Thursday, March 29, 2012

I HAVE TO whinge...

I have on my to-do list a paper on complaining in microblogging in relation to affiliation. Microblogging affords previously unavailable opportunities to complain about the details of daily life to a large audience (e.g. invoking/reappropriating the Fail meme to whinge about quotidian minutiae).

There's oh so much whining in microposts....are you guilty?

But what are we really doing? Are we just complaining? .....sometimes we are really trying to show-off (e.g. the humblebrag) or construe solidarity with a particular identity/personae/world view.

Interestingly, the 2nd most common 3-gram in HERMES - I HAVE TO - was most commonly used in complaints - usually about work, school and sleep (often all 3!):


18 hours of no sleep. I have to go to work and i`m still going out tonight. FAIL!

I'm writing this post while I should be sleeping but I promised I'd post on Thursdays! Just made it in time!

zzzzzzz (My youngest son is unwell = no sleep for me)



5 comments:

  1. Hi! I'm currently writing a doctoral thesis chapter on complaining in Twitter, and by some Google magic I came across your post! If you've written that paper about whinging, I would be awfully grateful for a reference or even a peek at the pdf! There isn't very much done on Twitter yet from the linguistic perspective, so all of your work is on my bedside table :) Daria

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  2. Hi Daria. Do you have a copy of my book on Twitter? There's a chapter in there on the Fail meme that deals a bit with complaining...but a paper on complaints is definitely still on my to-do list. I'll send you my UNSW email so we can be in contact.

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    Replies
    1. yes, I know the chapter. The book's great by the way, I really like it! I tried to get it for review for elanguage, but it was snapped within seconds of the list going online.
      My ballet twitterers also have a complaining hashtag (not sure if it reached the status of a meme...) #ballerinaproblems Sometimes entertaining, sometimes horrifying

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  3. I have on my to-do list a paper on complaining in microblogging in relation to affiliation. Microblogging affords previously unavailable opportunities to complain about the details of daily life to a large audience. buy instagram followers

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  4. Interestingly, the 2nd most common 3-gram in HERMES - I HAVE TO - was most commonly used in complaints - usually about work, school and sleep (often all 3!): details here

    ReplyDelete