The Fictional Audience in 2011

Ong wrote his article in 1975 and many things have changed in the past 36 years, most notably the arrival of the Internet and mobile communication. The written letter is now largely a thing of the past and is only practiced by people who wish for the nostalgia of days past or by those who are writing to people in third world countries. Even novels have been streamlined. No longer do they need to go to a printing press and be delivered to book stores, they can be uploaded to the Internet and purchased immediately. While this is a possibility, book stores will be around for many many more years because many people, myself included, prefer the feel of a book with actual paper to that of some new fangled book machine. With mobile communication and the rise of text communication, are language is being modified every day by people who are too lazy to type out things like "laugh out loud" or "oh my gawd" and these short little phrases become so popular that they may as well be a part of our every day language. And modern every day English is continually attacked by the rich and famous who think the best way for them to get famous is by shooting pornography or getting addicted to what ever the "coolest" drug is at the time, and they are, unfortunately, very successful and, since we are a society obsessed with the rich and famous, their word becomes law and their law is that words are little play things that they are free to destroy, recombine, or invent at their will. Who cares if there is already a word for it? In this, the day of the I WANT IT NOW, it is infinitely more preferable to say something that sounds right-esque, and if your name is part of the word all the better, with confidence and bravado right now then to wait five seconds and think.