Seems like the same thing to me. I think the person saying it’s the first of its kind is wrong, but it would still be equally bizarre if people were addressing their “listeners” in normal conversation.
Yeah, it would be weird to say ‘listeners’ when talking to a group. But social conventions and language shifts. “chat” has established itself for pretty obvious reasons, so I’m not surprised to see it catch on in the physical world. It’s a bit like people saying ‘lol’ in person was super weird at first, but isn’t that weird any more.
Also, I don’t think it is anywhere near as weird as how politicians address what they are saying to “Mr. Speaker” when they are clearly actually not talking to that person at all.
It speaks to a person that isn’t physically present and just an observer. “You” typically addresses someone directly, but can be used to break the 4th wall and talk to observers. “Chat” is exclusively for breaking the 4th wall.
Now that is an interesting distinction to make. I suppose that the 4th wall didn’t exist throughout most of history (with the exception of theatre) and so there wasn’t much reason for this feature of language to develop
I don’t think it’s accurate to call the barrier between a streamer and their audience “the fourth wall”. The fourth wall is a concept that exists in theater, and then more largely in fiction, where characters exist in a world where they do not know that they’re characters in a story. And the fourth wall breaks when they realize that they are.
If “chat” breaks the fourth wall, then self-help books that use “you” are too, or news anchors addressing their viewers, or politicians saying “my fellow countrymen” in a broadcast address.
I just addressed “you”, even though you’re not physically present, so clearly that’s not a requirement of second person usage, not to mention that presumably this child saying “chat” is being heard by people physically nearby in this example.
In order to break the fourth wall, the speaker must be part of the media. In the instance of streamers talking to their fans, it’s clearly meant to be an interactive experience between streamer and host, consuming the same media (albeit in different ways). They’re asking a question and getting a response which informs their actions.
Fundamentally, it’s no different than when my wife asks “did that wizard just cast fireball?” while she sits on the couch watching me playing Skyrim.
Nah, “chat” is talking to a specific, present group of people, and is used in lieu of writing a text chat. It’s not like a film actor speaking to the audience, who has no way of responding. Even so, any terms used in breaking the fourth wall would still be second person, ability to respond and presence aren’t a requirement here (e.g. you’d use “you” in letters, and the reader is absolutely not present).
No, it’s never been like it is now. Pre-internet, language was far more isolated and stagnant. Pre-television, even more so.
Now I’m noticing regional accents flattening out, everyone sounding more and more alike. Our vocabulary has exploded with new words. It would be frustrating as hell to go back in time 30-years and try to explain 2023 to my younger self.
The speed is mind boggling. Accents also take different forms now, I.e Digital accents. You can tell a person’s age and region based on how they use emojis. It’s complicated further because different culture/language groups share the same emojis (second language), but may use them differently, kinda like Engrish but even more universal. What a time to be alive 😅😭😅
At work, I can tell who’s commenting on Slack by the emojis. I can glance at a thumbnail on lemmy and gather a great deal of info. It’s freaky.
First tech support job in '91, played a game with myself. I could guess the state, or at least a general region, of my callers. I was pretty damned good. Now? Not much of a clue unless the accent really hangs it out there. Think Boston, Louisiana Cajun, Mississippi genteel, like that. Even those are fading fast.
And don’t start me on internet accents. Jesus. The “airhead” female voice makes me gag, and there’s a masculine voice exactly like it. Wonder if people hated the new Transatlantic accent back in the day? 😣
Doesn’t exist. We/us is first person plural. Some languages have a little complexity here (e.g. Tagalog has “kami” which means “we without you” and “tayo” which means “we with you,” but they’re both still first person plurals).
Some linguists disagree and have recently begun accepting the existence of a fourth person point of view. Languages evolve, and I guess we’ll just have to see if it catches on and becomes more widely accepted in the future.
The difference is that we as a first person plural is generally used for a more discrete group of people, but still from the perspective of a single narrator. Fourth person we is generally used for a collective of people with a shared perspective; there is no single narrator that is separate from the collective group, the entire group is there narrator. Fourth person is a concept that has only recently begun to be recognized as a distinct point of view.
If you believe in string perspective there are infinite narrators narrating each other’s narrations and we have only just started to make words for the infinities.
My rl name starts with Chat and I introduce myself as such most places. It’s pronounced differently though, since it’s based on a French word. The Ch has an Sh sound. And yes, I know what that sounds like…
Ah, I mentioned it’s shortened. My name is Chatoyer:
Etymology. From French chatoyant, present participle of chatoyer (“to iridesce, like a cat’s eye”), from chat (“cat”, because of the reflective qualities of a cat’s eye).
First person: Talking about oneself. I, me. Second person: talking about the listener. you, your. Third person: talking about someone who is not the speaker or listener. He/she/it/they Fourth person: Talking about total bullshit.
In this context, “Chat” is second-person plural, used by streamers to address the portion of their audience able to respond in the text chat that always accompanies these things. It does contrast with how a radio personality might address “listeners” because radio listeners don’t usually have a method to respond in real time, so it’s usually a rhetorical question; a streamer addressing the chat is asking for a response.
i saw someone argue for chat being a 4th person pronoun because it breaks the 4th wall usually seen in mass broadcast media, there’s still a degree of interaction that isn’t there on live TV, so “chat is this real” prompts a direct response from a unified mass of people, there’s a conversation happening through the 4th wall basically
I might buy the 4th person as “someone outside your continuum or reality,” but I’ve yet to see a language construct specifically for that. Fictional characters invariably use second or third person to refer to the audience outside their world.
Streamers talking with their chat audience aren’t fictional or otherworldly though. I don’t see a linguistic difference between a streamer asking the chat what game he should play next, to Bob Saget saying “Home viewers, if you have a funny home video, send the tape to the address on your screen for a chance at appearing on our show!” It’s a communique addressing a large scattered audience through audio/video telephony soliciting a reply. The only real difference is round-trip latency.
While I think the phenomenon of live streaming and their audiences is interesting and presents a fairly new experience, I don’t know if it’s “we’re inventing new pronoun tenses over here.”
it’s not my personal opinion and i can’t give it justice in trying to defend it, but i did think it was an interesting addition to the original so i (poorly) regurgitated it here
Exclusive we is actually found in many languages, but usually it’s the listener who is excluded. Malay kita “we” includes the listener, kami excludes the listener.
Yes we have vosotros (in Spain) or ustedes (in the rest of the Spanish-speaking world -can’t speak for Equatorial Guinea though). But we don’t call it a 4th person pronoun. It’s just the plural form of the 2nd person pronoun:
1st singular: I / yo
1st plural: we / nosotros
2nd singular: you / tú, vos, usted if you wanna be formal
2nd plural: plural you, y’all / ustedes, vosotros
3rd singular: she, he, singular they / ella, él, elle (that last one mostly used among the young queer/progressive community in some countries)
3rd plural: they / ellos, ellas, elles (same above)
Don’t know what a 4th person pronoun would be. And I’m a Spanish teacher in South America lol
But have they begun unwittingly emulating the ancient Greek chorus yet, or is this that? In either event, I’m amused, but slightly moreso with the former of entire groups addressing their situation
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