Jejemon
Encyclopedia
Jejemon (ˈdʒɛdʒɛmon) is a pop culture phenomenon in the Philippines
. According to Urban Dictionary
a Jejemon is a person "who has managed to subvert the English language to the point of incomprehensibility." The Philippine Daily Inquirer
describes Jejemons as a "new breed of hipster
who have developed not only their own language and written text but also their own sub-culture and fashion."
Pokemon
, with "-mon" meant as "monster," hence "jeje monsters."
" developed in which words were shortened in order to fit the 160-character limit. However, some jejemons are not really "conserving" characters; instead, they are lengthening their message. On April 14, 2010, on a Pinoy Tumblr
, a post about vice presidential candidate
Jejomar Binay
indicated that he was the Jejemon's preferred vice presidential candidate, complete with a fake poster with him called as "Jejemon Binay." Later the use of word jejemon to refer to such people made rounds in various Filipino internet message boards.
Such short-handed language is not limited to Filipinos: Thai
s use "5555" to denote "hahahaha," since the number 5 in Thai language
is pronounced as "ha."
of the Jejemons, called Jejenese, is derived from English, Filipino
and their code-switched variant
, Taglish
. It has its own, albeit unofficial, orthography, known as Jejebet, which uses the Filipino variant of the Roman alphabet, Arabic numerals
and other special characters. Words are created by rearranging letters in a word, alternating capitalization
, over-usage of the letters H, X or Z. Superfluous as well as the presence of silent letters characterize its spelling convention. It has similarities with Leet
speak, primarily the alphanumeric nature of its writing.
, Alessandra de Rossi
, Ces Drilon
, and Lourd de Veyra
have condemned the wholesale ridicule of the subculture. Due to the sudden existence of jejemons, 'Jejebusters' were created, a group of internet grammar vigilantes, typically Filipinos, dedicating their internet lives towards the eradication of jejetyping and jejemon existence.
YouTube
videos were also uploaded parodying the Jejemons, connecting them to the 2010 election campaign
. Edited television advertisements of Nacionalista Party
proclaiming their disdain, and an edited
photograph of Gilberto Teodoro
with him holding a sign saying that the Jejemons be "brought back to elementary school" went viral. In 2010, the Filipino GMA Network
broadcasted the situational comedy JejeMom
, headlined by Eugene Domingo
.
As part of the pre-school year clean-up of schools for the upcoming 2010–11 school year, the Department of Education
(DepEd) strongly discourages students from using Jejemon spelling and grammar, especially in text messaging. Communicating with others using Jejemon "language" is said to cause deterioration of young Filipino students’ language skills.
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
. According to Urban Dictionary
Urban Dictionary
Urban Dictionary is a Web-based dictionary of slang words and phrases, which contained over 6 million definitions . Submissions are regulated by volunteer editors and rated by site visitors...
a Jejemon is a person "who has managed to subvert the English language to the point of incomprehensibility." The Philippine Daily Inquirer
Philippine Daily Inquirer
The Philippine Daily Inquirer, popularly known as the Inquirer, is the most widely read broadsheet newspaper in the Philippines, with a daily circulation of 260,000 copies. It is one of the Philippines' newspapers of record...
describes Jejemons as a "new breed of hipster
Hipster (contemporary subculture)
Hipsters are a subculture of young, recently settled urban middle class adults and older teenagers with musical interests mainly in alternative rock that appeared in the 1990s...
who have developed not only their own language and written text but also their own sub-culture and fashion."
Etymology
The word Jejemon supposedly originated from members of this subculture's use of the letter "j" as a substitute for "h" in written text or in sms messaging. It is appended by "-mon" that came from the Japanese animeAnime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
Pokemon
Pokémon
is a media franchise published and owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video...
, with "-mon" meant as "monster," hence "jeje monsters."
Origins
The origins of short-handed typing was through the short messaging service, in which each text message sent by a cellphone is limited to 160 characters. As a result, an "SMS languageSMS language
SMS language or textese is a term for the abbreviations and slang most commonly used due to the necessary brevity of mobile phone text messaging, in particular the widespread SMS SMS language or textese (also known as txt-speak, txtese, chatspeak, txt, txtspk, txtk, txto, texting language, txt...
