I can't grok this trend at all. All these replies in the form of memes make me feel like I'm in the Darmok episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I'm grateful communication on MatterMost at my company has not seen the need for reaction gifs emerge; the wildest thing we have is a custom emoji of a dancing banana.

> All these replies in the form of memes make me feel like I'm in the Darmok episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

If this is an ironic joke, it's a good one. If not, it's painfully un-self-aware.

Because "feels like I'm in Darmok" is just an meaningless in isolation as "Temba, his arms wide."

Whether ironic or not, I found both the initial observation and your reply hilarious. Meme replies really are Darmok, and the meta nature of that is perfect.

Exactly.

```It is a genuine source of hilarity to me that “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” is a potentially really useful popcultural-reference shorthand for “a situation where two groups face a difficulty communicating because one group speaks exclusively in memes and popculture references”```

-- https://twitter.com/venatrixlunaris/status/11852863701068595...

“Grok” is actually a cultural reference; it is a made-up word from a very famous science fiction book.

When people use it, it looks the same to me like if they were using “Live long and prosper” in casual conversation.

I think one difference with "grok" is that, the way it's normally used, there really isn't IMO a perfect English replacement. To me at least, it implies a deeper and broader internalizing of something than saying "I understand it" or "I get it" necessarily implies.

Grokking being beyond understanding something is central to Valentine Michael Smiths understanding of the world, and therefore the plot, in “Stranger in a Strange Land”.

Grok is not simply understanding or knowing a thing, it’s knowing that thing so well and all the things related to that thing, and understanding all of your feelings associated with that thing, that it becomes a part of you. At least, that was my interpretation of it.

Heinlein’s explanation and exposition is more detailed in the actual book. If you have not read it, highly recommended.

Oh, I've read it and it's on my bookshelf. Just something like 3 or 4 decades ago :-) It was never actually a particularly favorite Heinlein for me though so I haven't re-read in a very long time if ever.

Hey same here, and Heinlein was my favorite author for a very long time. That particular book just never really did it for me.

Stranger in a Stranger Land was probably more of particular time and place that a lot of Heinlein's works. Although it came out at in 1961--mostly predating the counterculture era in the US, its mainstream cross-over appeal was definitely tied in with the Summer of Love etc. later in the decade.

1968 would indeed be about the right time period as "I grok Spock" bumper stickers appeared around then too.

happens that it was banned in TX schools until 2003, so i guess some share of population just doesn't grok it :)

It really doesn't. It's just a social signaling mechanism meant to give you the feeling of being cool for knowing about it. Every subculture does this, mostly unconsciously. Heinlein was really good at social dynamics and gave his (mostly young) readers the feeling of being initiated into a social elite. His pal L ron hubbard took the same knowledge in a different direction and created Scientology.

And most memes have a meaning that goes beyond the apparent literal one. For instance, see https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/11/engli... , talking about the use of "because thing" being more than just "because of thing". For instance, "rough and dough don't rhyme, because English". It started as a meme, and now it's in dictionaries.

This is how new forms of communication develop. Sometimes they're random images (images that'll probably be used for even more extensive tracking now), sometimes they're playful changes to language, sometimes they're intentionally invented or modified words because the language lacked a word for a given purpose, and if they catch on enough with enough people they'll become part of communication. Because brains and pattern matching.

“Comprehend” works, in British English at least.

It's more "fully comprehend all aspects". You could also say "get" or "understand" or "know" as synonyms for comprehend (in the right context).

Grok works in English, I've been reading it for, what, 20 years in English texts. It mightn't be in dictionaries but they're not the sole arbiters of language.

It comes from US English, AFAIK, a neonym from Heinlein (the sci-fi writer).

I believe it's in both Oxford and Merriam-Webster.

I use "grok" in my writing. Sometimes an older person (usually a boomer or Greatest Generation reader) doesn't get it. Usually the Gen X and younger people understand what it means. Anecdotal, FWIW...

I always just figured it was programmer speak and used it accordingly.

English speakers seem to have this weird idea that all people need to use language that everyone can understand.

Other languages tailor their speaking patterns given the class, context, and people around them.

Several subcultures adopted this word in the US decades ago, leading to it being commonly used by people who had never heard of the book.

How long before forms requesting personal data allow us to upload our own list of acceptable vocabulary to be used in our presence?

You could basically have this as an user-agent setting, so it just translates it down to the accepted language level of the reader.

Sounds beautifully dystopian.

