it's weird, but the generation gap is really divided by instant messenger. people born from the 80's on always have a profile, and 99% of the people born before 1980 don't. people born after 1980 also have their own lingo (ROFL, "mah" instead of my, etc.), while others... just talk normally. i mean, there already is a way to be "cool" on the IM world already. the world is going to be less personalized the more we continue with text messaging. the next generation is "Generation I-M-(nobody)."

some other thing i hate is what pj and i call: "im ettiquette." it's when you receive greeting on instant message from someone - and that's all you ever hear from them. it's like the other person is in a contest to see how many "heys" or "hi's" they can reach in their buddy list.
for example:

them: hey

me: hey

(10 minutes later)

me: what are you doing?

(20 minutes later)

*user "them" has signed off.*

this used to happen to me every day in college. now, when it's the people with no "IM ettiquette", i just do this:

them: hey

(without even attempting to respond, i immediately close their window)

the funny thing is, the same two situations come out of it:

first situation:

them: hey!

(at this point, i would normally close their window. so i do.)

(10 minutes later)

them: hello?

me: sup

them: where have you been? i haven't talked to you in a long time!!!! how are you?

me: well, the reason why i don't talk to you in a long time is because you're really annoying to talk to since i feel like i'm talking to nobody whenever i respond to your asinine salutations, so i decided to ignore you from now on and simply close your window.

(then i hit the delete key and write this instead:)


me: okay. you?

(10 minutes pass by)

them: hey, i gtg, so i'll ttyl, okee?!

*user "them" has signed off*

the second situation:

them: hey!


(i close their window)

(45 minutes later)

them: fine. ignore me. i know you're there. sheesh. bye. :(

(i close their window again, and not long after, they sign off)

do i care? not really. do they care? not really.

the next point is the buddy list. i believe it's really pointless keeping people on your buddy list that you KNOW you'll never talk to. the younger people seem to like larger buddy lists, keeping theirs at the maxed out 180 or so... when they only talk to 5 or 6.
so speaking of buddy lists and keeping names, the SCREEN NAMES of the kids - especially asian girls - has become increasingly lame.
some typical names would be: CuTiEpIe or ***CuTeGrL*** or KrNCuTiE or XTCGIRL or something stupid like that. Korean girls like to use korean in their names, like KRNPrincess012 (012 phoenetically said in korean means forever, so... yeah...) or some derivative. it's just sad what has been going on these days with the younger kids.