Finally some relief from the oppression of your pocket computer!

We live in very exclamatory times. Thanks to the internet, we have a ton of outlets for our enthusiasm, most commonly expressed by the use (and overuse) of the exclamation point. But have you ever paused to consider how the Exclamation Point feels about this sudden turn in the spotlight? To find out The Gabbler sat down with him and had quite the illuminating conversation.

The Gabbler: Hi there Exclamation Point!!! Thank you so much for meeting with me today!!!

Exclamation Point: Good morning. It’s lovely to meet you.

TG: Well that was…calm. Are you feeling all right?

EP: But of course. Am I acting strangely?

TG: You could be a little more enthusiastic! Like, this is the first time I’ve EVER met a punctuation mark! And you’re going to get your name splashed in lights, right there on the Gabbler home page! Isn’t that MAJOR?!

EP: Well, I suppose. I’m more on the shy side, as far as punctuation is concerned. If you wanted someone who’s used to the spotlight, why not interview the period? He’s everywhere. Or perhaps the comma? He’s a big fan of controversy, as anyone who has ever engaged in the Oxford comma debate could tell you.

TG: That’s SOOO interesting!!! You know so much punctuation gossip! But why so shy?! You’re it, baby! You’re the center of all heightened human emotion!

EP: Well that’s just it, isn’t it? Most emotion isn’t heightened. So I’m really not used to being used much. It’s only lately, with the advent of the internet, that I’ve been everywhere it seems. In your emails, your G-chats, your Twitter feed. 140 characters and you use me four times? Now doesn’t that seem like quite the waste to you? I’m just not used to all the attention, I suppose.

TG: Okay, Exclamation Point. Let’s start at the beginning, then. Ease you into it. Where did you come from?  Where does any punctuation come from? Where do WE even come from?! What does this all mean?!

EP: I think I may only be able to answer one of those questions sufficiently. For the rest I’d refer you to any major world religion or the philosophy class of your choosing. As for my origins, it’s said that I come from the Latin io, which was added to sentences to denote great joy. Eventually they moved the “i” over the “o” and I was born. For the longest time, I was used sparingly to denote a sense of wonderment. I wasn’t even added to keyboards until the 1970s.

TG: But now you’re everywhere! It must be so great to be so famous!

EP: But that’s the point, isn’t it? I used to MEAN something. When you saw me, you knew, just knew, that something big had just happened. That someone had said or done something worth commenting on. Real enthusiasm, really human joy or anger or sorrow: your sweetheart is back from the war, or has left you for another man, or has died unexpectedly in a car crash. It was REAL, substantial human emotion fit for the occasion. Now I accompany every greeting, every email sign off, every single Facebook status. As if you’ll all die if you’re not enthusiastic every second of every day.

TG: But enthusiasm is SO important, you know? Like, how will people know that I’m a nice, sincere person, if I don’t pepper all correspondence with exclamation points? Then I’ll just seem rude!

EP: Isn’t that the point? That it’s NOT sincere to throw an explanation point on the end of a passive aggressive sentence to Julie in Marketing just to make it seem like you’re telling her nicely to stop taking coffee breaks and do her goddamn job?

TG: YOU have a Julie in Marketing, too? Ours is the worst!

EP: I can so unequivocally that your Julie is not the worst. Because in five minutes I’m sure the burrito you bought for lunch will be the worst and then the graphic designer you meet for drinks tonight will be the worst, and don’t you understand? Most of life is not lived in the extremes! Nothing is the worst! Nothing is the best! There is no use for me! Not all the time!

TG: I see I finally convinced you that exclamation points are useful.

EP: No comment.

TG: But I have two very serious questions: 1. How can a burrito ever be the worst? Have you even had a burrito? They’re the best! 2. What intel do you have on the graphic designer? Did Julie tell you something? She’s SO trying to cockblock me!

EP: I don’t even know how to begin to respond to that pile of nonsense.

