A shark will swallow you when you are ancient,” and Joan always says, “So fucking what? I can’t wait.” The reason why Joan is destined to live until she is 200 years old is because her father accidentally ran over the wizard in his car, so the wizard put a curse on his daughter. This backstory informs every aspect of Joan’s character, even though it’s only hinted at a few times over the course of the show.