> Well, like, when people use "like," it's like they're narrating a video scene in their own heads in a way that would cause another person from a video-soaked

> Well, like, when people use "like," it's like they're narrating a video scene in their own heads in a way that would cause another person from a video-soaked culture to, like, make it play in their heads too. ;) The syntactic filler likes, or the "its' like they're..." like? Those are very different. Syntactic filler such as that is universal in human speech and languages, but tends to be different depending on the language and speaker. There's nothing unusual about Americans attaching to the word "like" as syntactic filler. Or do you mean "like" as a synonym for "such as"? Like/Such as in this example here? I don't see how that has anything to do with video culture. People have spoken in hypotheticals since long before video.