As someone who was waaaay into OW at the time, I remember that a huge reason that "C9" became so popular as well was the culture around the game at the time (and still now, to a point.) In both high and low ranks, there was this wide-spread idea that some players refuse to play the objective and just wanted kills - this was most common on Payload, where it was not uncommon to see only 1-2 people on the objective even though you need 3 people to give it maximum speed. I think that when a professional team didn't just lose, but lost specifically because they lost objective when they could have simply stayed on it and potentially won, it made people feel vindicated that "hey, yeah, this objective based game IS filled with a bunch of people who don't want to win, they just want kills!" - The groups I played with at the time certainly had some people that felt the C9 occurrence was high-level proof of "what they already knew," whether or not that idea was technically correct or not.
To be fair, although having 3 people on the payload makes it move fastest, most of the time it’s better to have some of your team push ahead and take space. A lot of the time it’s much better to have the payload moving marginally slower whilst uncontested rather than having it move a bit quicker but get contested (and therefore stop completely) faster too, since nothing’s stopping the enemy from advancing. Of course, I’m just nitpicking here since I don’t have much to add to the rest of what you said, and it’s pretty insightful
@@BananaWasTaken yes, payload is almost always the worst position to take a fight from as an attacker, so even professional teams often only have 1 person pushing while everyone else takes ideal positions, unless it a team wipe. The speed benefit of 3 people on cart is rarely more useful than taking good position for the next fight.
I love how excessively Canadian this video is. I think every single metaphor you used was explicitly Canadian, from hockey to poutine to Quebecois. Also, showing the cover of that book awoke a core memory in me - I 𝒽𝒶𝓉𝑒𝒹 that book cause I couldn't get over how much I hated the word frindle. I've always been really into linguistics, and even as a kid could not stand the idea of forcing a not even cool sounding word, with no reasoning behind it, into use. Really interesting to hear such an entirely different takeaway from that same media - you definitely were the one who got the intended message from it haha. Great video!
the fact that you can comm "don't C9" and everyone will know what you mean or yelling out "C9!" into the mic when you see nobody is on the point and you're about to lose says to me that at least in the context of an in-game callout the most commonly understood and useful definition of the word is forgetting to do the objective. It's interesting to me how the term has made the jump to other games, ones Cloud 9 doesn't even play, because it's a useful shorthand. Hell you don't have to have played overwatch or even seen the clip to use the term. There's plenty of people who use it without even knowing why it's called that. Communication is cool, people are social creatures, they will do anything to be connected.
i adore when people use sombra's translocator to transition between clips, ugh it's so satisfying. Really fascinating video, I always got a little frustrated when people would yell C9 at the end of a match when actually one team just happened to lose and the other won (as is the case in most matches lol) . But i think overwatch (especially around the time c9 came into being) had a lot of first time players to fps games and they'd see terms like ggez, c9, and the like and pick up on the connotation/feeling while not knowing what the actual meaning was. Then it would be parroted into oblivion because it seemed like the thing you should say. It's cool to see terms like this develop in communities in real time.
Your example of a definition of chair reminds me of when a transphobe thinking they must have a clear definition of chair but always including something that isn't a chair or excluding something that is a chair. Yet they did not see the irony that defining woman might be just as impossible.
And it's also something that you use to light your way, just like a real torch. How often does someone flash a flashlight... unless it has a stupid "cycle through all modes instead of on/off switch"
What I find funny is that I have never associated C9 with capture points but rather with payload maps as an early/alternate form of what I now hear more as back capping
That’s funny, because I always felt the opposite. Back capping has been a widely used term far longer than C9 ever has, and to me the implication has always been more about the skill and timing of the player back capping than the inattentiveness of the other team. I’ve always felt that the platonic ideal of a C9 is in the most egregious example on it, where the team that should be pushing the payload somehow all get off it in overtime, usually in excitement to chase kills. It conveys the embarrassing feeling far more, because even if nobody is paying attention to the payload at all there’s an odds on chance that at least one of your players will be near enough to it by sheer accident, so it takes a concerted team effort to actually fail to do so.
One reason why I think C9 took off is that Cloud 9 was sort of an 800 pound gorilla in Overwatch e-sports. The desire was to humble or humiliate a specific team that was widely disliked, especially in the anglophone fandom. That’s another way that we get new words: as a rhetorical gambit, as a way of setting the terms of discourse anti-C9 Overwatch fans wanted to promulgate the new word because it made a team they disliked look stupid. Indeed, for accomplished as C9 was, there are probably more OW fans that know them only for their screwup in this one game than for all their championships. In addition everything else, C9 as a term saw steady adoption not only because of everything on the video, but because every usage of it was an insult against a widely disliked organization.
True, it was something I kinda initially had in the script but cut at some point and forgot to re-add - you can see the vestigial argument I was trying to make in the bit where I was talking about how “most language isn’t born out of spite” or whatever. Originally it was also going to touch on how C9 involved a bit of spite to get it kickstarted, but I guess I just lost the point as I wrote lol
don't know how it is for other languages but in german a tissue, specifically the ones folded in a square in plastic wrapping, are reffered to as "Tempos" although Tempo is just one brand. Goes for a lot of things though.
Maybe just me, but "C9" has actually evolved from its original meaning of an "unforced error after effectively winning the teamfight, causing a loss", and has become more of an "unforced error causing a loss". they are subtlety different, you can C9 IN a teamfight cuz the teamfight is in the room next to the point, and everyone accidentally left to secure the fight win. C9 is also now applicable to other games. Playing the new marvel rivals, we have to borrow language from other situations to make sense of what we are experiencing now. I "C9'd" a game of convoy by leaving the cart. Even though that term is from overwatch, everyone in the lobby still called it a C9, and we all knew what they meant.
in Marvel Rivals I did have some ask what c9 was, but i'm a slow typer and my friend just said "idk its like chess or smth" and queued us back in (he very much knew)
man Frindle is such a good book! And Clements was one of my favorite authors as a kid! I think you did a great job tying in the point of the book to the story of C9 as a term I agree that C9 should retain its 'original' meaning where your team could have won the fight but forgot the point was the objective, rather than kills. Ive had situations where the enemy team won and accused my team of c9ing when they had pushed us off with pressure or ults and it can be frustrating. I think you hit to the core reason if that: C9 is uniquely shameful because it indicates that you lost because of an avoidable mistake, and that's why it's so frustrating to have a loss called a C9 when it wasn't. Great video as always! I look forward to the V3 video (two "letter number" videos in a row!?)
