I checked my Pixelfed messages today and see this. I’ve literally no idea what the first half means, so I asked my daughter to translate the acronyms. No idea what “no disrespect” is conveying.
I never really thought of pixelfed as a place for spam or scammers. If the intent is genuine, then I’m even more perplexed by how they are choosing communicating. I’m not going to respond because it feels off, so yeah…
Perhaps I’m just showing my age?
What is ‘wsg?’ We sex goats? Why shoot, Granny? Welcome, Shit Gobbler?
You dont speak jive, UNC.
Thank you Chat GPT for translating this one for me. Haha.
🧓🏽
EDIT: I quizzed my three kids from different generations.
Eldest didn’t know know wsg, but middle child did.
Currently, my 10-year-old is running around me in circles calling me an "unc"le.
Smh
Seems pretty straightforward.
“Hey, what’s up? You’re not in trouble or anything, but I’d like to ask if it’s okay to message you privately. I have a question for you.”
They sent a private message to ask if they could privately ask something? That’s really really strange to me.
And if they’re starting the message implying that I’m not in trouble, then that makes it even more confusing because I have no reason to think I would be in trouble.
But if this is a now common way of communicating with people, then I genuinely want to understand that. I simply never read or heard any examples of it from a stranger out of the blue.
The main reason I’m not indulging it is simply because I get multiple spam messages via SMS each week. They all start with an attempt to phish for somebody’s attention. Something as simple as saying “hello” or “are you still going to make it tonight?” Then it’s revealed that, whoops wrong number, and they start trying to interact with you (because, why not, it’s friendly) and eventually phish for information. It’s a pretty common scheme.
At first I used to have fun responding, but after doing more reading on the scheme and the unfortunate people who are being used to send those kinds of messages, I realized makes things worse for the person being forced to do that work.
What threw me off about this one is that I couldn’t understand it. And for that reason, it made me wonder if it really was spam in the first place. I mean I’ve seen grammatically incorrect spam all the time, but this one could be intentional. So I figured I’d see if other people fully understood what it meant.
I see what you’re saying here, yeah.
Digital etiquette has evolved a lot. Typically, these days, sending a message in your DMs is less like pulling you aside for a whisper and more like shouting inside your living room. The culture that’s grown up around power-tripping mod bans, scams, and other awful shit has made messaging someone privately a delicate matter.
This person is being polite by knocking on your door to announce that they’re already in your living room, and asking permission to speak with you. I see this as excellent behavior, filling a glaringly bad gap in user privacy protections on other platforms. They’re being decent about an intrusion that’s a (tragically common) built-in design flaw of the app.
This is interesting.
My lack of experience on most socials isn’t helping. I’ve never used Snapchat Twitter Instagram tiktock etc. Pixelfed was my first venture into that realm, but i only use it as a person gallery and to check out interesting photography from others. I know it’s modeled on Instagram, which has grown beyond that quite a bit, but that’s never been for me though.
Anyway, thanks for the insight.
The Internet’s grown up a lot. Different websites and apps will develop entire subcultures, with different slang, etiquette, politics, and posting standards. What’s acceptable in one neighborhood will get you downvoted into oblivion somewhere else. Like the real world, everybody eventually finds their lunch table.
Yes.
You are showing your age? You never used slang in your life?
WSG means What is good. It is a modern day equivalent of “What is up” “What is going on” hell when I was a teenage I used to use what is good…
The “No disrespect” statement certainly means that the sender just wants to talk to the receiver and isn’t trying to start a fight or continue a fight.
Most people, regardless of language, use slang. Including myself. When it comes to acronym use though, I don’t often use text acronyms. I understand most early ones, but newer ones pop up now and again.
I’ve heard ‘what’s good’, but never a text acronym of wsg. After my daughter mentioned that, it made sense. (Although I proceeded to forget and you’re reminding me again of what it means. Haha.)
“No disrespect” is something I think I would normally understand given some context, but this message is out of the blue from a stranger I’ve never interacted with. I honestly thought that if this message wasn’t spam and I responded, they were going to be critical or rude about something and they were perhaps trying to soften the blow upfront. Ironically, that seems to be the opposite of what your suggesting. 🤷🏽
Language can be funny.
Yes. And it’s not even hard to understand what’s being said.
Well, to be honest, language is always hard to understand if you’ve never heard the words ( or acronyms) used in the first place. That’s the nature the ignorance.
Out of genuine curiosity, if you were to translate the original message into plain grammatically correct English, how would you translate it?
“Hey, what’s going on? I don’t mean to bother you, but could you call me real quick? I got a question for you.”
Statements followed by question marks hurt my brain, and I will perceive them as disrespectful.
