The Gizoogle phenomena has been doing the rounds on twitter for a while now, a website that lets you translate anything on the internet into “gangsta slang”.
One of the most famous lines in literary history is translated as: To be, or not ta be, dat is tha question. David Miliband becomes Dizzy Millipede, naturally.
The brainchild of American John Beatty, who started the site in 2005 as a joke after inspiration by Snoop’s “Doggy Fizzle Televizzle” program on MTV and a friend’s constant use of the slang MSN messenger, it’s become viral most recently after a few relaunches.
I admit, I frittered away my time gizoogling the twitter feeds of stiff-upper-lipped toffs. It was fun to chuckle at the contrast between their normal tweets and this faux-vernacular. Perhaps that’s because it highlights the false airs in how they usually communicate?
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Here’s an extract from David Cameron’s 2012 Conservative Party Conference speech:
As Prime Minista it has fallen ta me ta say some hard thangs n’ ta muthafuckin help our ghetto grill some hard truths fo’ realz. All of mah adult life, whatever tha difficulties, tha British playas have at least been Kool & Tha Gang bout one thing. Our thugged-out asses have thought we can pay our way.
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And even better, Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto in all its glory:
A spectre is hustlin Europe — tha spectre of communizzle fo’ realz. All tha powerz of oldschool Europe have entered tha fuck into a holy alliance to exorcise dis spectre: Pimp n’ Tsar, Metternich n’ Guizot, French Radicals n’ German five-o-spies.
Owen Jones had posted links to these on twitter, but after reading some of the responses to him, it made me think again:
@owenjones84 genuine question: if there was a website called “Chav Google” or similar, would it be as funny? Obv this is a parody, but still
— Matt Andrews (@mattpointblank) March 5, 2013
Matt has a point. Rappers don’t even sound like this anymore. Maybe Snoop Lion (née Snoop Dogg) did back in 1994. And fair enough, if you don’t speak “ghetto”, and no one ever mocks or pigeonholes you for not being able to speak “proper”, it makes you giggle.
But do we find mashing up intellectual texts with “rapper speak” funny because the latter is of no worth and sounds stupid? Jeremy Paxman interviewing Dizzee Rascal on Newsnight, anyone? I hate to be po-faced about this, but it’s easy to see why it’s a bit off. It is cringeworthy to see political commentators sharing links to “rap speak” and trying to be down with the kidz; and worse still when you know that it’s just a white web guy using algorithms to generate the translations in the first place.