I love watching this video and feeling like my mind is getting read. I'm in part 2 thinking "Oh but what about people who use C9 differently to the definitions and examples you gave? I'd perceive a lot of them as wrong but many still use it that way" and lo and behold, part 3 is how language gets warped. Kudos, Viveros. Kudos :D
I know this is totally outside the realm of the video but the weirdest poutine I've ever had was at a county fair outside of Ottawa: it was fries, cheese curds, hollandaise sauce, and lobster. It was so bad lmao
So annoying when people just hear the term C9 said a lot and then use it incorrectly. They’ll use a Sigma ult or a knockback ability to push you off and then start yelling “C9 C9 C9 HAHAHAHA”. That’s not a C9, that’s just a regular win. It’s not embarrassing, their team just played better. But if I willingly walk off the point before it’s fully capped during overtime, now THAT is embarrassing.
A little sad you didn’t mention “Ajax” which is probably the term that has the closest linguistic origins to C9. The fact overwatch players have two of these type of things would be interesting to note.
These videos are lucid and cerebral in a way I could never find myself naturally coming to. Genuinely, when I saw this topic on the poll, I had no idea where it would be going. And, now that I've gotten it, I can safely say that it exceeded any expectation I could've had and addressed multiple phenomenons of the human condition. Absolutely, incredible. I can't wait for the next one. TL;DR: Peak Content.
I'm a linguistics student graduating next year and I had a great time listening to your opinions and how things got here. Your grasp on semantic drift and pragmatics is pretty great. I enjoyed your section on morphology of C9 the most , as I really feel like people's focus of language begins and ends on just words and meaning. Thank you for displaying that "C9"'s widespread use extends beyond just its meaning, but how it can be used.
Part of why I think this is even a prevalent thing in overwatch is that the action of stepping off the objective to secure an elimination is fine to do 99% of the time. It's during overtime or right at the end of a round when capturing the point is important. And because only one person needs to be on the point to capture, the rest of the team is free to get kills and make sure that the enemy can't try to re-contest. It's when everyone thinks "my team can handle the point, I am busy hunting this person down" and no one looks to see that the whole team is doing that same thing (or is dead) at the final crucial moment that results in this bizarre case.
FANTASTIC video, as someone who works with languages for a living (Im an interpreter) it's always so curious playing with my friends that speak spanish because they have completely different made up words for things that we say while playing, a lot of times they are Spanglish words that get popular in a community and adopted as a gaming term, like "Nerf" being "Nerfeo" because this is a word that doesnt really have a translation, since its just to debilitate or weaken a certain aspect of a game. Words are just simply made up, they evolve with time, and thats how languages grow. Love the video! Im super excited for the lineup you have, specially the rupaul one!
i would argue that a sombra backcapping the point is a c9 because the team is technically capable of contesting the point. Its just a different way of not touching
@@masongrant9140 if you extend the meaning of the word like that than it will start to loose its meaning that’s just back caping it has a word for it already no need to combine it
Thank you for an excellent video! I have to say as a fan of OWL in its prime, the most vivid memorable c9 was when Shanghai walked off the payload in Dorado in OT, which technically fits the description of a c9 but didn't earn a timeslot in this video. But it led to a further bastardization of the word into "Shang9" for a time!
A Viveros video about linguistics? It really is Christmas, for me specifically ^^ I don't remember how the linguistics bug bit me (though at least part of it was probably thanks to Tom Scott) but it is really fascinating looking at language like this. I think a really interesting tangent to this discussion is that sometimes a player base will come up with terminology out of necessity, but then the developers will later try to enforce their own official terminology. That's happening a lot right now with Pokémon terms - they tried to push for "first partner Pokémon" instead of "starter", likely because the former implies that they're one of many while the latter implies you're meant to outgrow them - but a combination of being resistant to change and the relative unwieldiness of the term meant that a lot of the fanbase outright rejected it. Also your last point really hit home for me, especially the specific example of "gaslighting", and I think you articulated something I've been struggling with myself, i.e. when is the specificity or vagueness or exact meaning of a word important to preserve, and when is it OK to let its meaning shift with the zeitgeist.
i was in the process of coming to write a snarky joke comment about how my quickplay randoms call everything a c9, making this video inaccurate, but then part 3 started so thanks for that lmao
I've always liked the way ow players (and a couple other games) handle gender when talking about in game characters. For example when the enemy jq is slept you say 'she's sleeping'. However if you're watching someone you know to be male playing jq, you switch between the genders fluidly 'shes sleeping' vs 'he is my favorite tank'. If you were to refer to the players gender instead of the characters it would get confusing who you're talking about because not everyone knows the players gender and in game you are making callouts to get the attention of your teammates on the correct hero. It also used to be the case that gamers would always refer to each other as he/him because it was assumed that it would be a male playing and there were less female characters to play back in the day. Since games characters have become more diverse and the player base as well, we have had to adapt the way we use pronouns and I think it's very cool and interesting.
The debate between prescriptivism (what they advocate for) and Descriptivism are interesting I think trying to preserve c9 as a very specific occurrence rather than simply overprioritizing something that is not the objective to a loss in a late game scenario ie. We all stepped off point mid fight is a better descriptor than any very specific scenario simply because it is better encapsulates the idea because if it references a match that basically no one saw it can't become the word it is today.
