Lately, I've been called crazy for some stuff, namely on the AnimeNuke forums (which I like to haunt; I have much disdain for anime itself.) People have started to label me and Ben as a bunch of grammar Nazis and generally as people who have gone off of the deep end. Some of you may not immediately get where I'm going with this, so I'll spell it out: things have become so bad with respect to proper language usage and worthwhile content that people are blindsided by it; it isn't a problem in their eyes. I challenge you to this: flash back 20, maybe even 10 years: would such piss-poor grammar and content make you respected and thought of as someone with more brains than a flea? No, you say? I thought so. Just look at the google usenet archive and check the quality of posts through the ages. Look at some of the posts from the 80s: is there an 'lol omfg hahahahaha' in sight?
I think the problem is somewhat due to the prevalence of instant messaging services and SMS (aka TXT Messaging to all you New Age freaks). Alphanumeric pagers probably started the trend, though. With a cell phone or a pager, you only have a very limited interface to communicate with (and most SMSes are limited in size), so abbreviations and sacrificing grammar for message size can become necessary. But when you have a full-sized 101+ key keyboard in front of you, it isn't necessary, and only serves to portray yourself as an illiterate dumbass and yet another testament to how the U.S. education system sucks ass (this applies to Americans, who speak English natively).
However, that still doesn't explain the lack of worthwhile content. I think this problem is simply a matter of not having anything to say. Hint: if you don't have anything to say, don't say anything at all. Useless filler like 'me too' only serves to further clog our communication channels. Though, some may attribute this to the education system (once again). Honestly, I see so much disdain for grammar and language in my English class, it makes me want to scream.
I think I can attribute some of these feelings to the fact that I've taken up learning Italian. I found that when learning a language while your native language skills are already pretty honed, one might start to feel a sensation of mental anguish when you see improper grammar and lingual syntax. For me, this carried over to English. Either that, or I'm going crazy, or maybe it's due to this article. Even if it is any of those things, is that still an excuse?
In closing, help stop the decline of education on the internet. It will come to bite us in the ass one day, and we don't want that.