The way of the future: Yaka-wow!

My friend Kathleen Magone sent me the following email, which is perhaps the most representative view of 21st-century life that I can think of:

“In what seems to have been a mixture of rueful admission of error and pleasure in accidental accomplishment, the Times of London noted on 23 April that a transcription error in an interview on 15 April with the neuroscientist Baroness Greenfield has gone viral.  She was concerned that excessive playing of computer games or using social networks such as Twitter would stop the malleable brains of young people developing as they should:  ‘It’s not going to destroy the planet, but is it going to be a planet worth living in if you have a load of breezy people who go around saying yaka-wow.  Is that the society we want?”  Within 24 hours, it is said, Google had 75,000 results for “yaka-wow.”  It has inspired a Twitter stream, a page on Facebook, mugs and T-shirts; it has become a personal philosophy: “I think, therefore I yaka-wow”; and it has led to the creation of the virtual First Church of the Yaka-Wow.  What Baroness Greenfield really said was “yuck and wow”, a derogatory comment about the limited emotional range and vocabulary of Twitter users.  Considered linguistically and culturally, it’s a fascinating example of the way electronic communications can today create and transmit a new word.”

That is either funniest, or saddest, thing I have ever read.

Below : May the power of yaka-wow be with you.