At work, I can tell who's commenting on Slack by the emojis. I can glance at a thumbnail on lemmy and gather a great deal of info. It's freaky.

First tech support job in '91, played a game with myself. I could guess the state, or at least a general region, of my callers. I was pretty damned good. Now? Not much of a clue unless the accent really hangs it out there. Think Boston, Louisiana Cajun, Mississippi genteel, like that. Even those are fading fast.

And don't start me on internet accents. Jesus. The "airhead" female voice makes me gag, and there's a masculine voice exactly like it. Wonder if people hated the new Transatlantic accent back in the day? 😣