The topic of words/phrases, how they gain their meaning, and, more importantly, how they gain enough traction to be able to reliably integrate themselves into a wilder culture as a whole, is very fascinating to me. The issue I have with it being a fascination of mine is other examples of this rapid form of evolution of the usage of words and phrases. Like, with the pen, we can see a pretty clear linearity of how we got to this point over several generations/lifetimes worth of evolutionary shifts in culture. However, something like C9 only happens in the span of years; a sliver of the time taken for other words to get to where they are now. Other examples for this can include two more mainstream things; like generational phrases. Like, what really is a millennial? People use it a lot, but do we have a concrete set amount of timespan for that generation that clearly indicates what bracket of years defines that generation? This only became more amplified when zoomer began to shoulder not only the weight of being used as a slang indicator for a generation (Gen Z), but also became some Wenger 16999 Swiss Army Giant amalgam vibes-based phrase that doesn't really hold any definition beyond speculation. The other example is slurs, but I don't really wanna talk about how certain groups like to try and avoid moderation services/systems by inventing new things that're just new slurs to replace what was said before; essentially creating that grim reaper meme as they speedrun through ruining a swathe of words with their pestilence. Such a fun topic. thanks for this one, Viv
Back capping is another term for this in tf2 which I think is cool. I think the only slight difference in definitions is that a c9 is something the losing team does on a round losing point. Back capping is something the winner team does at any point.
When he was discussing the concept of chair, he was discussing schemas! They're basically the building blocks of cognition. When he listed specific examples and made the point that we didn't know which one was true yet still knew he was on a chair, he was actually contrasting the two main theories of schema construction: exemplar theory (specific examples of the concept) versus prototype theory (the mean of all the information one has stored about the concept). Also obligatory paraphrase from my linguistics textbook: there is no wrong way to language. If you have communicated your point, congratulations, you have won language. Mazel tov.
This is weird, but I couldn't help but think about 'C9' being the middle of a Venn diagram of the word 'decimate' and 'pulling a Shady McCoy', which isn't a widely used term but I think any longtime NFL fan will know what that means. Edit: I should explain for non-NFL fans: 'pulling a Shady McCoy' is describing a specific scenario in American football where someone is just about to score a touchdown -- that is to say, carry the football into the end zone -- and drops the football just shy of the goal line, turning a sure-fire score into, most likely, a change in possession.
c9 was always used as a callout in my experience. anytime the team at large focused more on fighting than maintaining the point, and we noticed someone either going to cap or actively taking the objective without our notice, yelling c9 was the extremely fast and easy to say call to whip everybody's attention back on the point to try and intervene before losing the objective
Koreans in Overwatch 1 used the term 안저지 or "Babysitter" for Supports. With more potential to apply pressure with 1 less tank, I don't know if they still use that term in Overwatch 2. But kinda funny.
Hey, first of your videos I've seen. I found it very interesting and appreciated how straightforward & organized your explanation was. I'll stick around a bit
fun video and the entire time i was thinkinh abt how me n my ow2 friends started playing marvel rivals and say things like “hulk de-meched” and “baby hulk”
I think C9 as a cultural phenomenon has a lot to do with the specific period in time where ow esports was very popular, and the term was a thing for a lot longer in the esports community but when esports broke into the main overwatch audience the term broke containment then
Honestly really good video on etymology(?) in the gaming space! Very cool to see interests of mine cross like this. Im not gonna lie the sombra gameplay had me more captivated tho (#sombramains). Especially those transitions with the translocator.
Gosh darn it man! You put out videos on the best subjects. I am writing this at the top of the video: I hated Frindle as a kid. I don't give a crap for making an extant thing have a silly name for the sake of being different. What is truly interesting about language construction is how it takes the undifferentiated deluge of new things the world produces every day and it turns *some* of them into ideas. People probably did a "whoops, stepped off the point, silly loss" thing in overwatch before C9, so what we should study are the circumstances that lead people to crystalize an idea from an event. Let me see if I can name the general idea of the circumstances you are seeing: Predicate: there is an event-object (an event which objectively occured) that is witnessed thus it might be named. The inverse should also be valid for a definition: if an event-object is unnamed, it might not have been witnessed. You know, like if an asteroid crashes into the dark side of the moon in the middle ages, no one is going to name that event because they have no idea what happened, even it it is a more intense event than anything that has happened on Earth in that age by most objective standards. First, repetition in "direct" succession. If C9 did a C9 only once that evening, it might not have been so definitively a them thing. There is also something of Bergson's notion of humor (mechanical repetition where we would expect vital growth) to this rapid repeating. Note: what feels rapid or direct is intensely subjective. Obviously, events happen literally every second (the event that is the second happening, for example) so a lot of events happen between almost any two noticed events. There just needs to be some framework that ties the two together. Second, consequence. If the idea feels unimportant, it will get forgotten. What is and is not a meaningful consequence here is subjective and rather arbitrary. However, welcome to the making of words, it's literally all subjective and arbitrary! Third, inter-subjectivity. Casuals AND Pros were there to watch the event. In the hockey game, we witness the intense emotions of BOTH teams and so there is a contrast of experience around the event-object. However, this event does not clear our other conditions. Let's make another example for this: The Haitian and French Revolutions have a word that unites them despite all of their differences. The subjectivity, the ways of experiencing object-events, of the Haitian slaves and the French Gentry were probably at least as different as people who watch overwatch games and those who play them professionally. Both events changed the history of their respective lands. One event also caused the other, making them very much in direct succession. Distraction time: oh my gosh, it's so cute when you start talking about hockey. It's such a guy thing. Boys being into noncombat sports makes me giggle. So cute. Is this what gayboys do together? Talk about sports and kiss? Can I watch? Probably not.
In my own mind, C9 is when you leave the point without you being condemned to die within the next 5 seconds and causing the team to lose the round because of it
God I watched this video to the end and feel even more ashamed for quitting video making before talking about gamer language. Thank you Viveros for the inspiration
I was just thinking about the term C9 the other day after it happened to me while playing quickplay with some friends the other day (enemy team walked off the robot and we won). I was mostly thinking about how funny it is that more people probably know the term C9 as the action rather than the esports group. Super funny when a massive fuckup becomes a colloquial term lol
As an autistic person, I have a thing involving words, and their meaning. (My Mom was big on proper grammar) Something I've learned is that all words are invented. When someone says, "that's not a word," my response is always, "sure it is. I just said it."
