For a moment, let’s not think about the @ symbol in the way we usually think of it, as the fulcrum of an email address, the navel connecting us to our Twitter handles, or even just the weird a hanging out above the 2 key.Let’s imagine...
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For a moment, let’s not think about the @ symbol in the way we usually think of it, as the fulcrum of an email address, the navel connecting us to our Twitter handles, or even just the weird a hanging out above the 2 key.
Let’s imagine it instead blinking upon a screen. It exists as our focal point in a Metaverse of text. It’s a world with endless layers, the geometries, architectures, and inhabitants of which are likewise described by symbols on our keyboard. And in this world, @ is our avatar: a logogram of power that, once inscribed, represents our identity in an entirely digital world.
This metaphor for the @ symbol may seem exotic, but it isn’t new. Some of the very first computer video games (called roguelikes) used @ to represent the player as he explored rudimentary ASCII dungeons. "This is you, and you are at this location within our cyber world."
More to the point, that’s how we still use it. Popularized and rejuvenated by its insertion before every Twitter handle, the @ symbol today is almost a pronoun. It has a very personal meaning for billions of people across the planet. It’s the symbol that means “digital me.”