It’s not proper grammar but it’s pretty common in other languages like Spanish (in fact that’s pretty much the only way to ask a lot of questions). I think it’s only disrespectful if it’s used in a situation that demands formality.
why not ask the question immediately, I don’t get this
This is engagement bait. It’s spam.
Exactly my thought. Never heard the term “engagement bait”, but it smells right. 🙂
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That’d be a little rude, no? Gotta see if the person has time to talk first.
This is one of those “varies by culture” things, I think. Asking to ask doesn’t create an obligation, asking the first time does. If it’s from a superior to a subordinate, that’s fine. Same if it’s from a student to teacher or any other relationship where “I am here to help you” is implicit. But between equals it’s different, mostly because it implies that they’re not equal, that the asker is in a position to create tasks for the other person.
I appreciate the response and perspective. For me, the obligation begins the instant I am made aware someone wants something, irrespective of if they actually ask it. Even if I end up turning it down, I still have to be polite and get the question first, explain why, and potentially who might be able to help if I have any leads. If I were to side step all of that and say “no, do not ask me a question” upon being asked to ask, that would be seen as very rude, and I would feel rude for doing it too.
Those are pretty amusing links. 😁
I’m curious about your response.
Since text messages can be answered any time, at any speed, I can’t imagine why it would be rude to just ask or how time availability would be an issue. Do you find yourself similarly texting and asking if people can text (immediately)?
Just feels like phishing… with the weirdest phishing message I’ve ever read as bait.
Asking someone if they have time to talk, no response is the same as a “no”.
Asking someone “Hey I wanna go to this concert on Friday, should I buy two tix and we’ll go together?” means you need an immediate response or you’re either going to miss the concert or piss off your friend.
The purpose of being polite is to reduce social frictions.
Here’s what would piss me of the most:
“Hey, I got a question. Do you have time to talk?”
Me not knowing what this is about or how long it would take to answer this mysterious question of yours: “not right now, gonna text you in the evening”
Me (later): “So what was your question?”
“I wanted to go to that concert on Friday. But now all of the tickets are gone and I’m going alone, lmao”
I HAD enough time to answer a simple yes/no question. I hate it when people ask if I have time to text. At least give me a fucking hint like “hey I got a short question: its about the concert on Friday”. Asking if one has time to text causes the most social friction IMO but the least visible friction (to you).
In that situation, when you asked her later, your friend should’ve said “Oh don’t worry about it, I was able to resolve it without you, but thanks for checking in,” and then changed the subject.
So if they don’t respond to your “do you have time to talk” initial message, then you just don’t invite them to the concert at all and never tell them about it?
All to avoid just asking them up-front whether they want to go or not?
That’s wild, I genuinely don’t understand how this is better in any way.
Imo if the question is urgent, either call them or add something to the text like “tickets are going quick and I’m going to buy them ASAP, so if I don’t hear back by <insert time>, I’ll assume you’re out”
The jnteresting thing about politeness is how it varies between cultures and persons. Things really can very widely.
I personally can’t imagine emailing someone only to ask “may I ask you a question” rather than asking the question itself, but I suppose that might be more polite with some folks?
In the case of this original message, I literally have no idea what half of it meant. English isn’t my first language, but I think I’ve got it pretty down. This was a whole new (generational?) level. 😅
Ehhh I don’t think this is too farfetched. Not all young people talk like this but some sure do. The no disrespect is kinda odd though, but may just be referring to him asking you a question out of the blue.
But yeah I wouldn’t respond just on the basis of I hate people asking if they can ask me a question but not asking the question. Like well you already asked me one question and now I need to wait to hear the second one?
Yeah. It’s not like you only get one message with X characters. They could have just got to the point. 😁
Seems more like the one of the wrong number sms spams. Those can actually be pretty fun to respond to for awhile. 🙃
Ohh. That would be a great thread to start here. Share your most amusing SMS phishing exchanges.😁
No disrespect but may I ask you some questions
What pisses me off about this is that if they believe that’s rude, they’re already being rude nt asking one. Like you literally just asked me a question. Just assssskkkkkkk ughhh. People can be exhausting.
“Do you have time to answer some questions?” is a very considerate thing to ask someone who may be busy. 🤨
If someone has a question, I can answer it immediately if they just ask me. If they say hi, ask me how I’m doing, or ask if they can ask me something, then it is going to take me longer to get them the information they need. Besides, there’s never a setting where the answer to “can I ask you a question” is no, because they’ve given me no information about what type of question they want to ask. So to properly even answer that question I’d need to ask them more questions! So just ask the damn question. If I’m busy and can’t answer I’ll just say “I’m busy right now and will answer when I can” or direct them to someone else who I think can answer sooner.
Besides, I’ve never been asked “do you have time to be asked some questions” which is not what I said I have a problem with. It’s specifically “can I ask you a question?”
