@TheSmollestofBeans @kate that reminds me of a reply i saw on tumblr recently (will try to find the link) where someone pointed out that the "4th person pronoun" use of chat is literally just a collective noun. not like a prescriptivist "its this because i say it is" either, the grammatical concept of "collective noun" perfectly describes what is happening here. what does "4th person" even mean??

EDIT: tumblr's deeply stupid search function won't show me the post. Hopefully a description of the event by the guy who originally took umbrage with it will suffice. https://janmisali.tumblr.com/post/738971498364141568