" developed in which words were shortened in order to fit the 160-character limit. However, some jejemons are not really "conserving" characters; instead, they are lengthening their message. On April 14, 2010, on a Pinoy Tumblr
Tumblr
Tumblr is a website and microblogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users can follow other users, or choose to make their tumblelog private. The service emphasizes ease of use. The site ranks as the 10th...
, a post about vice presidential candidate
Philippine presidential election, 2010
-Timeline:The COMELEC-mandated election period for this election was from January 10 to June 9, 2010.-2008:*August 26 - Then Metro Manila Development Authority Chairman Bayani Fernando announces bid for presidency....
Jejomar Binay
Jejomar Binay
Jejomar "Jojo" Cabauatan Binay, Sr. , also known as Jojo Binay or VPNay, is a Filipino politician who has been the 15th Vice President of the Philippines since 2010. Previously, he was Mayor of Makati City from 1986 to 1998 and again from 2001 to 2010...
indicated that he was the Jejemon's preferred vice presidential candidate, complete with a fake poster with him called as "Jejemon Binay." Later the use of word jejemon to refer to such people made rounds in various Filipino internet message boards.
Such short-handed language is not limited to Filipinos: Thai
Thai people
The Thai people, or Siamese, are the main ethnic group of Thailand and are part of the larger Tai ethnolinguistic peoples found in Thailand and adjacent countries in Southeast Asia as well as southern China. Their language is the Thai language, which is classified as part of the Kradai family of...
s use "5555" to denote "hahahaha," since the number 5 in Thai language
Thai language
Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
is pronounced as "ha."
Demographics
The Jejemons are said to be the new jologs, a term used for Filipinos of the lower income class. The parameters of being classified as a Jejemon are still unclear, and how the different "levels" of "Jejemonism" are reached, although there are named levels such as "mild," "moderate" and "severe" or "terminal."Language
The sociolectSociolect
In sociolinguistics, a sociolect or social dialect is a variety of language associated with a social group such as a socioeconomic class, an ethnic group, an age group, etc....
of the Jejemons, called Jejenese, is derived from English, Filipino
Filipino language
This move has drawn much criticism from other regional groups.In 1987, a new constitution introduced many provisions for the language.Article XIV, Section 6, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and states that:...
and their code-switched variant
Code-switching
In linguistics, code-switching is the concurrent use of more than one language, or language variety, in conversation. Multilinguals—people who speak more than one language—sometimes use elements of multiple languages in conversing with each other...
, Taglish
Taglish
Taglish is a portmanteau of the words "Tagalog" and "English" which refers to the Philippine language Tagalog infused with American English terms. It is an example of code-switching....
. It has its own, albeit unofficial, orthography, known as Jejebet, which uses the Filipino variant of the Roman alphabet, Arabic numerals
Arabic numerals
Arabic numerals or Hindu numerals or Hindu-Arabic numerals or Indo-Arabic numerals are the ten digits . They are descended from the Hindu-Arabic numeral system developed by Indian mathematicians, in which a sequence of digits such as "975" is read as a numeral...
and other special characters. Words are created by rearranging letters in a word, alternating capitalization
CamelCase
CamelCase , also known as medial capitals, is the practice of writing compound words or phrases in which the elements are joined without spaces, with each element's initial letter capitalized within the compound and the first letter either upper or lower case—as in "LaBelle", "BackColor",...
, over-usage of the letters H, X or Z. Superfluous as well as the presence of silent letters characterize its spelling convention. It has similarities with Leet
Leet
Leet , also known as eleet or leetspeak, is an alternative alphabet for the English language that is used primarily on the Internet. It uses various combinations of ASCII characters to replace Latinate letters...
speak, primarily the alphanumeric nature of its writing.
Examples
- Filipino: "3ow ph0w, mUsZtAh nA?" translated into Filipino as "Hello po, kamusta na?, translated into English as "Hello, how are you?"
- English: "i wuD LLyK tO knOw moR3 bOut u. crE 2 t3ll mE yur N@me? jejejejeje!" translated into English as "I would like to know more about you, care to tell me your name? Hehehehe!"
