Internet Culture Dictionary
Since 2008
The internet forgets. We keep the record. for 18 years
Every meme, game, app and turn of phrase — with the year it was born, the year it peaked, and the day it stopped being funny.
Latest death
☠ Dead
Character.AI Lawsuit
A wrongful-death suit filed in Florida in October 2024 by the mother of a fourteen-year-old who died by suicide after months of conversations with Ch…
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Newest record
● Alive
SpaceTime
A community memecoin and self-described archival project on Robinhood Chain commemorating Spacetime Industries, the corporate name under which the co…
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Record of the day · 4 Sep
◐ Dying
Ultimate Chicken Horse
Four animals take turns placing a trap on a platform level, then all of them have to run it, and points only come if some of you fail. Made in Montre…
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Gaming 657AI era 557Platforms & apps 503Memes 433Degen & memecoins 333Forums & Reddit 223Classic memes 188Aesthetics & -cores 156Fandom & stan culture 152TikTok 147Global slang 130Dating, work & life 118Textspeak & emoji 116YouTube & streaming 113Music & viral songs 112Slang 96Sports internet 71Tech & dev 64Brainrot 53Wellness 40Scams & security 37The old web 28
New on the record
- Soul Train Awards ReturnSeptember
- Kids' Choice on CBSSeptember
- Kenan on AGTSeptember
- Emmys 2026September
- Bartiromo OutSeptember
- Roman Space Telescope30 August
- Poland Volleyball Nations League2 August
- King Haakon VIII28 August
Rising this week
The full index →
Then
The canon
The records with the most testimony on file, born before 2016. Where the language came from.
Ranked by testimony on filestatus · years · rulings
-
01
Gangnam Style3,422rulings
A Korean pop video that broke YouTube's view counter. Danced by the UN Secretary-General, which…
-
02
Chocolate Rain3,398rulings
A baritone leaving the microphone to breathe. Died when Dr Pepper hired him to sing about a sof…
-
03
Konami Code3,354rulings
Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A. Older than the web and hidden in more websi…
-
04
Wojak3,087rulings
A bald outline face, drawn to feel something. Has mutated into more documented subspecies than …
-
05
Betteridge's Law2,853rulings
Any headline ending in a question mark can be answered with no. Older than Betteridge, but he w…
-
06
Neopets2,655rulings
Virtual pets, a stock market, and a fandom that learned HTML to decorate its shop. Lost most of…
-
07
Blue Check2,454rulings
A badge meaning the account was who it said it was. Sold for $8 a month from November 2022, at …
-
08
Stan2,256rulings
To support obsessively. Began as a cautionary tale about a fan who drives into a river and ende…
The record
Showing 24 records
● Alive
n.
✎ 4
1-Click
Amazon's ordering button, introduced in 1997, that charges a saved card and posts to a saved address on a single press, with no basket in between. Patented in 1999, licensed to Apple, out of patent since 2017. The record's entry for the shortest distance ever drawn between a thought and a receipt.
▸ 1997
peak 2012
still up
● Alive
n.
✎ 2
10,000 Steps
The daily step target that every fitness tracker defaults to and every office worker fails — 10,000 steps — a number chosen in 1965 as the name of a Japanese pedometer because it looked good, and treated as science ever since. The record's entry for the round number that runs the world's wrists.
▸ 1965
peak 2023
still up
▲ Fossil
n.
✎ 4
3D Pinball: Space Cadet
The one pinball table bundled with Windows from the mid-1990s to XP, played by everyone with a work computer and no internet. It was a cut-down version of a Maxis game, and it vanished from Vista in 2007 because, according to the Microsoft engineer who tried to port it, the ball fell through the table on 64-bit systems.
▸ 1995
peak 2001
†2007
● Alive
n.
✎ 4
404 (Slang)
'Not found', applied to a person — 'he's 404', 'brain 404' — as the error code that became a state of mind, and the record's entry for the number that means absent, clueless, or gone. The 404 page itself became an art form, which is a separate entry the record has not written.
▸ 1999
peak 2008
still up
↺ Undead
n.
✎ 7
88x31 Button
A tiny rectangular badge linking to a friend's site or announcing your browser loyalties. Currently living a second life among people who have decided the first one was fine.
▸ 1996
peak 2000
†2006
☠ Dead
abbr.
A/S/L
Age, sex, location, asked in that order of every stranger. Died when platforms began answering the question for you, permanently and in public.
▸ 1996
peak 2000
†2005
● Alive
n.
✎ 4
Ad Blocker
Software that stops advertisements loading in a browser. Ad Muncher, from 1999, is among the earliest; AdBlock and uBlock Origin made it a default habit for a large part of the web. The record's entry for the long war between the people who want to show you something and the people who would rather not see it.
▸ 1999
peak 2023
still up
● Alive
abbr.
✎ 3
AFAIK
'As far as I know' — the hedge that has opened uncertain claims since Usenet, and survived every platform because people are still not sure. The record's entry for the oldest disclaimer still typed daily.
