Residents in Vilmsburg, VA expressed concern for local teenager Todd Hilbright who, after his latest bought at a hacker conference in Pennsylvania, returned speaking in estoeric acronyms. 

(At left, Todd's less tech-savy friends left in the dark)

"I said hi to my friend over there, but I didn't have a clue as to what he said next," told best friend Mikey McPharaday.  "Maybe it was a ruffle with with law, or somethin'.  It didn't sound nothin' like the English I was raised to speak."

	Above: Who knows what this guy is doing?

When asked, Todd responded, "0, @lL da& ${-}!t iS m@de u%.  ROFL LOL!" and then fell to the floor in laughter to a joke lost on every human beng but himself.  While displaying an expert's knowledge of the row of keys above the simpleton's "QWERTY", Todd failure to make any communication hasn't impressed anyone.

But Vilmsburg isn't the only town affected.  In the last five years, a slew of kids like Todd have been lost to H@X0r language.  Created in the chat rooms of AOL and MSN, this language is constantly evolving to make room for new characters discovered in the Windows accessory, "Character Map."  When Microsoft published the font "Wingdings" five years ago, extending the h@X0r vocabulary to unfathomable new and meaningless symbols, the language really took off.

Many parents are frightned by the loss of communication, even a shared base of sounds, that they used to have with their kids.  A student at the local university studying communications commented on the phenomenon.  "These kids just don't understand that communication is a symbiotic process.  You need both parties to share in the vocabulary.  If you just say words or inpronounceable symbols that these people are unfamiliar with, it just aint' gonna work."  Thank you, local student.  We had no idea.

When approached later that evening, Todd expressed frustration as he belted out, "

    ,` `/` `. ,  
  /` ` ' /, ' ,`    
   ` / ` ` ' ,.,`,   
 /-/- ``/=   =  ,`  
  ''  '  @'  @' )   
 //|'/ )   |  |`    
 Todd (   ,,',, )   
 H.    __ -- _/    
          `--'  ,"

which, for reporters without the capacity to translate unintelligible sounds into symbols and place them within a 2-d text field complete with pagewraps, sound like a 40-second string of high-pitched yelps.

Comments

Nothin. Written by Guest on 2004-03-27 17:45:42 I love using Rofl, Lol, Lmao, Rofl, Lmfao, shall i go on? Probly Not. Pe@ce!

I pronounce them Written by Guest on 2004-03-28 19:50:52 I pronounce ROFL as 'rueful'    Nobody gets it, but I pwn those n00bs anyway

n00bs at talking, I mean Written by Guest on 2004-03-28 19:51:15 at least a comment my ass

hey Written by Guest on 2004-08-10 18:34:39 i think you guys are totally hot ( the guys in the group pic) you should im me sometime my sn is jmangel126. so i hope you guys can come and chat with me sometime. luv ya bye!!!!

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