The social life of Turkish keysmash
With thanks to my students in Class 201, Academic Year 2025–2026, for always teaching me, making me laugh, and reminding me that language is alive in the smallest details.
A student once sent a message in our class WhatsApp group that looked like a keyboard accident: “JSJHGHGHGJBJBJBJBSBSB.” When I asked whether something was wrong, she laughed and said, “Teacher, it just means I’m laughing. A lot.” That moment raised a question worth taking seriously: what if this digital chaos is not chaos at all? Turkish Gen Z keysmash, I have come to think, is a small sociolinguistic system with its own grammar of closeness.
As an English instructor in Istanbul, I spend a lot of time observing how students move … ↪