▸ 1990
peak 2005
still up
● Alive
n.
✎ 3
Affiliate Link
A link that pays the poster a commission if you buy — the affiliate link — Amazon's invention of 1996 and the quiet engine of every 'best of' listicle, every influencer's storefront and every recipe blog's suspiciously specific pan. The record's entry for the link that is also an invoice.
▸ 1996
peak 2019
still up
◐ Dying
abbr.
✎ 7
AFK
Away from keyboard. Once a real status; now an artefact of a time when leaving the machine was a distinct, announceable event.
▸ 1996
peak 2004
still up
↺ Undead
n.
✎ 4
Age of Empires II
Medieval real-time strategy with thirteen civilisations, a priest who says 'wololo', and a Wikipedia-level history lesson in the campaigns. It was the school-network game of the early 2000s and then, from a 2013 HD re-release onward, an esports revival with tournaments, streamers and a 2019 Definitive Edition that outsold the original.
▸ 1999
peak 2001
†2006
● Alive
n.
✎ 3
Aggro
A monster's attention — aggro — and 'pulling aggro' as drawing it, from MMOs into life: 'don't pull aggro from the manager'. The record's entry for the game mechanic that describes office politics exactly.
▸ 1999
peak 2010
still up
● Alive
abbr.
✎ 3
AGI
Artificial general intelligence — a machine that can do any intellectual task a human can, a term coined by Mark Gubrud in 1997, spread by Ben Goertzel in the 2000s, and since 2023 the thing every AI lab is either about to build, warning you about, or defining down to mean their next release. The record notes AGI is always two to five years away, has been since 2015, and that the definition moves whenever a model gets close.
▸ 1997
peak 2024
still up
● Alive
n.
✎ 4
AI Effect
The habit of redefining intelligence to exclude whatever a machine has just done: chess was intelligence until a computer won, then it was search; translation until it worked, then it was statistics. Named by a historian in 1979 and condensed into a one-line theorem usually credited to Larry Tesler, who said he had been misquoted. Every generation of critics performs it and every generation of builders complains.
▸ 1979
peak 2023
still up
↺ Undead
n.
✎ 4
AI Winter
A period when funding, faith and jobs in AI dry up after the promises fail. Named at a 1984 conference panel that correctly predicted the second one, by analogy with nuclear winter; the first had followed the 1973 Lighthill report. The phrase went dormant after 2012, when deep learning made it unsayable, and came back in 2023 as a threat in every column about the bubble.
▸ 1984
peak 1988
†2012
☠ Dead
n.
✎ 2
AIM
Screen names, away messages, the door-opening sound. Twenty years of teenage life logged to nobody's disk in particular, and switched off in December 2017 without anyone being able to say goodbye on it.
▸ 1997
peak 2003
†2017
● Alive
n.
✎ 2
Aimbot
A cheat program that aims for the player, first written for Quake in 1997 and since then the standard accusation levelled at anyone who is better than you, on the grounds that no human could hit that. The record notes the accusation is right about once in fifty times and that the other forty-nine are the point.
▸ 1997
peak 2010
still up
▲ Fossil
phr.
✎ 6
All Your Base Are Belong to Us
A mistranslated line from a forgotten shoot-'em-up, and the first thing the entire web laughed at simultaneously. The proof of concept for everything else in this dictionary.
▸ 1998
peak 2001
†2004
☠ Dead
n.
✎ 5
AltaVista
The first search engine that indexed the whole web, and the first to be beaten by a cleaner one. Lived for a further fifteen years as a redirect.
▸ 1995
peak 1998
†2013
● Alive
n.
✎ 4
Amazon (1995)
The online bookshop Jeff Bezos opened in July 1995, chosen as a starting point because books were easy to post and there were too many of them for any shop to stock. The 'everything' came later and then kept coming. The record's entry for the moment shopping moved indoors permanently.
▸ 1995
peak 2020
still up
▲ Fossil
n.
✎ 2
Angelfire
GeoCities for people who had already been thrown off GeoCities. Technically still online, which counts for less than you would think.
▸ 1996
peak 1999
†2009
☠ Dead
n.
✎ 3
AOL CD
A free trial disc that arrived in every magazine, cereal box and letterbox on Earth. At one point roughly half the CDs manufactured worldwide had AOL's logo on them.
▸ 1993
peak 1998
†2006
☠ Dead
n.
AOL Keyword
A word you typed instead of a URL, printed at the bottom of every advert. Died when it became clear the whole web was the keyword.
▸ 1995
peak 1999
†2006
● Alive
n.
✎ 3
Armchair Expert
A person with confident opinions about a field they have never worked in — the armchair expert, armchair epidemiologist, armchair general — as the internet's most populous profession, which peaked in 2020 when everyone became a virologist and again in 2022 when everyone became a military strategist.
▸ 1990
peak 2020
still up
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