Internet & Memes

Internet and meme slang is the cross-platform layer — terms that originated on a specific platform (4chan, Twitter, Tumblr, Twitch, Reddit) and survived the migration to wider use. Distinguished from Gen Z slang by older average age (most entries here predate TikTok) and a higher proportion of irony, algospeak (seggs, unalive), and meta-discourse about being online. Signature exemplars: enshittification, ratio, main character energy, simp, npc, caught in 4k. The category leans terminally-online millennials and Gen Z, platform mixed (Twitter for political memes, Reddit for explanation, Twitch for emotes, Tumblr for the long tail). Doomscroll-era coinages — bed rot, doomscrolling — are the productive frontier.