This is a pretty solid commentary overall that covered most of my thoughts on the topic. I think diving more into the tug of war between prescriptivism and natural meaning drift/dilution would be pretty interesting. Personally I think the most useful definition of C9 is a little looser than what you suggested, since the exact scenario isn't necessarily all that important (as you also covered), and allows for more specific terms like "sig9" to describe something only related to C9ing in the functional outcome, even though a sig9 is by no means an unforced error.
I firmly believe that language is used to get a point across. If I say "me no like other player, he filthy backstabber." I believe I'm being perfectly clear in meaning, despite my grammar being equivalent to that of a caveman. If I say "I c9'd them" it means I forced them to walk off of the point winning the game. I'd say since I'm being clear who cares if it's the exact original situation. Your video is highly explanatory of this and I really appreciate that.
I think as a ragebait term c9 is very effective. Want to make the enemy mad after a hard fought round, c9. Capped the point behind their back, c9. They c9'ed one obj, c9. Its just too easy to fall for.
Obligatory "Only 100 views in 17 minutes? Bro fell off" comment Edit: Oh, and just wanted to ask if you're going to be doing anything with Marvel Rivals
I definitely do plan on doing some Marvel Rivals stuff in the future! I’ve been streaming it lately but I want to wait until I’ve had more time with it before I try and pop off with some hot takes, especially since I’m not *super* familiar with Marvel in general
Hiii, I'm from Canada The 'proper' way to say it is Puts In The o making a double o sound, like in toots And for the tsine, ine is it's own syllable Puts-in
Hi, I’m also from Canada. You are welcome to actually look it up, but both are considered correct depending on the dialect of Canadian French that you’re speaking.
for the most part i agree but one thing i disagree with is the definition a c9 is when a capture happens that could easily have been prevented if a sombra c9s first point blizzard world thats a c9 not a you forgot the sombra was there and let them cap point its not only you know that thing when your team wins the fight and then your team walks off the point only for you to loose the round its that and when you forget about point
I think most of the places I used to go are either closed or renamed, they no longer show up on Google Maps. However, the protein poutine I talked about in the video was actually from a place called Chef on Call that does still exist and they were delicious - plus their whole thing is making delivery food for drunk McGill students so they’re open until like 4 am. Idk if it’s the *best* poutine place, but it’s a good one.
@TheViveros Thanks, I'll check it out this weekend! For now I'm gonna finish my Poulet Rouge leftovers 😭 I wonder if they have those in Alberta (iirc you're in Alberta, idk if I'm misremembering tho)
Intro: Mash It Up (Fuzion Frenzy OST) Part 1: Psyche Taxi (Danganronpa V3 OST White) Part 2: Residence Limo (AI: The Somnium FIles - nirvanA Initiative OST) Part 3: Detective Finale (Process of Elimination OST) Conclusion: Custom BGM for the channel made by Rain (just realized I forgot to add him to the credits, I'll go do that rn)
i love this dude but that vtuber moving + chaotic gameplay in the background makes me so confused as to where to look that I can't pay any attention to the vid 😭
Broadly speaking I like how language evolves but the internet seems to specifically do this thing with language where the most impactful word is the main one people will use. Like in league, dying to a bad play "Oh I inted" No, you didnt. Int literally is "intentional feeding" but now people just say "int" to mean just dying generally in game Or when people say "brainrot" and its some mundane meme. Seems on the internet, language goes much faster and I personally am just not a fan.
As someone who was waaaay into OW at the time, I remember that a huge reason that "C9" became so popular as well was the culture around the game at the time (and still now, to a point.) In both high and low ranks, there was this wide-spread idea that some players refuse to play the objective and just wanted kills - this was most common on Payload, where it was not uncommon to see only 1-2 people on the objective even though you need 3 people to give it maximum speed.
I think that when a professional team didn't just lose, but lost specifically because they lost objective when they could have simply stayed on it and potentially won, it made people feel vindicated that "hey, yeah, this objective based game IS filled with a bunch of people who don't want to win, they just want kills!" - The groups I played with at the time certainly had some people that felt the C9 occurrence was high-level proof of "what they already knew," whether or not that idea was technically correct or not.
To be fair, although having 3 people on the payload makes it move fastest, most of the time it’s better to have some of your team push ahead and take space. A lot of the time it’s much better to have the payload moving marginally slower whilst uncontested rather than having it move a bit quicker but get contested (and therefore stop completely) faster too, since nothing’s stopping the enemy from advancing.
Of course, I’m just nitpicking here since I don’t have much to add to the rest of what you said, and it’s pretty insightful
@@BananaWasTaken yes, payload is almost always the worst position to take a fight from as an attacker, so even professional teams often only have 1 person pushing while everyone else takes ideal positions, unless it a team wipe. The speed benefit of 3 people on cart is rarely more useful than taking good position for the next fight.
I love how excessively Canadian this video is. I think every single metaphor you used was explicitly Canadian, from hockey to poutine to Quebecois. Also, showing the cover of that book awoke a core memory in me - I 𝒽𝒶𝓉𝑒𝒹 that book cause I couldn't get over how much I hated the word frindle. I've always been really into linguistics, and even as a kid could not stand the idea of forcing a not even cool sounding word, with no reasoning behind it, into use. Really interesting to hear such an entirely different takeaway from that same media - you definitely were the one who got the intended message from it haha. Great video!
I loved it in my USA schools 😎🦅
Irl peace sign: ✌️☮️🕊🏳️
Gamer peace sign: *crouching*
anti-peace sign: spamming crouch
@@raz1572 I feel like context matters
Spamming crouch can both mean a "hello!" or "git gud dipshit" depending on when crouch is spammed 💀
@@raz1572 Spamming crouch is that meme of Grant Gustin throwing the peace sign over the gravestone.
the fact that you can comm "don't C9" and everyone will know what you mean or yelling out "C9!" into the mic when you see nobody is on the point and you're about to lose says to me that at least in the context of an in-game callout the most commonly understood and useful definition of the word is forgetting to do the objective.
