A debuff — slang borrowed directly from gaming where a 'buff' raises stats and a 'negative buff' (or nerf/debuff) lowers them. In casual internet use, negative buff describes any update, change, or circumstance that makes something worse when you expected an improvement: a game patch that hurts your main character, a policy change that reduces your benefits, even a haircut that somehow makes you look less good. The ironic framing of calling a nerf a 'negative buff' is itself part of the humor.
That software update was a negative buff — it added three new bugs and removed the one feature I actually used.
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Viral internet speak — memes, ratios, main-character moments, and the algospeak of every platform from Twitter to Reddit to TikTok comment sections.
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