You would think a gif or emoji would replicate this effect. I did. I was wrong. They are a step too formal, which can have the opposite of the intended effect of group utterances - they mark you as different
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Material world equivalent is the person who says "I know that is correct!" instead of "I know that's right". They only look equivalent out of context but every black woman can tell you they are not the same
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Now you probably see where I'm going... Shannon sounds...not black. Which isn't to say only black women use reactions this way but something in Shannon's group texts ain't like the others and it might be Shannon.
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Shorter: Voiced pauses are an important part of communication and group identity! If you hate the ones in your group, you're probably not really in that group.
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Replying to @tressiemcphd
Digitally-mediated communication is scaled up oral psychodynamics, not a downscaled version of literacy or even secondary orality—part billion. Black Twitter agility reflects the better preservation of oral culture among that community—part zillion.
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Replying to @DocDre @tressiemcphd
Here we are talking but not in physical proximity. And every tweet of mine essentially goes into a stadium crowd even if nobody retweets it—but of course the point is it can be retweeted so it doesn’t matter what your follower count is. Usual borders oral culture obliterated.
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Replying to @zeynep @tressiemcphd
I think I’m disconcerted at your dismissal of secondary orality IIRC secondary orality relies to some extent upon written signs/media, so Tressie’s point about desiring the non-verbal signs of agreement in a chat convo doesn’t clearly read as scaled up oral psychodynamics
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Replying to @DocDre @tressiemcphd
To me, secondary orality is how the anchor person on TV sounds. It’s how corporations that didn’t understand Twitter/social media used to sound like. On social media, the native form seems.. directly oral, just typed. So we inflect and intonate with whatever we got.
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I sound like secondary orality, too. 



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