We are all jejemons

I first heard the word “jejemon" last April when I sat as panelist in the IYAS Creative Writing Workshop of La Salle-Bacolod. An 18-year old writing fellow for fiction from Ateneo de Manila tried to explain the word to me. He said it came from “jejeje" which is a variation of “hehehe" used in text messages to indicate an embarrassed smile. Nothing wrong there, I thought. The Spanish “jejeje" is really pronounced as “hehehe." That is why we have words like “hepe" (chief of police) from the original “jefe" and “hamon" (ham) which is actually “jamon" in Spanish.

The www.urbandictionary.com has this very negative meaning of jejemon: “1. Usually seen around social networking sites such as Friendster and Multiply, jejemons are individuals with low IQs who spread around their idiocy on the web by tYpFing Lyk diZS jejejeje, making all people viewing their profile raise their eyebrows out of annoyance. Normal people like you and me must take a Bachelor of Arts in Jejetyping in order to understand said individuals, as deciphering their text would cause a lot of frustration and hair pulling. CAUTION: THESE INDIVIDUALS ARE BREEDING! THEY CAN BE SEEN WRECKING GRAMMATICAL HAVOC ON FACEBOOK TOO!"

What I don’t like about this definition is that it reeks of malice and bigotry against individuals who are different from others. There’s also a definition number 2, but I refuse to quote it because it is very racist and homophobic, practically labeling jejemons as idiots. My feeling is, if you need to get another bachelor’s degree and you are always frustrated when you read jejemon text, maybe it is the reader who is really the idiot here?

Read more @ GMANEWS