Dearest fandom. I am whelmed. By which I mean... what? WHAT DO I MEAN?

[krickets]

Explain to me, oh ye goddesses of fandom!

Some of the dearest people to me use words that I just don't understand.

I feel like everyone's using the expression "whelmed" these days. But I just don't know how to take it. I mean, I am a complete nerd, and of course I looked it up in the thesaurus. It lists "overwhelm" as a synonym for "whelm." And it lists "underwhelm" as an antonym. This was my suspicion all along, based on my own personal knowledge of the English language, but I don't know how to tell when someone in fandom is using it for "overwhelm" or if they're using it ironically for "underwhelm." Sometimes by the context, I feel like it's one way. Sometimes I feel like it's the other way. And sometimes I just can't tell at all.

I mean maybe it always means "underwhelmed" in the same way that "the worst" seems to almost always mean "the best."

I am so confused! We live in a backward world, my friends. And we also clearly need to get a fandom-specific dictionary. Can someone do that for me? Thanks.

Comments

[zombie_boogie.livejournal.com]

LOL and I just used whelmed in my most recent post. I literally just use it as a 10 Things I Hate About You reference ("I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?" " I think you can in Europe") When I say I was "whelmed" I usually mean I was ambivalent or "meh" about something - a middle point between two extremes. So I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either.

[crickets.livejournal.com]

Hahah I totally remember that quote. Okay. THAT MOVIE. *sigh*

I guess I've never thought of underwhelmed as an extreme. I think of it more as a "meh" in the same way you're using whelmed. Like "I didn't HATE the ending of BSG, but I was kind of underwhelmed by it." If you're using it that way, I wonder if that's how everyone else is using it. ETA: I think the reason it's sometimes difficult to tell the difference is because I don't feel like calling something "overwhelming" or "underwhelming" are necessarily good. Like if I found something "overwhelming" I don't really consider that a compliment. And I definitely don't consider "underwhelming" a compliment, lol.

The other ones I don't get are where people use abbreviations/nicknames for things but when you say them in your head the SOUND like something else. Like for the longest time I thought when people said "creys" they meant "CRAZY" and that is still to this day my first instinct when I read that word. Even though I've been told (after months of not knowing) that it means "cries" or "crying." I will never not read the abbreviation "bb" as "bebe or beebee" and TBH it makes me a little nuts. I never hear it as "babe" or even "baby" in my head. I'll just call you all my sugar dumplings and be done with it, lol.

[zombie_boogie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, when you actually think about the whole overwhelm/underwhelm thing "whelmed" makes absolutely zero linguistic sense, but I'm constantly peppering my writing with pop culture references so it will probably stay in my vocab (and memetics will ensure that it will stay in everyone else's too).

Well, to be fair when ever people use "creys" it always seems like... extreme emotion so you could rationalize it as being a combination of "crazy" and "crying". My crazy crying!

But basically the internet is a weird and fascinating cesspool where language goes to die. Have you ever tried holding a conversation with an online friend in real life? It becomes hilarious because you try to figure out how to properly pronounce gif and sometimes saying people's usernames out loud sounds weird.

[crickets.livejournal.com]

Like Zombie Boogie. LOL. (KIDDING! I love your username!)

Where language goes to die. I like that. It's pretty accurate.

I have always just pronounced GIF as the letters "G-I-F." Only rarely do I say "Jay Peg" I usually say "J-P-G" I thing the only one I really say as a word is "Em Peg" (for mpg or m-peg"). I can't explain that one.

Also, the word "meme." I very rarely say "meem" even though I am pretty sure that's how it's supposed to be pronounced. I mostly say "me-me" either in my head or out loud. I TRY to remember to say "meem" but that's a lot of effort!

[zombie_boogie.livejournal.com]

I'm actually a passionate defender of the correct pronunciation of the word meme, heh. Because a meme (or memetics) is the equivalent to culture as gene/genetics is to biology or whatever, so obviously meme should rhyme with gene why do people keep pronouncing it like they're French. I've gotten into arguments with people about this lol - but at least you acknowledge that meem is the proper pronunciation.