It's interesting to me how the term has made the jump to other games, ones Cloud 9 doesn't even play, because it's a useful shorthand. Hell you don't have to have played overwatch or even seen the clip to use the term. There's plenty of people who use it without even knowing why it's called that.
Communication is cool, people are social creatures, they will do anything to be connected.
i adore when people use sombra's translocator to transition between clips, ugh it's so satisfying.
Really fascinating video, I always got a little frustrated when people would yell C9 at the end of a match when actually one team just happened to lose and the other won (as is the case in most matches lol) . But i think overwatch (especially around the time c9 came into being) had a lot of first time players to fps games and they'd see terms like ggez, c9, and the like and pick up on the connotation/feeling while not knowing what the actual meaning was. Then it would be parroted into oblivion because it seemed like the thing you should say. It's cool to see terms like this develop in communities in real time.
Your example of a definition of chair reminds me of when a transphobe thinking they must have a clear definition of chair but always including something that isn't a chair or excluding something that is a chair. Yet they did not see the irony that defining woman might be just as impossible.
its wild to me that in the UK "torch" means "flashlight"
it's kinda lit tho
And it's also something that you use to light your way, just like a real torch. How often does someone flash a flashlight... unless it has a stupid "cycle through all modes instead of on/off switch"
Just me watching an Overwatch video because it's actually about language and language drift and I don't know a goddamn thing about Overwatch
Just me watching a language and language drift video because its about Overwatch and i don't know a goddamn thing about language drift
What I find funny is that I have never associated C9 with capture points but rather with payload maps as an early/alternate form of what I now hear more as back capping
That’s funny, because I always felt the opposite. Back capping has been a widely used term far longer than C9 ever has, and to me the implication has always been more about the skill and timing of the player back capping than the inattentiveness of the other team. I’ve always felt that the platonic ideal of a C9 is in the most egregious example on it, where the team that should be pushing the payload somehow all get off it in overtime, usually in excitement to chase kills. It conveys the embarrassing feeling far more, because even if nobody is paying attention to the payload at all there’s an odds on chance that at least one of your players will be near enough to it by sheer accident, so it takes a concerted team effort to actually fail to do so.
One reason why I think C9 took off is that Cloud 9 was sort of an 800 pound gorilla in Overwatch e-sports. The desire was to humble or humiliate a specific team that was widely disliked, especially in the anglophone fandom.
That’s another way that we get new words: as a rhetorical gambit, as a way of setting the terms of discourse anti-C9 Overwatch fans wanted to promulgate the new word because it made a team they disliked look stupid. Indeed, for accomplished as C9 was, there are probably more OW fans that know them only for their screwup in this one game than for all their championships.
In addition everything else, C9 as a term saw steady adoption not only because of everything on the video, but because every usage of it was an insult against a widely disliked organization.
True, it was something I kinda initially had in the script but cut at some point and forgot to re-add - you can see the vestigial argument I was trying to make in the bit where I was talking about how “most language isn’t born out of spite” or whatever. Originally it was also going to touch on how C9 involved a bit of spite to get it kickstarted, but I guess I just lost the point as I wrote lol
Kinda reminds me of how an Adhesive Bandage became known as a band-aid, even though that's just the one brand
don't know how it is for other languages but in german a tissue, specifically the ones folded in a square in plastic wrapping, are reffered to as "Tempos" although Tempo is just one brand. Goes for a lot of things though.
@itshel2677 happened in american english too. many older folks or more southern people will call tissues "Kleenex" because of the brand
Maybe just me, but "C9" has actually evolved from its original meaning of an "unforced error after effectively winning the teamfight, causing a loss", and has become more of an "unforced error causing a loss". they are subtlety different, you can C9 IN a teamfight cuz the teamfight is in the room next to the point, and everyone accidentally left to secure the fight win.
C9 is also now applicable to other games. Playing the new marvel rivals, we have to borrow language from other situations to make sense of what we are experiencing now. I "C9'd" a game of convoy by leaving the cart. Even though that term is from overwatch, everyone in the lobby still called it a C9, and we all knew what they meant.
in Marvel Rivals I did have some ask what c9 was, but i'm a slow typer and my friend just said "idk its like chess or smth" and queued us back in (he very much knew)
FRINDLE MENTIONED!!!! 🗣️🗣️🗣️
man Frindle is such a good book! And Clements was one of my favorite authors as a kid! I think you did a great job tying in the point of the book to the story of C9 as a term
I agree that C9 should retain its 'original' meaning where your team could have won the fight but forgot the point was the objective, rather than kills. Ive had situations where the enemy team won and accused my team of c9ing when they had pushed us off with pressure or ults and it can be frustrating. I think you hit to the core reason if that: C9 is uniquely shameful because it indicates that you lost because of an avoidable mistake, and that's why it's so frustrating to have a loss called a C9 when it wasn't.
Great video as always! I look forward to the V3 video (two "letter number" videos in a row!?)
I also agree with the point in your middle paragraph. I think it could be rephrased as “C9 refers to an unforced error.”
I love watching this video and feeling like my mind is getting read. I'm in part 2 thinking "Oh but what about people who use C9 differently to the definitions and examples you gave? I'd perceive a lot of them as wrong but many still use it that way" and lo and behold, part 3 is how language gets warped. Kudos, Viveros. Kudos :D
I know this is totally outside the realm of the video but the weirdest poutine I've ever had was at a county fair outside of Ottawa: it was fries, cheese curds, hollandaise sauce, and lobster. It was so bad lmao
I hope you reported them to the authorities because who the fuck puts hollandaise sauce on poutine
Ive always felt like half the fun of c9 comes from the association with "on cloud nine" or "head in the clouds"
So annoying when people just hear the term C9 said a lot and then use it incorrectly. They’ll use a Sigma ult or a knockback ability to push you off and then start yelling “C9 C9 C9 HAHAHAHA”. That’s not a C9, that’s just a regular win. It’s not embarrassing, their team just played better. But if I willingly walk off the point before it’s fully capped during overtime, now THAT is embarrassing.
