Internet Slang of Yesteryear

[Yukari]

I used to call it "avvie" even though it's only one letter shorter than "avatar". This was back when Avatar: The Last Airbender was really popular, so I think that's why.
I also remember "awesomesauce" being a thing. You could just say "that's so awesomesauce" and people would know what you mean xD

[ttaxyy]

Idk if it's "slang" but I remember a lot of people would type "(L)" or put them in their facebook selfie captions. (L) was what you wrote on messenger to send a heart emoji!

Another more recent thing is :V (mentioning since I saw xD and stuff). It defintely was super popular on latin america thanks to la grasa and their memes. I also saw alv and ahre a lot. (alv = a la verga)

^this makes me think about internet slang from non english speaking cultures

[PurpleHello98]

also, remember when we used to attach the -ie/-y suffix to everything online? signatures were Siggies, affiliates were Affies, links got called Linkies—user A would say "i found this cool website", and user B would say "linkies?" to mean can you share the link? on Neopets, it was a common thing for people to keep a gallery of screenshots of funny or weird things they saw around the website, and even the word "screenshots" became Screenies. everything had to have that cutesy little suffix on it. can't say i miss that, i always thought it was annoying hahaha

some other ones that were once super common, but i never see anymore:

• OMGWTFBBQ: "oh my god, what the fuck, barbecue". it basically just meant a particularly excited "OMFG", and it was often used in the same way as ZOMG, to make fun of people who would overuse OMFG.
• jaggies: this one was used a lot in pixel art spaces. jaggies are extra pixels that make the pixel art look jagged and are/were considered aesthetically unappealing. i'm working on a pixel art piece right now so that's why i was thinking of this one :p
• w00t: it's like woo! yay! yippee! hurray!
• pwning: this was back when people used to say "owned" to mean, like, someone got one over on you. you're playing Smash with your school buddy, he wins, he says i just totally OWNED your ass! but online, in the heat of the moment, people would typo owned as pwned, and because typos are always funny, it became its own slang word!

i love the phrase Information Super Highway, it makes the internet sound so radical and cool lol

I also like information superhighway! It represents the seemingly infinite information and possibilities of the Internet, and all about it that's so fun! Honestly, I like the -ie suffixies—I think it's pretty fun. I remember when I used Scratch all the time as a kid, and there was the running joke on the Scratch forums that evil kumquats would eat your siggy. I can't say I've ever heard "linkies", though, which might get on my nerves if I heard it for a long time.

I think another piece of slang is "netizen". I always kind of liked that.

I prefer Internauts myself, although I do like netizens a lot. Actually, for whatever reason netizen is still a popular term in k-pop spaces—I think it's still the popular word in Korea.

[wygolvillage]

My art program of choice actually uses the word "jaggies" in one of the settings, so it has lived on...

I miss when OCs were called "Charries", it's cuter 

[Memory]

[removed by author]

[grubbyfox]

i just realized "hotlinking" is a term i still use that is extremely dated (i feel). xD

[Absentmind]

Not sure if this existed outside of where I lived, but I was texting my cousin the other day and they replied with PMSL which stands for "Piss myself laughing" and I recoiled in horror as I was bombarded with memories of MSN and Bebo. Glad it's not something people still say (apart from my cousin of course)

[bear]

we also used to write ~lels~ and similar instead of lol, like lels, lolz, lol, preferably with like a ~ here and there. and "kewl" instead of cool. It was kinda in an ironic fashion, but not in a "i'm better than it and just using it ironically." But more like...idk? Just for fun? We def didn't think we were COOL/kewl doing it, haha, but it was just funny. We would also say/write things wrong, like pr0n, and we'd say "pron" instead of, well, ya know, haha.

we also loved writing stuff like.... instead of typing a heart like <3 we'd write "less than three", and writing something like "less than thre!!!1!!one!!" was completely normal, ahaha.  good times

Oh god, I did this all the time. Seeing a tilde still makes me feel like I ran face-first into a brick wall. We were so ~quirky~. I've actually started saying "kewl" again on accident, just to spice things up when I'm choosing between stock responses.

I also used to use LAWL/lawl--idk if someone has mentioned that already, maybe my eyes glazed over while reading this thread...

