Honestly there are so many memes I've seen that say "POV" but clearly aren't from the POV of the subject and I still don't understand what the deal with this is
The result of the term getting popular and a large number of idiots not understanding what it means and still continue to use it incorrectly.
The definition of weeb originally meaning someone who rejects their own culture in an attempt to be more Japanese and becoming a term used to describe anyone who watches a lot of anime is an example of this.
The meaning of "weeb" changing is fine. It is not something any reasonable person should be upset by.
The meaning of "POV" changing among some people is at the end of the day probably also fine, the only difference is that I don't get it. Like, you arrive from the original to the present meaning of "weeb" through hyperbole, and the result is a new usage which fills in some gaps and doesn't leave any gaps behind.
POV in its new usage serves a social function, it's used as a discourse marker, but the path from meaning A to meaning B feels a lot less clear, and this is what bothers me.
In any case I don't think it's right to make all this talk of "idiots" and "incorrect". That's just a flat-out bad and reactionary way to think about language change.
Edit: Hell, to what extent was it even people misinterpreting the original meaning, as opposed to reinterpreting the meaning more deliberately? For instance if someone sees that TikTok videos with the word "POV" tend to get more views, I could see that person bending the meaning a little, and thinking that if anyone complains, that's still engagement. That's maybe a bit more troubling but it's also a better explanation than just "people are dumb" -- "people are dumb" is just incurious misanthropy, it acts like changes in meaning caused by misinterpretations are entirely arbitrary and unworthy of any further analysis or discussion.
This is almost becoming my pet project, but I think a lot of it can be attributed to a sort of fundamental irrationality in "the algorithm" that is self-reinforcing. Especially since this trend came from Tik Tok, which has refined its algorithm to a T.
Like at some point an algorithm saw that people stayed .05 seconds longer on Tik Toks with "POV" in the title, and they started pushing those videos to peoples pages. And then some people saw that videos with POV in the title get 20% more views and start putting POV in all their titles no matter the relevance, and the algorithm picks that up, etc etc.
Honestly there are so many memes I've seen that say "POV" but clearly aren't from the POV of the subject and I still don't understand what the deal with this is
POV memes peaked with this
The result of the term getting popular and a large number of idiots not understanding what it means and still continue to use it incorrectly.
The definition of weeb originally meaning someone who rejects their own culture in an attempt to be more Japanese and becoming a term used to describe anyone who watches a lot of anime is an example of this.
The meaning of "weeb" changing is fine. It is not something any reasonable person should be upset by.
The meaning of "POV" changing among some people is at the end of the day probably also fine, the only difference is that I don't get it. Like, you arrive from the original to the present meaning of "weeb" through hyperbole, and the result is a new usage which fills in some gaps and doesn't leave any gaps behind.
POV in its new usage serves a social function, it's used as a discourse marker, but the path from meaning A to meaning B feels a lot less clear, and this is what bothers me.
In any case I don't think it's right to make all this talk of "idiots" and "incorrect". That's just a flat-out bad and reactionary way to think about language change.
Edit: Hell, to what extent was it even people misinterpreting the original meaning, as opposed to reinterpreting the meaning more deliberately? For instance if someone sees that TikTok videos with the word "POV" tend to get more views, I could see that person bending the meaning a little, and thinking that if anyone complains, that's still engagement. That's maybe a bit more troubling but it's also a better explanation than just "people are dumb" -- "people are dumb" is just incurious misanthropy, it acts like changes in meaning caused by misinterpretations are entirely arbitrary and unworthy of any further analysis or discussion.
This is almost becoming my pet project, but I think a lot of it can be attributed to a sort of fundamental irrationality in "the algorithm" that is self-reinforcing. Especially since this trend came from Tik Tok, which has refined its algorithm to a T.
Like at some point an algorithm saw that people stayed .05 seconds longer on Tik Toks with "POV" in the title, and they started pushing those videos to peoples pages. And then some people saw that videos with POV in the title get 20% more views and start putting POV in all their titles no matter the relevance, and the algorithm picks that up, etc etc.