A little sad you didn’t mention “Ajax” which is probably the term that has the closest linguistic origins to C9. The fact overwatch players have two of these type of things would be interesting to note.
smh, I was 48 seconds late to an upload :(
frindle mentioned!! fr I loved that book as an elementary schooler and it completely altered the way I think about language
These videos are lucid and cerebral in a way I could never find myself naturally coming to. Genuinely, when I saw this topic on the poll, I had no idea where it would be going. And, now that I've gotten it, I can safely say that it exceeded any expectation I could've had and addressed multiple phenomenons of the human condition. Absolutely, incredible. I can't wait for the next one.
TL;DR: Peak Content.
I'm a linguistics student graduating next year and I had a great time listening to your opinions and how things got here. Your grasp on semantic drift and pragmatics is pretty great. I enjoyed your section on morphology of C9 the most , as I really feel like people's focus of language begins and ends on just words and meaning. Thank you for displaying that "C9"'s widespread use extends beyond just its meaning, but how it can be used.
Morphology?
Part of why I think this is even a prevalent thing in overwatch is that the action of stepping off the objective to secure an elimination is fine to do 99% of the time. It's during overtime or right at the end of a round when capturing the point is important. And because only one person needs to be on the point to capture, the rest of the team is free to get kills and make sure that the enemy can't try to re-contest. It's when everyone thinks "my team can handle the point, I am busy hunting this person down" and no one looks to see that the whole team is doing that same thing (or is dead) at the final crucial moment that results in this bizarre case.
15:18 cool transition 👍
I loved the video, probably has some of my favourite One-Liners out of all of the essays so far.
That Transition at 18:42 Was clean
FANTASTIC video, as someone who works with languages for a living (Im an interpreter) it's always so curious playing with my friends that speak spanish because they have completely different made up words for things that we say while playing, a lot of times they are Spanglish words that get popular in a community and adopted as a gaming term, like "Nerf" being "Nerfeo" because this is a word that doesnt really have a translation, since its just to debilitate or weaken a certain aspect of a game.
Words are just simply made up, they evolve with time, and thats how languages grow.
Love the video! Im super excited for the lineup you have, specially the rupaul one!
i would argue that a sombra backcapping the point is a c9 because the team is technically capable of contesting the point. Its just a different way of not touching
@@masongrant9140 if you extend the meaning of the word like that than it will start to loose its meaning that’s just back caping it has a word for it already no need to combine it
You cant force a C9 thats = to when that random in your lobby says c9 bc you got booped off before you could touch
those sombra teleport transitions are way to smooth
I know bruh. I actually paused and reminded after I saw it like wtf. So clean
Rewinded*
Thank you for an excellent video! I have to say as a fan of OWL in its prime, the most vivid memorable c9 was when Shanghai walked off the payload in Dorado in OT, which technically fits the description of a c9 but didn't earn a timeslot in this video. But it led to a further bastardization of the word into "Shang9" for a time!
A Viveros video about linguistics? It really is Christmas, for me specifically ^^ I don't remember how the linguistics bug bit me (though at least part of it was probably thanks to Tom Scott) but it is really fascinating looking at language like this.
I think a really interesting tangent to this discussion is that sometimes a player base will come up with terminology out of necessity, but then the developers will later try to enforce their own official terminology. That's happening a lot right now with Pokémon terms - they tried to push for "first partner Pokémon" instead of "starter", likely because the former implies that they're one of many while the latter implies you're meant to outgrow them - but a combination of being resistant to change and the relative unwieldiness of the term meant that a lot of the fanbase outright rejected it.
Also your last point really hit home for me, especially the specific example of "gaslighting", and I think you articulated something I've been struggling with myself, i.e. when is the specificity or vagueness or exact meaning of a word important to preserve, and when is it OK to let its meaning shift with the zeitgeist.
i was in the process of coming to write a snarky joke comment about how my quickplay randoms call everything a c9, making this video inaccurate, but then part 3 started so thanks for that lmao
Happy to see your video back in my recommended it's been a long time
I've always liked the way ow players (and a couple other games) handle gender when talking about in game characters. For example when the enemy jq is slept you say 'she's sleeping'. However if you're watching someone you know to be male playing jq, you switch between the genders fluidly 'shes sleeping' vs 'he is my favorite tank'. If you were to refer to the players gender instead of the characters it would get confusing who you're talking about because not everyone knows the players gender and in game you are making callouts to get the attention of your teammates on the correct hero.
It also used to be the case that gamers would always refer to each other as he/him because it was assumed that it would be a male playing and there were less female characters to play back in the day. Since games characters have become more diverse and the player base as well, we have had to adapt the way we use pronouns and I think it's very cool and interesting.
9:50 Your honor, what about the sig9?
The classic
Still not sure why you only have 20kish subs. Your content is always great. Keep it up!
I love you for getting the definition of C9 right. SO many people say it literally whenever nowadays, it's driving me crazy.
The debate between prescriptivism (what they advocate for) and Descriptivism are interesting I think trying to preserve c9 as a very specific occurrence rather than simply overprioritizing something that is not the objective to a loss in a late game scenario ie. We all stepped off point mid fight is a better descriptor than any very specific scenario simply because it is better encapsulates the idea because if it references a match that basically no one saw it can't become the word it is today.
The topic of words/phrases, how they gain their meaning, and, more importantly, how they gain enough traction to be able to reliably integrate themselves into a wilder culture as a whole, is very fascinating to me. The issue I have with it being a fascination of mine is other examples of this rapid form of evolution of the usage of words and phrases. Like, with the pen, we can see a pretty clear linearity of how we got to this point over several generations/lifetimes worth of evolutionary shifts in culture. However, something like C9 only happens in the span of years; a sliver of the time taken for other words to get to where they are now. Other examples for this can include two more mainstream things; like generational phrases. Like, what really is a millennial? People use it a lot, but do we have a concrete set amount of timespan for that generation that clearly indicates what bracket of years defines that generation? This only became more amplified when zoomer began to shoulder not only the weight of being used as a slang indicator for a generation (Gen Z), but also became some Wenger 16999 Swiss Army Giant amalgam vibes-based phrase that doesn't really hold any definition beyond speculation.
