This, similarly, is one of the greatest downfalls of this great cyber world at all of our fingertips.

The reason being is that apparently most of the users on the internet are almost completely fucking illiterate - or, if not most, a large and/or loud enough percentage of them to make it seem as if you are surrounded by morons possessing an extremely limited grasp of their language and its use. Obviously, as I only speak English fluently, I'm referring here to users of English, though I'm sure the problem isn't limited to my language.

The main thing I blame for the rampant illiteracy online is chat speak; a lot of people don't possess a good enough knowledge of key locations on keyboards so their typing speed is atrocious. Atrocious typing speed makes for slow writing, and with chat speak, a seemingly fantastic opportunity to increase your communication speed arises.

Except chat speak makes you look like a complete idiot. Chat speak has become synonymous with stupidity, both due to being fucking annoying to read (though there are more complicated forms of speech - more in a few weeks) and because it's used by generally not very intelligent people. Obviously, I seem like a massive bastard saying that, but when was the last time you saw someone using chat speak when they had an above-average level of intelligence? You'll be hard-pressed to find examples, I'm sure.

Some chat speak is forgiveable; I'll let sayings like 'lol' and other fairly common abbreviations slide. The rest of it, though, has to go. Come on people; it doesn't take that much longer to use correct grammar and actual English. Try to look like you've got a decent number of brain cells, and not like some semi-literate dipshit let loose on a keyboard.