Like the portmanteau words invented by Lewis Carroll or used in James Joyce's novel Finnegans Wake, it dissects and recombines language and stacks multiple layers of meanings into single phrases.
Like the related Codework of Jodi, Netochka Nezvanova, Ted Warnell, Alan Sondheim and lo_y, it bears some resemblance to hacker cultural 1337 / leet speak and Perl poetry.
[3] Through its semantic and syntactical layering, mezangelle achieves an aesthetic effect of altering words and letters from discrete, digital units into fluid, quasi-analog information.
[7] mezangelle first appeared in late 1994 - early 1995 on MUDs, the web chat channels Kajplats 305, Cybersite and unix based y-talk.
Notable avatars from this time included Viking, Jester and mez's screen names aeon and ms post modemism.
Other online exhibitions that included mezangelled works during this period: During 1997–2003 mezangelle utilized mailing list forums as a distributive medium with an emphasis on peer collaboration.
[12] In this period mezangelle shifted from a reliance on script kiddy/hacker influences to a refined interactive practice that explored aspects of fusing biological/physical and online living.
In 2008, mezangelle works manifested in mainstream games such as World of Warcraft: "..."Twittermixed Litterature"...involves WoW characters ["toons"] on the Bloodscalp Server standing in Ironforge [an in-game location] + live remixing [in_game] chat that occurs between players and guild/character names that rotate past."
In 2009, mezangelle began appearing in more mainstream projects, including being utilised as a script device in New Media Scotland's alternate reality game "Alt-Winning: A game of Love, War and Telepathy" and as part of the WoW: Emergent Media Phenomenon Exhibition as part of the 3rd Faction's /hug Project at the Laguna Art Museum, California (sponsored by Blizzard Entertainment).