The other example is slurs, but I don't really wanna talk about how certain groups like to try and avoid moderation services/systems by inventing new things that're just new slurs to replace what was said before; essentially creating that grim reaper meme as they speedrun through ruining a swathe of words with their pestilence.
Such a fun topic. thanks for this one, Viv
Back capping is another term for this in tf2 which I think is cool. I think the only slight difference in definitions is that a c9 is something the losing team does on a round losing point. Back capping is something the winner team does at any point.
When he was discussing the concept of chair, he was discussing schemas! They're basically the building blocks of cognition. When he listed specific examples and made the point that we didn't know which one was true yet still knew he was on a chair, he was actually contrasting the two main theories of schema construction: exemplar theory (specific examples of the concept) versus prototype theory (the mean of all the information one has stored about the concept).
Also obligatory paraphrase from my linguistics textbook: there is no wrong way to language. If you have communicated your point, congratulations, you have won language. Mazel tov.
This is weird, but I couldn't help but think about 'C9' being the middle of a Venn diagram of the word 'decimate' and 'pulling a Shady McCoy', which isn't a widely used term but I think any longtime NFL fan will know what that means.
Edit: I should explain for non-NFL fans: 'pulling a Shady McCoy' is describing a specific scenario in American football where someone is just about to score a touchdown -- that is to say, carry the football into the end zone -- and drops the football just shy of the goal line, turning a sure-fire score into, most likely, a change in possession.
c9 was always used as a callout in my experience. anytime the team at large focused more on fighting than maintaining the point, and we noticed someone either going to cap or actively taking the objective without our notice, yelling c9 was the extremely fast and easy to say call to whip everybody's attention back on the point to try and intervene before losing the objective
As always, the subject was awesome and very interesting. But then also… those slick Sombra edits. So nice.
Koreans in Overwatch 1 used the term 안저지 or "Babysitter" for Supports. With more potential to apply pressure with 1 less tank, I don't know if they still use that term in Overwatch 2. But kinda funny.
Hey, first of your videos I've seen. I found it very interesting and appreciated how straightforward & organized your explanation was. I'll stick around a bit
fun video and the entire time i was thinkinh abt how me n my ow2 friends started playing marvel rivals and say things like “hulk de-meched” and “baby hulk”
Part 1: white clouds. (If you know you know)
I think C9 as a cultural phenomenon has a lot to do with the specific period in time where ow esports was very popular, and the term was a thing for a lot longer in the esports community but when esports broke into the main overwatch audience the term broke containment then
Honestly really good video on etymology(?) in the gaming space! Very cool to see interests of mine cross like this. Im not gonna lie the sombra gameplay had me more captivated tho (#sombramains). Especially those transitions with the translocator.
Gosh darn it man! You put out videos on the best subjects.
I am writing this at the top of the video: I hated Frindle as a kid. I don't give a crap for making an extant thing have a silly name for the sake of being different. What is truly interesting about language construction is how it takes the undifferentiated deluge of new things the world produces every day and it turns *some* of them into ideas. People probably did a "whoops, stepped off the point, silly loss" thing in overwatch before C9, so what we should study are the circumstances that lead people to crystalize an idea from an event.
Let me see if I can name the general idea of the circumstances you are seeing:
Predicate: there is an event-object (an event which objectively occured) that is witnessed thus it might be named.
The inverse should also be valid for a definition: if an event-object is unnamed, it might not have been witnessed. You know, like if an asteroid crashes into the dark side of the moon in the middle ages, no one is going to name that event because they have no idea what happened, even it it is a more intense event than anything that has happened on Earth in that age by most objective standards.
First, repetition in "direct" succession. If C9 did a C9 only once that evening, it might not have been so definitively a them thing. There is also something of Bergson's notion of humor (mechanical repetition where we would expect vital growth) to this rapid repeating. Note: what feels rapid or direct is intensely subjective. Obviously, events happen literally every second (the event that is the second happening, for example) so a lot of events happen between almost any two noticed events. There just needs to be some framework that ties the two together.
Second, consequence. If the idea feels unimportant, it will get forgotten. What is and is not a meaningful consequence here is subjective and rather arbitrary. However, welcome to the making of words, it's literally all subjective and arbitrary!
Third, inter-subjectivity. Casuals AND Pros were there to watch the event. In the hockey game, we witness the intense emotions of BOTH teams and so there is a contrast of experience around the event-object. However, this event does not clear our other conditions.
Let's make another example for this: The Haitian and French Revolutions have a word that unites them despite all of their differences. The subjectivity, the ways of experiencing object-events, of the Haitian slaves and the French Gentry were probably at least as different as people who watch overwatch games and those who play them professionally. Both events changed the history of their respective lands. One event also caused the other, making them very much in direct succession.
Distraction time: oh my gosh, it's so cute when you start talking about hockey. It's such a guy thing. Boys being into noncombat sports makes me giggle. So cute. Is this what gayboys do together? Talk about sports and kiss? Can I watch? Probably not.
In my own mind, C9 is when you leave the point without you being condemned to die within the next 5 seconds and causing the team to lose the round because of it
What is this professionalism you have, so much knowledge and understanding... In the words of a great generation... You have aura bro🙌
love the coverage of the emotional aspect of language and word use thats cool as hell
"How language gets warped"
Me, watching the words Literally and Actually get absolutely desecrated in modern speech: D:
BABE WAKE UP NEW VIVEROS!!! BABE?? BABE?????? BAAAAAAAAAAABE
God I watched this video to the end and feel even more ashamed for quitting video making before talking about gamer language. Thank you Viveros for the inspiration
just as this video ended, my team forgot to touch the point and now i'm left wondering if i witnessed a c9 or if i just have the feelings of a c9
very well constructed video :)
I never expected someone else had read Frindle, I haven’t seen that book since I was 11
Was not expecting to get sniped by nostalgia from a Frindle mention.
