5 Phrases You Won’t Believe Came From the Early 21st Century

Sometimes it can feel like technology is moving much faster than our neurolanguage can keep up with. Here are some texts that your youngers will be packeting you to explain to them next millisecond.

1. Why do my elders keep telling me to “phone” them?

Before we became neurally connected to The Fabric, people carried around devices called “phones”, from a Greek word meaning “sound”. In order to converse with someone, you had to make noises with your mouth, and those noises were converted into electrical impulses, transmitted, then converted back to noises— a very slow process that could take deciseconds just to convey a single idea! Some elders, especially ones who aren’t very good at packeting, use this word to mean any kind of communication.

2. One day I really needed my co-work unit to finish its microcontract within thirty milliseconds, so I packeted them to “put the pedal to the metal”. But even before the encryption cycle finished I realized I didn’t know where that expression comes from.

In meatspace, unlike the pod relocators we use now when physical proximity is required for ritual situations, people used to have personal vehicles that they controlled manually, with little or no interaction with The Fabric. One control surface, a “pedal”, was a lever that the controller, or “driver”, manipulated with hir foot in order to increase the vehicle’s acceleration by pushing it towards the outer shell of the vehicle — which was typically made partly of metal. So going faster was called “putting the pedal to the metal”, despite the fact that a plastic or rubber surface was often interposed between the actual lever and the outer shell. Nowamillis, of course, human vehicular control of any kind is illegal.

3. Why are they called “selfies” when we don’t actually make them ourselves?

People used to make visual images of themselves using technology built into their “phones”. This was often awkward since the quality of the image would be governed by the length of their “arms”, and in fact they often used prosthetic devices to aid in this endeavor. However, now that visual coverage by OneGov cameras is approaching six-nines — and the coverage is even better in our pods — it’s much more convenient to just have them image our physical forms. (Hi OneGov!)

4. Why do we packet “I totally swiped right on you” to indicate our affection for someone?

The history of this expression is more difficult to trace due to the Great Social App Shift that took place in the ‘20s. From what we can make out, people used to express emotions through a variety of “hand” gestures, such as swiping, poking, and pinching. Some elders seem to recall a particular set of emotion gestures known as Wiimoticons, but our wayback has been unable to find any attested sources for this, and it might simply be the result of some historical confusion.

5. I recently ran across an antique, weirdly formatted neurosite that was mostly texts and appeared to use some kind of 2D spatial layout. It said it was “the last newspaper”. What’s a “newspaper”?

Lots we could unpack here, but let’s focus on “news”. It’s a little abstract and hard to visualize, but you can think of “news” like a feed of buzzes that aren’t listicles — which we know sounds like a contradiction in terms. Another way to think of it is like a clickbait whose title didn’t mention weird tricks or didn’t say which item was the most heartwarming. Imagine if this very mediumbuzz were itself not a listicle of packets, but instead a streamlike sequence of really long texts, and you’ll get the idea.

Next millisecond we’ll explain where the “click” in “clickbait” comes from. The shocking answer will amaze you!