I mean, the most obvious difference is that grok is actually in the dictionary. It's totally fair game compared to ST:TNG references. I don't use it in professional writing though, of course.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grok

Or to put it another way, it is basically a reaction gif in word form.

.. and (as Michael explains on the book) it’s literal meaning in Martian is “drink”, or in other words “to make part of yourself”. It used to really annoy me when people used it to mean “understand”, but I’ve got over that now.

I think grok has escaped it's sci-fi niche now - I learned it as a vocab word in English class when I was in school over a decade ago.

I think that's (part of) the joke.

"To grok is to drink."

I don't disagree, but as an aside I think the references to that Star Trek episode (which I've been seeing a lot lately) is interesting. I find it amusingly ironic that the most effective way to describe the growing tendency to communicate mainly in cultural references is... a cultural reference.

Double irony points for using a Heinlein-ism in the post too.

It is an incredibly efficient way to communicate. Try it.

Hah, great anaology. Pretty crazy that 2chan/4chan popularized the reaction gif.

Chans have WebM support as well! Much better format in every way!

The only thing more HN than debating the usage patterns of reaction gifs is to... veer further into discussing the file format used to share them. At least today it’s topical!

and folders full of canned reaction images long before every board supported gifs....

and before that, plaintext emoticons... ಠ_ಠ

if only more system would leave my plain text emotes alone an not try to convert it to a emoji

desu desu desu desu desu

I the only time I need giphy is when there is no appropriate (custom) emoticon.

Giphy takes way too much space.

Also, why does Teams not have a :shrug: icon. Seriously?

If you're on Windows, windows key + period brings up the system-level emoji picker. Just thought I'd let you know in case you weren't aware there was even such a thing as a system-level emoji picker (I sure wasn't until someone on my team told me about it).

Unfortunately I’m on mac, but maybe I can just copy the emoji from a website and paste it. It didn’t occur to me it might get displayed correctly but not be selectable.

Sokath! His eyes uncovered! Temba, his arms wide.

I hear ya. I had to disable animations on gifs and emojis. I keep Slack on a workspace in my peripheral vision. The animations trigger some reptilian fight or flight part of my brain that kills my focus.

I got tired of collapsing them

Thank you, didn't know there's an option for that. I might give it a try.

Google spreadsheets (and maybe docs) insist on smoothly animating a black dot in the bottom right back and forth. It's in the exact spot of my peripheral vision to make me react as if it's a bug, every single time

How do you do this?

Settings -> Accessibility.

I don't mind the sentiment, but they're so visually distracting.

/collapse is your friend here.

Just turn them off my default, its easier to uncollapse if you need to see something.

How to choose a reaction gif:

1. Type a couple words relevant to the topic or your feelings on the topic into a gif search engine.

2. Pick whichever gif suits the context best.

3. Watch as everyone thinks you're super clever.

------

I mean, I get it. Most people just want funny pictures, and I love sharing memes with friends. But something about reaction gifs just boils my blood. I'm very, very bothered by them. If someone posts a relevant comment, or video: great. If there's something really clever about the reaction gif: good job. But most of the time it's just kind of related, and not really a discussion at all. Or worst of all, a "wow" "lol" or "wtf" expressing funny face.

I turn off all images and gifs in slack. Makes it much more usable.

Urgh I agree, I've seen people twice my age use them in presentations, it did not improve the presentation.

they ruin all flow of conversation and serve as distraction rather than substance. It's mindblowing to see some Discord and Slack channels just bombarded with fancy moving pictures. It's particularly worse when people won't use the "Thread" feature to contain reactions and sub-conversation to specific comments. It can result in lost information if people aren't careful, but it's almost always better than littering the feed with semi-relevant reaction gifs.

I use emojis a lot in Slack and texting. They can remove some accidental ambiguity in your writing, by making your intent clear. For example, the tongue out emoji can work to make sure people know you're being sarcastic.

Emojis can have ambiguity too. My friends and have been using the eye roll emoji to signal we're being sarcastic for about 10 years. The un-animated version of this emoji looks like "I'm not really thinking what I'm saying", especially on Discord/Twitter.

I've recently a colleague who used the tongue out emoji for sarcasm and the eye roll one for, well, eye rolling with disdain in reaction to something.

The first chat discussions were then quite awkward, because when I were to write something like "You should have tested your code before deploying it... :eyeroll:", he was thinking I was openly looking down on him in front of the team.

We had to have a real discussion about it. It made me tone down my use of emojis - and sarcasm. I suppose using animated emojis (they were in MSN I think?), or GIF reactions would have made the things clearer.

That really is interesting, because as far as I'm aware, I've only seen (and used) the eye roll emoji for, well, eye rolling. At least the iOS one also looks very disdainful to me. So if you had written "you should have tested this " to me, I would indeed have felt pretty bad about it. A more appropriate use would be something like "I walked all the way to there, but they turned me away because they bungled up my appointment ", i.e. something commiserate about. And based on my observation and recollection, I really don't think I'm in the minority here.

