i don't get it

same as purple shirt then

Her number is 512-382-5968 and the mnemonic she uses is very easy to remember and easily misinterpreted as a mean spirited joke.

In the ancient past when our mobileks didn't even have a touchscreen, letters were placed in groups of 3 on the numpad. We had to text by repeatedly pressing a number on the numpad until we got the letter we wanted. This also allowed for numbers to be arranged into a word.

Notable examples include

• 877CASHNOW
• 1 877 kars4kids

Fun fact?

Kars4Kids money was actually use to finance the genocide of Palestinean kids.

Some phone apps still have them.

I went looking for its technical name, and apparently it is E.161 (?)

On most phones you can use this system to search for your contacts.
E.g. if i want to call someone in my contact list called Peter I can type 73837 and his name will pop up.
This starts working after two numbers.

I remember when I was 17, I went to a Haunted Hay Ride with the girl I was dating at the time. Halfway through the ride, they stopped it and a bunch of witches came out to give everyone cider and donuts. The witch that served me was wearing full gross-old-witch makeup and jokingly flirting with me, so I started flirting back.

Just as the ride started up again, I said, "So hey, what's your number?"

And she yelled, "SEVEN!" and ran cackling into the woods.

It remains one of the funniest things I've ever experienced firsthand.

Wonder if the artist is from Austin based on the area code. It used to also be San Antonio, but I doubt they’re that old

Not T9?

I may be stupid but I still don't get how FUCK YOU spells 382 5968. Is it because she accidentally went onto letters by tapping too much?

Whoaaa how did i never notice that thanks!

Was thinking the same thing.

This comment has aged me. I am now crumbling to dust.

I thought so, too, but T9 appears to be the predictive text system

This is what the number translates to btw (512)-382-5968

And to text/call your mother, you'd dial 666 for Mom.

thanks i get it now

Wait, so your telling me that this was actually a thing?? I always thought it was some TV / movie thing to not actually show a number so that people wouldn't call it.

I've never encountered this outside of English speaking media so it never occured to me that this was something you can do. I feel a little ashamed, because I had a dumb phone way into 201X.

Yeah and those numbers are how texting worked

And here I thought it worked because it was her area code

I get texing although I never used T9 dialing. I did only repeated key press thing. Ah, the time I could touch type…

I deadass 😭 how can it be a mnemonic for 362 5968?

Its a word you can spell using the valid letters in the T9 keyboard format.

Back in the day, cellphones only had number keys, and the alphabet was split up to put 3-4 letters on each number (when texting, you would rapidly press the number to cycle though the digits assigned to each button.

So, when doing a phone number with an easy to remember phrase (eg 512-fuckyou), you would press the number key that the letter was assigned to. Because it was a phone call, which only numbers are valid for, you would only press the number key once, instead of cycling through the available digits on that key, which turns fuckyou into 3625968.

Samsung's default dialer still does.

It predates T9 though, unless I've misinterpreted what T9 means.

Predates 'texting' and feel phones.

Hard to believe the letters associated with numbers on a phone numeric keypad is becoming uncommon.

Did you call it?

I might, depends on how brave I am

We're not in an era where it's safe to make prank calls

That "eye" makes me desire dying.

Yeah, cast your mind back to the analog days, you're in your car listening to the radio, you hear an ad for something you want. You can't Google it when you get home because it's 1988. Are you going to remember 1800-225-5669 or 1800-CALL-NOW?

If you find an old phone with a physical keypad, you'll find that the numbers 2 through 9 have letters on them as well. 2 can be an A, B or C. It means you can choose a phone number that is easier to remember because you'll dial it if you spell a short phrase. 1800-392-6753 feels random, but 1800-EXAMPLE doesn't. There's a whole bunch of us who have fond memories of 1800-465-3847. Better known as 1800-GOLF-TIP.

I think the British area code system involved this at some point, like the area code for Aberdeen was 22 for AB, though they deprecated that ages ago.

Plot twist: 512 sounds like 'I want to'. She was actually being very direct.

It was for Jewish youth groups in the New York area. It wasn't getting sent to Israel.

Still kind of a scam, though.

Austin people are too weird to risk calling. It's a toss-up if you'll end up in a Southern Portlandia sketch.

Companies used to have vanity phone numbers like 1-800-COLLECT or 1-800-MATTRESS: https://www.numberbarn.com/blog/the-top-10-vanity-phone-numbers-that-made-the-biggest-impact/

Thank you!

Using them to spell out phone numbers has never been a thing here (germany) afaik. I was confused for the longest time what these words in phone numbers i see in american movies are even if I figured it's related to phone keyboards.