The thing that I still do that makes my younger friends look at me like a crazy person is referring to exclamation points ! as "bang" and the number sign # as "pound" or "hash". I won't ever stop, though. I will also never call it a hashtag.

[AY38910]

TIL people no longer use A/S/L :(

[milo]

I still say "brb" in real life but only in real life (irl, if you will) funny enough. Like, I'll be hanging with my friends and need to pee and I'll say "brb" and walk away. But online, it's just not necessary anymore usually, with "chat programs" and texting being always in your pocket more or less. Back in the day, you had to be physically available to chat, so you'd want to let the person know you weren't physically there. Nowadays it's just sort of assumed you're always physically there.

I think it's funny that "lol" has stood the test of time. Although it seems "lmao" is the kids choice of expression of laughter these days.

[thunderzizi]

I still occasionally use the word "

grok

", but I haven't seen it used much in decades.

relic of a more innocent time </3

anyway i've started saying "kitteh" again. yknow from lolcats. it's a good word we should bring it back

also let us not forget teh -zorz suffix i.e. winzors, lolzorz. people said those things right? i didnt just make those examples up? anyway that "teh" was a typo there but i'm leaving it it fits.

also re: some earlier additions: zomg & omgwtfbbq are still in gaia online to this day. this is because gaia online is a relic of the 2000s in general. also people still use brony but it's become a bit more associated with the Unsavory mlp fans... meanwhile pegasister just kinda died out. people that don't wanna be called bronies just call emselves mlp fans now

[st3phvee]

A few I haven't seen mentioned here (or possibly overlooked because my eyesight and attention span ain't what they used to be, haha):

- TTYL (the standard ICQ/MSN sign-off -- back when the concept of going online "later" still meant something)
- roflcopter
- lollerskates
- "ur da bomb dot com!" (translation: you're awesome!)

[Solinus]

"Flame wars" used to describe a heated argument, which I admittedly used as recently as 2020 despite me being a late Gen Z. Perhaps I picked that up from older comments?

"Flamebait" is an old internet term that I also discovered quite recently. It's like ragebait, but
a) old internet, and therefore better :P
b) unlike modern day social media where ragebaiters can run amok, flamebaiters can be dealt with by restricting or banning them (that is, depending on how competent the moderators are).
c) AFAIK, it wasnt used IRL
(hearing people say ragebait in an IRL context makes me cringe SO MUCH)

[wolfkitty42]

Huh! This thread is super interesting! Personally, I started out on the internet with Animal Jam... I remember slang like JAGs for jam-a-grams, spikes, and typing the word one as "won" to get around the filter. Won, too, tree, for, numbers... iirc i used tent interchangably for ten or teen (i bet that NEVER got confusing during roleplay sessions).
My animal jam girlfriend called me bae so I googled what it meant. The more you know, kids. Kids mmos were a weird place.

I spent more time on roblox later and definitely picked up stuff like btw,brb and gtg there. Speaking of gtg, most people in this thread seem to be referring to it as g2g. That's a spelling I have never seen, so that is interesting for me!
I also use rofl when I check out animal jam again this days. At one point I did use the phrase mlao as a misspelling of lmao to get around the filter, but I think it got blocked eventually. I definitely saw people using it lots... I think that was animal jam but it might have been roblox. Dude!! this is recent,i should know this!!! X_X

I also use emoticons a lot. No comment.X3 It's just fun! I like adding a little flavor and feeling to my phrases. I wonder how tone tags fit into this discussion...... They definitely remind me of emoticons.

[Dan Q]

Back when going offline would make you uncontactable ('cos you were on a narrowband connection) you'd talk about going AFK, but I enjoyed many "fun" slang variants, like to say that you would be getting "facetime", or spending time in the "carbon community".

Of course there were lots of "smileys" in that pre-emoji era, and some level of imagination in how people would use their own. I'd often use =o), for example.

I miss the once-popular "netizen". It's parallel to "citizen" carries an implication of both rights and responsibilities: a reminder that "netiquette" is a thing that binds us.

I also miss "surfing": the experience of browsing from website to website by exploring the network of hyperlinks. Nowadays we live in a more search-oriented Web experience, and "surfing" isn't something most people routinely do (outside of getting lost on Wikipedia or TV Tropes). A sad loss.