TG: Getting a little touchy are we? Fine, let’s go back to the topic at hand. So why do you think that I’m overusing exclamation points when things like comics and Upton Sinclair exist? Upton Sinclair used you so hard, I’m surprised there’s anything left for all my email sign offs!

EP: Don’t even get me started with Upton. That man never saw something he didn’t think worth exclaiming upon. As for comics, I honestly see the need. They’re pulpy, surreal, they take place in a world where everything is over the top and men wearing leotards and tights save the day.

TG: So you don’t think that my Facebook page is an equally amazing, surreal world filled with tights and leotards? Obviously you haven’t looked closely enough at my photo albums!

EP: I’m saying that your email, your Facebook, your G-chats even take place within the realm of the real, where every hello doesn’t need to be followed by five exclamation points just to show that you are so very enthusiastic, upbeat, and nice.

TG: But how will people know that I’m nice if I don’t use exclamation points when I send them messages? Then I’ll just seem like a bitch!

EP: You could start by treating them nicely when you interact with them in real life. Take your friends out for drinks, invite Julie from marketing out to lunch, listen to problems with a kind heart and an open mind, help your best friend’s sister find an apartment, then help her move into it. Be a good person, then your punctuation won’t matter.

TG: Eh, that seems kind of time-consuming and expensive. I’m probably just better off shooting them an email filled with these: !!!!!!

EP: This is only going to get worse, isn’t it?

TG: Much. But that’s all the time we have. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me!!! I hope you have a lovely day!!!

POINT: “I Hate My iPhone, But I’ll Die Without It”

I first realized that my iPhone turned me into a terrible person when I caught myself playing Angry Birds at my sister’s wedding last year. I couldn’t stop. I spent the previous night on a roll during the rehearsal dinner, and I was SO close to getting three stars on every level. I was the maid of honor, and I was supposed to hold her bouquet while she and her husband-to-be exchanged rings. Except, I got so caught up in the game that when she turned to give it to me, I missed the hand-off, and the bouquet bounced to the ground and kept rolling down the aisle, then got stepped on by an usher. So, her bouquet was pretty much ruined. Also, her wedding ceremony.

I do shitty stuff like that all the time because of my iPhone. I invite people out to dinner, then ignore them while I peruse through Instagram and Facebook. I run into people on the street because I’m reading on my Kindle app for iPhone, and by the time I register where I am and that I elbowed a 70-year-old man in the face, he’s already walking away and I’m tangled in my headphones and it’s too late. I even crashed my car because I was texting, building a new Spotify playlist, and googling “where is Gloria Estefan now” – all while doing a three point turn.I’ve also developed some weird antisocial tendencies. All the push notifications make me depressed when I don’t have at least two emails, one Facebook notification, and 2,000 Twitter notifications at any given second. I never call anyone anymore. I showed my mom how to text, and now I can barely remember the sound of her voice. I book reservations for restaurants with Opentable, I order a cab with Uber, I get directions from GoogleMaps, I scan pictures of my checks for Bank of America, I get laid using Tinder, and I order delivery through Foodler or Seamless. As a result, live interactions with humans make me uncomfortable and sweaty, so I spend most of my evenings asking Siri politically incorrect questions and giggling at her answers.

This is all iPhone’s fault. It just had to be super convenient and bank on human laziness to build this creation that has made me an addicted weirdo who sleeps with her iPhone in her bed with her every night and has a mental breakdown when the “20% battery” notification pops up (because soon it will only be 10%, and all I have is my Mophie battery case, and the extra external battery, and THEN WHAT?????). So thanks a lot, iPhone, for turning me into a terrible human with a Stockholm Syndrome-like addiction to you. As for the rest of you, I highly encourage you to never get an iPhone. If you never start, you will never know the pain of trying to stop.

