Slang by Generation
Sorted by when each word was actually born, not by who you think says it. The dates are on file.
Elder internet 450 words · showing 60
Forums, AIM, IRC. Spoken by people who remember dial-up and say so.
- 88x31 Button↺ Undeadb. 1996 · † 2006tiny rectangular badge linking to a friend's site or announcing your browser loyalties
- AFK◐ Dyingb. 1996Away from keyboard
- Clippy↺ Undeadb. 1997 · † 2001animated paperclip that interrupted you
- Konami Code● Aliveb. 1988Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A
- Neopets↺ Undeadb. 1999 · † 2020Virtual pets, a stock market, and a fandom that learned HTML to decorate its shop
- Selfie● Aliveb. 2002photograph of yourself, by yourself, at arm's length
- Sock Puppet● Aliveb. 1993second account pretending to be a stranger who agrees with you
- Stan● Aliveb. 2000To support obsessively
- Winamp↺ Undeadb. 1997 · † 2013It really whipped the llama's ass
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us▲ Fossilb. 1998 · † 2004mistranslated line from a forgotten shoot-'em-up, and the first thing the entire web laughed at simultaneously
- Best Viewed at 800x600☠ Deadb. 1996 · † 2006warning that the page had been designed for exactly one monitor
- Blink Tag☠ Deadb. 1994 · † 2013Text that flashed on and off
- Delicious☠ Deadb. 2003 · † 2017Social bookmarking with tags, back when a link was worth keeping
- Digital Native☠ Deadb. 2001 · † 2015person who grew up online and therefore understood it
- FOMO● Aliveb. 2004Fear of missing out
- GeoCities☠ Deadb. 1994 · † 2009Thirty-eight million personal pages, deleted on a Monday
- LiveJournal◐ Dyingb. 1999diary with friends-only locks, mood icons and the current music field
- Mahir☠ Deadb. 1999 · † 2000Turkish accordion player with a home page and the greeting 'I KISS YOU!!!!!'
- Nerf● Aliveb. 1997To weaken something in a patch, from the foam toy
- Poke↺ Undeadb. 2004 · † 2012button that notified someone you had pressed a button
- Splash Page☠ Deadb. 1996 · † 2006full-screen intro between you and the content, with a button reading 'Enter site' or 'Skip intro'
- AltaVista☠ Deadb. 1995 · † 2013first search engine that indexed the whole web, and the first to be beaten by a cleaner one
- Bert Is Evil☠ Deadb. 1997 · † 2001Sesame Street puppet photoshopped next to history's villains
- Digg☠ Deadb. 2004 · † 2010front page of the internet until version 4 shipped and the users left in a single week
- Eternal September▲ Fossilb. 1993month AOL opened Usenet to everyone and the newcomers never stopped arriving
- Flame War◐ Dyingb. 1989public argument that had stopped being about anything
- Frames☠ Deadb. 1996 · † 2008page made of several pages in windows that scrolled independently, none of which could be bookmarked
- Friendster☠ Deadb. 2002 · † 2015first social network to be popular, and the first to be too slow to stay that way
- Gish Gallop● Aliveb. 1994Making more bad arguments than can be answered in the time
- Guestbook☠ Deadb. 1995 · † 2004page where strangers wrote that they had visited
- Homestar Runner↺ Undeadb. 2000 · † 2010cartoon website with no adverts, no algorithm and a regular update schedule
- Leetspeak▲ Fossilb. 1994 · † 2008Numbers standing in for letters to evade filters and signal membership
- Lurker● Aliveb. 1990Someone who reads and never posts
- Orkut☠ Deadb. 2004 · † 2014Google's first social network, enormous in Brazil and India and invisible to the people who built it
- Something Awful◐ Dyingb. 1999ten-dollar forum from which most of the 2000s internet was released
- Spam● Aliveb. 1993Unwanted messages in bulk
- Star Wars Kid☠ Deadb. 2002 · † 2005teenager swinging a golf-ball retriever like a lightsaber, leaked without his consent
- Under Construction GIF↺ Undeadb. 1995 · † 2001animated workman, digging, forever
- Wall Post☠ Deadb. 2004 · † 2011public message left on someone's profile for everyone to read
- Yahoo Directory☠ Deadb. 1994 · † 2014Two graduate students listing every website by hand, in categories
- You've Got Mail▲ Fossilb. 1993 · † 2006announcement that someone had written to you, spoken aloud by the computer
- w00t☠ Deadb. 1996 · † 2008cheer, with zeroes
- 1-Click● Aliveb. 1997Amazon's ordering button, introduced in 1997, that charges a saved card and posts to a saved address on a single press, with no…
- 3D Pinball: Space Cadet▲ Fossilb. 1995 · † 2007one pinball table bundled with Windows from the mid-1990s to XP, played by everyone with a work computer and no internet
- 404 (Slang)● Aliveb. 1999'Not found', applied to a person
- AI Winter↺ Undeadb. 1984 · † 2012period when funding, faith and jobs in AI dry up after the promises fail
- AMV (Anime Music Video)● Aliveb. 2000Fan-made videos that re-cut footage from anime out of its original order, lay a full song over it and lip-sync characters to the…
- Ad Blocker● Aliveb. 1999Software that stops advertisements loading in a browser
- Age of Empires II↺ Undeadb. 1999 · † 2006Medieval real-time strategy with thirteen civilisations, a priest who says 'wololo', and a Wikipedia-level history lesson in the…
- Amazon (1995)● Aliveb. 1995online bookshop Jeff Bezos opened in July 1995, chosen as a starting point because books were easy to post and there were too…
- America's Army☠ Deadb. 2002 · † 2022free tactical shooter published by the United States Army as a recruiting tool, in which both teams saw themselves as the…
- Ask Jeeves☠ Deadb. 1996 · † 2006cartoon butler who took questions in full sentences and mostly misunderstood them
- Away Message☠ Deadb. 1997 · † 2010short text left behind when you stepped away, usually song lyrics chosen to be read by one specific person
- BRB◐ Dyingb. 1993Be right back
- Badger Badger Badger☠ Deadb. 2003 · † 2020Badgers, a mushroom, a snake, on a loop
- Battlefield 1942☠ Deadb. 2002 · † 2014Sixty-four players, tanks, planes and boats on Second World War maps, in a game where the plane always crashed into the hangar
- Cave Story◐ Dyingb. 2004robot boy with no memory wakes in a cave full of rabbit-like creatures called Mimigas and shoots his way toward an ending that…
- Centaur (AI)● Aliveb. 1998human working with an AI as a team, dividing the labour along a clear line
- Chinese Room● Aliveb. 1980Searle's 1980 thought experiment
- Civilization● Aliveb. 1991Take a tribe from 4000 BC to the space race, one turn at a time, for longer than intended