I was just thinking about the term C9 the other day after it happened to me while playing quickplay with some friends the other day (enemy team walked off the robot and we won). I was mostly thinking about how funny it is that more people probably know the term C9 as the action rather than the esports group.
Super funny when a massive fuckup becomes a colloquial term lol
As an autistic person, I have a thing involving words, and their meaning. (My Mom was big on proper grammar)
Something I've learned is that all words are invented. When someone says, "that's not a word," my response is always, "sure it is. I just said it."
Great video. Still looking forward to your Against the Storm vid 😉
great video. i find it interesting that while C9's meaning has been warped, Ajax still means exactly the same thing
Here before Nymphia Wind comments
This is a pretty solid commentary overall that covered most of my thoughts on the topic. I think diving more into the tug of war between prescriptivism and natural meaning drift/dilution would be pretty interesting.
Personally I think the most useful definition of C9 is a little looser than what you suggested, since the exact scenario isn't necessarily all that important (as you also covered), and allows for more specific terms like "sig9" to describe something only related to C9ing in the functional outcome, even though a sig9 is by no means an unforced error.
yeah sometimes you use comms saying "use [hanzo/sigma/zarya/etc] ult to force the c9"
I love videos talking about this c9 phenomenon. C9 has, and probably always will be, part of my dictionary.
I think I've heard C9 be used to describe a similar situation in a pro Splatoon match. That's cultural saturation right there.
I firmly believe that language is used to get a point across. If I say "me no like other player, he filthy backstabber." I believe I'm being perfectly clear in meaning, despite my grammar being equivalent to that of a caveman.
If I say "I c9'd them" it means I forced them to walk off of the point winning the game. I'd say since I'm being clear who cares if it's the exact original situation.
Your video is highly explanatory of this and I really appreciate that.
Damn I really didn’t expect this video to mention Québec
I think as a ragebait term c9 is very effective. Want to make the enemy mad after a hard fought round, c9. Capped the point behind their back, c9. They c9'ed one obj, c9. Its just too easy to fall for.
I didn’t fully watch the video but it’s probably because popular twitch streamers and youtubers use the term so it sticks with the community over time
the timing is crazy considering c9’s valorant team just c9’d a diffuse at 11-12 in a pro match LOL
New viveros video dropped, peak
i still call those pens frindles and no one ever gets what i mean
Obligatory "Only 100 views in 17 minutes? Bro fell off" comment
Edit: Oh, and just wanted to ask if you're going to be doing anything with Marvel Rivals
I definitely do plan on doing some Marvel Rivals stuff in the future! I’ve been streaming it lately but I want to wait until I’ve had more time with it before I try and pop off with some hot takes, especially since I’m not *super* familiar with Marvel in general
WHAT SENS IS MERCY PLAYING AT AT 12:40 OH MY GOD
i am not a channel member but i have very strong thoughts ab that last video idea. rly hoping it gets made
16:45 For all i know, you might be on a horse if you subscribe to a particular type of classical sophistry.
Don’t know if it will be said, MOST languages call pineapples something closer to anana
Hiii, I'm from Canada
The 'proper' way to say it is Puts In
The o making a double o sound, like in toots
And for the tsine, ine is it's own syllable
Puts-in
Hi, I’m also from Canada. You are welcome to actually look it up, but both are considered correct depending on the dialect of Canadian French that you’re speaking.
@@TheViveros
Nuh Uh
for the most part i agree but one thing i disagree with is the definition a c9 is when a capture happens that could easily have been prevented if a sombra c9s first point blizzard world thats a c9 not a you forgot the sombra was there and let them cap point its not only you know that thing when your team wins the fight and then your team walks off the point only for you to loose the round its that and when you forget about point
Just moved to MTL. What's the best poutine place? I've been filling myself up with Poulet Rouge so far but that's exactly what I did in Ottawa 😭
I think most of the places I used to go are either closed or renamed, they no longer show up on Google Maps. However, the protein poutine I talked about in the video was actually from a place called Chef on Call that does still exist and they were delicious - plus their whole thing is making delivery food for drunk McGill students so they’re open until like 4 am. Idk if it’s the *best* poutine place, but it’s a good one.
@TheViveros Thanks, I'll check it out this weekend! For now I'm gonna finish my Poulet Rouge leftovers 😭
I wonder if they have those in Alberta (iirc you're in Alberta, idk if I'm misremembering tho)
I’m trying to get this dub but my teammates c9’d. They said my comms are bad so I watched this video but I’m pretty sure they were johning
such a good vid holy shit
didt C9 fuck up a third time in that match on 2CP map? at least thats how i remember it. they managed to fail to contest 3 times in a single match.
Yo whats the name of the music you used for this video? Some pretty dope bangers, esp the violin one at around 16:00
Intro: Mash It Up (Fuzion Frenzy OST)
Part 1: Psyche Taxi (Danganronpa V3 OST White)
Part 2: Residence Limo (AI: The Somnium FIles - nirvanA Initiative OST)
Part 3: Detective Finale (Process of Elimination OST)
Conclusion: Custom BGM for the channel made by Rain (just realized I forgot to add him to the credits, I'll go do that rn)
oh my god I forgot about frindle
I bet he’s sitting on an egg chair right now.
Lets not forget how overwatch players have bastardised the meaning of "CC"
19:03 no it hasn't changed you're just crazy
i love this dude but that vtuber moving + chaotic gameplay in the background makes me so confused as to where to look that I can't pay any attention to the vid 😭
Not the ross matthews
Linguistic video hidden in an ow video? 🤔
My name has nothing to with overwatch i promise
Wow really enjoyed this video thankyou youtube for recommending it to me 🤭🤭 ( more overwatch videos plz )😊
VIVEEEEEE
Broadly speaking I like how language evolves but the internet seems to specifically do this thing with language where the most impactful word is the main one people will use.
Like in league, dying to a bad play "Oh I inted" No, you didnt. Int literally is "intentional feeding" but now people just say "int" to mean just dying generally in game
Or when people say "brainrot" and its some mundane meme. Seems on the internet, language goes much faster and I personally am just not a fan.