COUNTERPOINT: “#Considerate”

I always thought of myself as a considerate person. I held doors for people, always gave up my seat on the bus for the pregnant and disabled, and I even helped elderly people cross the street. My thank you notes were always handwritten and offered detailed descriptions of all the towels I was going to buy with that lovely JC Penney’s gift certificate. My birthday presents were thoughtful and recalled the most fleetingly expressed desire for a lemon zester. I listened, I paused, I observed the people around me so that I could anticipate their needs, congratulate them on their successes, and comfort them through their failures. But, boy, was I wrong. This whole time I’ve been so caught up in the tactile world surrounding me that I was missing out on the world that really matters — the digital one. I was just bumbling along, with my pathetic little flip phone, too busy holding open doors and giving up my seat to even notice that, according to Facebook, it was my best friend’s sister’s ex-boyfriend’s cousin’s friend’s wedding yesterday. And I didn’t even send a congratulatory tweet! Or what about my old high school gym buddy’s aunt’s friend’s granddaughter’s communion? Did I really let the vast Instagram stream of her beautiful white dress go unliked? Just so I didn’t have to pay for a smartphone plan?! In the words of one Miss Stephanie Tanner: “How rude!”

But never again! My iPhone may be freshly removed from its wrapping, but the front is already smudged with the fingerprints of consideration! My commute, once spent reading and observing the silly habits of my fellow bus riders is now a daily devotional to my Twitter feed. Did you know that my co-worker’s roommate’s boyfriend finally made her kale chips? How could I let that pass without a favorite, a retweet, and a “@catzncuddlz Congrats on your bf’s cooking skills! #kale #love #eatclean #chefoftheyear #congratsagain” I mean, sure, that man on crutches didn’t have a seat for about 20 blocks, but it was really important that I get through the last 12 hours of my Twitter feed. I didn’t want to look like the jerk who didn’t retweet that link to my sorority sister’s little brother’s latest study abroad blog post, did I?

And you won’t believe how considerate I can be just walking down the street now! It’s a flood of Facebook “Happy birthdays!!!” followed by a quick read of the my News Feed. My downstairs neighbor’s girlfriend’s sister just had a baby? Better like the squishy faced first photo! And what about my kickball captain’s cousin’s best friend’s status about how she’s running so late for work? I better post a quick “You can do it, girl!” comment. Sure, I might have run into that nice man while I was doing it, but he was limber enough once he got back up off the pavement. Which I would have helped him do, but my brother’s best friend’s girlfriend just posted a picture of her breakfast and I needed to like it.

I can even be considerate at work! Before, I could never even go on Facebook for fear that my boss would notice and ask how my spreadsheet was coming. But she doesn’t bat an eyelash when I spent 30 minutes on Instagram. Or at least I don’t think she does. It’s hard to see what her eyelashes are up to when I’m too busy liking that beautifully filtered picture of the Thai food that my cousin’s boyfriend’s coworker is eating for lunch. With a quick comment: “Those spring rolls look amazing. #greatlunch #thaifood #yummmm #lunch #thosespringrollslookamazing #delicious #jealous #foodie.”

And that’s just the beginning! There are a ton of apps and features that I don’t even know about yet! I don’t have to steal company paper and ink printing out tickets anymore-I can just scan them on my phone. I never have to be that rude girl who awkwardly has spinach in her teeth, because there’s some kind of mirror I can use, I’ve heard (this is unconfirmed, but probably would have come in handy on my date last Friday). I don’t have to clog up bank lines waiting to cash a check, once I get my banking app set up. And I can even use Tinder to find more people to friend on Facebook and follow on Instagram! It’s not its original purpose, I understand, but you can’t just date people without liking that picture they posted of their best friend’s sister’s dog. That would be SO RUDE.

BALLPOINT: Lisa DeBenedictis (point), and Jessica Pierce (counterpoint)

Protesters in Kiev, Ukraine recently received an ominous text message based on their proximity to the ongoing demonstrations in the center of the city. It’s easy to feel like technology is helping citizens organize and protest against the government until you receive a targeted text message reminding you that the government is watching your every move. While this cartoon is inspired by the events in Ukraine,  it can be applied much more generally to protest and dissent in any country, as mass surveillance technologies like facial recognition continue to develop and become ubiquitous.

An anatomical drawing of man in the 21st century