- iMiszqcKyuH – means "I miss you"
- eEoWpFhUeEhsxz – means "hi/hello"
- aQ / aQcKuHh – means "me/ako"
- kEo – means "kayo/you(pl.)"
- pfHoE / ph0w – "po (word that makes the sentence polite)"
- uZtaH? – means "kumusta/how are you?"
- lAbqCkyOuHh – means "I love you"
- yuHh – means "you"
- jAjaJa – garbled words conveying laughter
- jeJejE – a variation of jAjaJa; conveys sly laughter
Reaction
Several Facebook fan pages were created both in support and against the group. Celebrities such as Rico BlancoRico Blanco
Rico Blanco is a Filipino singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, actor, and entrepreneur. As a solo artist and with his former band, Rivermaya, Blanco has so far recorded, written and produced more local and regional number one hits than any other musician since 1994 and has sold over a...
, Alessandra de Rossi
Alessandra de Rossi
Alessandra Tiotangco Schiavone , better known by her stage name Alessandra De Rossi or Alex de Rossi , is an Italian-Filipina actress...
, Ces Drilon
Ces Drilon
Ces Orena-Drilon or more commonly known as Ces Oreña-Drilon is an award winning Filipino broadcast journalist. She graduated from the University of the Philippines Diliman with a degree of Bachelor of Arts major in Communication Research...
, and Lourd de Veyra
Lourd de Veyra
Lourd Ernest Hanopol de Veyra is a multi-awarded Filipino musician, emcee, poet, journalist, broadcast personality and activist who first became famous for being the vocalist of Manila-based jazz rock band Radioactive Sago Project....
have condemned the wholesale ridicule of the subculture. Due to the sudden existence of jejemons, 'Jejebusters' were created, a group of internet grammar vigilantes, typically Filipinos, dedicating their internet lives towards the eradication of jejetyping and jejemon existence.
YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
videos were also uploaded parodying the Jejemons, connecting them to the 2010 election campaign
Philippine general election, 2010
Elections for all positions in the Philippines above the barangay were held on Monday, May 10, 2010. The elected president will become the 15th President of the Philippines, succeeding President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who is barred from seeking re-election due to term restrictions...
. Edited television advertisements of Nacionalista Party
Nacionalista Party
The Nacionalista Party is the oldest political party in the Philippines today and was responsible for leading the country throughout the majority of the 20th century since its founding in 1907...
proclaiming their disdain, and an edited
Photo manipulation
Photo manipulation is the application of image editing techniques to photographs in order to create an illusion or deception , through analog or digital means.- Types of digital photo manipulation :...
photograph of Gilberto Teodoro
Gilberto Teodoro
Gilberto Eduardo Gerardo Cojuangco Teodoro, Jr. , or more commonly known as Gilbert/Gibo, is the former secretary of the national defense of the republic of the Philippines, having assumed the post in August 2007 until November 15, 2009...
with him holding a sign saying that the Jejemons be "brought back to elementary school" went viral. In 2010, the Filipino GMA Network
GMA Network
GMA Network is a major commercial television & radio network in the Philippines. GMA Network is owned by GMA Network, Inc. a publicly listed company...
broadcasted the situational comedy JejeMom
JejeMom
JejeMom was a weekly situational comedy television program that is produced by GMA Network, starring Eugene Domingo. It premiered on August 14, 2010 replacing Claudine's timeslot.-Cast and characters:*Eugene Domingo as Gigi dela Cruz/ Stephanie Jones...
, headlined by Eugene Domingo
Eugene Domingo
Eugene Domingo is a Filipina theater, movie and television actress. She is the only actress in the Philippine entertainment history to have participated in six films produced by eight different Filipino production companies...
.
As part of the pre-school year clean-up of schools for the upcoming 2010–11 school year, the Department of Education
Department of Education (Philippines)
The Department of Education , is the executive department of the Philippine government responsible for the management and governing of the Philippine system of basic education. It is the chief formulator of Philippine educational policy and is responsible for the Philippine primary and secondary...
(DepEd) strongly discourages students from using Jejemon spelling and grammar, especially in text messaging. Communicating with others using Jejemon "language" is said to cause deterioration of young Filipino students’ language skills.