PTT in Close Shot (3)

What Impacts Does It Have on the Local Society?

Looking into the impacts PTT has on the local society in Taiwan, here I present three case studies by which I hope to simplify as well as exemplify the complex interactions between this particular social medium and the society.

* Case study #1: the prohibition against "chu yin wen" v.s. the popularity of the PTT slang

"Chu yin wen" is a Chinese language slang that was once very popular--and nowadays it is still being used and circulated, but not so much--in the Internet sphere in Taiwan. It is similar to the SMS language in the English-speaking area; both are reducing words to the simplest letters/symbols that phonetically represent the original words. "Chu yin wen" was widely used once in the cyber world but was soon viewed as a sort of downgrading use of Chinese couple years ago. PTT was one of the first opponents that officially made the prohibition against "chu yin wen".

The interesting thing here is, even when PTT bans the use of such slang, there is actually another kind of informal language that has been popularly used within the site. That is, the PTT slang, or more generally, the Martian language. The PTT slang is not an original kind of Internet language, but is derived from the Martian language--a general term for different slang going around in the Internet. The Martian language was slowly formed, produced, and accepted with its circulation in the cyberspace, and it has sneaked in the world of Internet smoothly and thoroughly: daily conversation, blog entries, instant messages, emails, and so on. The PTT language can be called as a dialect of the Martian language. While "chu yin wen" chose to phonetically represent the Chinese characters in the simplest way, the PTT language is semantically playing with the original language. That means, the PTT slang adds new meanings, or twisted meanings to the old language; sometimes it also borrows icons or symbols to present novel expressions that are hard to convey through the Chinese language.

In 2006, the committee responsible for the National College Entrance Exam made one of the questions on the Chinese subject out of some Internet slang ("3Q", "::>_<::", "orz"). This caused lots of controversies at that time, with teachers, students, and parents questioning the orthodoxy of the Internet slang. And eventually the College Entrance Exam Center announced that Martian language would be banned in the future exams.

So what do all those above imply then? Well, as far as I am concerned, I find it very intriguing seeing how PTT works as both the tool to stop and to spread the use of informal languages in the cyberspace as well as the offline world. It once helped to correct the trend of "chu yin wen", but it also helped to carve out rooms for the slang to be circulated. PTT's impact on the use of language is, on the one hand, indeed remarkable, but on the other hand, the instrumental role of PTT as a non-fixed medium that can be worked in various ways is even more worth-noting.

* Case study #2: let's buy together!

"BuyTogether" is a popular board in PTT that brings up a nationwide trend of collective purchase. The advantages of doing collective purchase are having more bargaining terms, splitting up mailing costs, reducing the risk and total expanse of abroad purchase, and so on and so forth. That particular board in PTT is set up as a public space for initiating and joining such collective buying. The idea of group purchase is not at all new, of course. But the set-up of BuyTogether board amplifies the workability and efficiency of such deed with the different networks it brings in, and regulates basic rules for such affair to protect participants' rights and benefits. This trend of collective buying has become so popular that the web version of the PTT BuyTogether board is blooming one after another. For example, "ihergo" is one of the many attempts to transfer the business from the BBS region to a more open and accessible field of world wide web. Not merely that there are its counterparts in the web sphere, but this craze of collective purchase has also led to the publication of books introducing the must-buy "hergo" (the term sounds like the pronunciation of collective buying in Chinese) products [see here] and books teaching people how to make the popular hergo snacks [see here].

The prosperity of BuyTogether board changes how people buy things, how people sell things, and how people make money. It lifts an action that was traditionally limited within the circle of acquaintances/friends to a new level of endless players joining in from different directions. It helps people to think and act beyond old boundaries and further to find new possibilities in their everyday routine.

Yet the amazing potential of PTT in terms of profit making also attracts many hostile attempts to make money in various ways. Advertisements, promotion, or branding hidden within the posts are quite normal, and fake customer feedback sharing is also very common. There are even cases of national frauds cheating hundreds of participants of their money. So while the board itself is established for the good use, it at the same time unavoidably makes rooms for the bad deeds.

* Case study #3: help me, PTT!

The popularity of PTT has made it the alternative place to turn to when it comes to emergencies. By means of mobilizing the human resources and networks in PTT, there have been many cases of successful rescue. For example, just couple weeks ago, the "villagers" (a term of the PTT language, it generally refers to users of PTT) helped to find a female villager who left a post in PTT as a suicide note, and stopped her from committing suicide [see here]. Similar event happened several times before. In 2006, the villagers in Kaohsiung managed to locate where the suicidal girl was and save her with only few clues (her name and that she just checked in an anonymous hotel) [see here]. In 2007, the villagers in the Hate forum read about a post crying for help; it described the domestic violence in the family and the unstable state of mind of their mother. In the end, with the assistant of the police force, the sister who made the post and her younger brother were both rescued, and their mother was sent to the hospital [see here].

The examples above exemplify the powerful capacity of PTT to mobilize. Because of the networks gathered in PTT, this BBS site seems to be "the" place to initiate actions or schemes. However, the water that bears the boat is the same that swallows it up. The key factor of variations is always people; that is to say, how people are utilizing PTT's strength in having influences or making changes is in fact the critical point for the outcome. For instance, a scandalous post accusing his ex-girlfriend of being a two-timer was posted in February, 2005. That post attracted lots and lots of emotional discussion which led to the exposure of the real personal information of the "heroine" in this event, as well as many insulting, attacking posts. The whole thing made a dramatic turn while the man making the original post admitted that he made up the whole thing for revenge. Issues concerning the blind enthusiasm of crowds, individual privacy in the cyberspace, and the realization of Internet as the ultimate surveillance in the society were brought up and pushed into the spotlight.

What does it imply for human beings when the Internet becomes the ultimate surveillance in our society? Do people falsely think that they are heading toward a bright era of freedom but in fact are putting themselves in the self-built prison of information? With the watching-over of PTT, or the Internet, surely people can make good use of it. Nevertheless, it is also very likely that people can get tripped by the endless string of histories left behind their freely marching and surfing in the cyberspace.