> My friends and have been using the eye roll emoji to signal we're being sarcastic for about 10 years.

But why would you assume this works for a random stranger? It seems much more logical to assume they’ll interpret the thing you’ve written as being said while actually rolling your eyes.

That said, it seems entirely appropriate to look down on someone that doesn’t test their code before deploying.

I think at some point you "forget" what some emoji really mean. I've kept my circle of friends quite small in the last couple decades, and we're all using this emoji for sarcasm. It's akin to private jokes, that crack you and your friends up every time, and then when you try one of those with other people, you're the only one laughing.

My other colleagues were not confused by my usage of the emoji, although they've known me for some time now, and they know that I'm not the type of person to actually roll my eyes while talking to someone, or even look down on them.

At least it was a nice reminder that our ways, customs and habits, no matter how normal they seem to ourselves, can still look crazy from the outside.

But I agree with you, it may have been one of the best sentence to use this emoji with. :)

I read this and immediately thought "Holy crap, you eye rolled at him with that comment?! I'd be devastated." Interesting how it works for different people.

Call me old school but I have to look up almost every single emoji. I find them frustrating /creepy

Most common ones in my environment are various forms of smiles. What do you see that means you have to look it up? (genuinely curious)

Use of emoji is the new “don’t trust anyone over 30”

I've come to appreciate emojis a lot for that reason. gifs, not so much - although the really good gifs go down well with me.

They can also be ambiguous. Some people think "high five" emojis are actually "prayer hands". Which convey wildly different reactions to something. Told your friend your Dad was diagnosed with cancer? high five

It's definitely a "praying" emoji, the whole high five thing is an urban myth.

The official spec[1] calls it "PERSON WITH FOLDED HANDS".. the keyword there is "person" (in contrast to, for example, "1FAC2;PEOPLE HUGGING" when there is multiple people). The emoji is of a single person folding their hands, which really isn't a high five unless you're somehow high five-ing yourself.

[1]ftp://ftp.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/UnicodeData.txt

Never heard of it beign a high five before but it's hard to trust the reasoning that "PERSON" means singular, when the "FOLDED HANDS" aren't folded.

I've definitely confused the prayer emoji and thought it was a clapping emoji before. When someone else uses it, I just see the image, not the keyword associated with it.

I don't think there's a high five emoji. When I search it, I only get the praying/folded hands, and it says that it's rarely interpreted as a high five.

https://emojipedia.org/folded-hands/

that's only ambiguous if you have no cultural understanding at all ...

The meme market agrees with you.

I’m even “uncooler” than you. I wrote a bot that denigrates employees for using gifs in slack.

And that persistent dancing parrot animated emoji.

Luckily the bot ended up doing more valuable things too, but the original design of the bot was purely for abusing the colleagues on my team.

And it had the intended effect, people still joke but slack is not pegging my CPU, rendering animated images anymore.

That would necessitate a separate bot which posts random gifs to your slack thread every hour on the hour ;-)

Have you ever been in a mostly white office and noticed how many reaction GIFs are of black people?

The term to Google here is “digital blackface”.

If you bring this to more people’s attention my guess is that reaction GIFs will become less prevalent in your office.

No, the term to Google here would be "misinterpreting inclusive cultural norms as appropriation".

One of these has 57,000 results and the other one has zero.

You kind of need to search without quotes, and you’ll get very appropriate results.

It is amazing the lengths people will go to find something to complain about.

Like… "other people using reaction GIFs".

We need a Godwin's law for things being described as "-ism".

or anything -esque.

Geez people find a new thing every day to get offended about. Amazing.

Sure, Jan

I don't think there's any solid evidence of disproportional use of of one ethnic group by another. You can certainly find individuals who thoughtlessly or deliberately do that but generalizing that to some random population (eg of office workers) is likely wrong.

I think that's just some form of confirmation bias you've formed, as I've never noticed that. I will say most of my offices have been multi-cultural, but even then, I've been on and led teams of white-only males that never succumbed to even posting these gifs. I guess guilting people into censoring their choices is a point of action, but I think the entire process should just be faded out. Slack admins don't need to allow these plugins. Theres nothing stopping people from literally going to giphy.com or whatever, but that's not why it's popular -- and it's definitely not why FB is shelling 400 million for it.

Digital blackface is not my idea, nor is it something I noticed. (I am white.) Someone else explained it to me. I was probably a bit skeptical that a funny GIF of Oprah could be linked to Jim Crow, but in the historical context of blackface there are some unavoidable similarities.