Platforms & apps

● Aliven.✎ 3

Blorbo

A beloved character, described by someone who has never seen the show — 'my blorbo from my shows' — as Tumblr's 2021 word for the specific character a friend will not stop talking about. The record's entry for the noun that means 'your guy', and for the tenderness in it.

▸ 2021peak 2022still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Bones Day

A thirteen-year-old pug called Noodle who either stood up in the morning — a bones day, get things done — or flopped back down — a no-bones day, rest — as the internet's daily horoscope in autumn 2021. Noodle died in December 2022. The record's entry for a dog as a forecast.

▸ 2021peak 2021†2022

● Aliven.✎ 3

Boundaries

The therapy concept — the line between what you will and will not accept — as the internet's most-invoked word of 2021–23, applied to real abuse and to being asked to attend a birthday. The record's entry for the word that made 'no' sound clinical.

▸ 2021peak 2023still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Buss It Challenge

A transition dance — plain clothes, a drop, a full glam reveal — to 'Buss It', in January 2021, which was the first dance of the year and the reason 'buss it' was said in offices. The record's entry for the transition as a genre.

▸ 2021peak 2021†2021

● Aliveadj.✎ 3

Cringefail

A character who fails at everything and is loved for it — a cringefail loser — as Tumblr's highest praise, and the record's entry for the affection that is reserved for the incompetent. 'The cringe and the fail' is its full form, said with a sigh.

▸ 2021peak 2022still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Devious Lick

Stealing things from school — a soap dispenser, a sign, a toilet — and posting it as a 'devious lick', in September 2021, until schools closed bathrooms and police were involved. The record's entry for the challenge that was a crime with a hashtag.

▸ 2021peak 2021†2021

☠ Deadphr.✎ 1

Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss

Three verbs of ambition arranged like a kitchen sign. The complete arc from joke to T-shirt to embarrassment ran in about four months.

▸ 2021peak 2021†2021

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Grandmacore

Knitting, tea, a cardigan, a garden and an early night — the grandmother's life as an aspiration for people in their twenties in 2021, and the record's entry for the trend that made a crochet hook a personality.

▸ 2021peak 2022still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Hasbulla

A small man from Dagestan with a big personality, a lot of cars and a friendship with fighters, who became the internet's favourite person of 2021 and a meme with a hundred faces. The record's entry for the man who was, by his own choice, a meme.

▸ 2021peak 2022still up

☠ Deadn.

Indie Sleaze

Flash photography, American Apparel and a cigarette, named a decade late. Diagnosed as coming back by every fashion desk in 2022, and it did not.

▸ 2021peak 2022†2023

☠ Deadn.✎ 1

Metaverse

A place made of avatars with no legs, into which a company renamed itself. Spent $46 billion and pivoted to AI; the legs arrived after everyone had left.

▸ 2021peak 2021†2023

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Milk Crate Challenge

Stacking milk crates into a pyramid and walking up and over them, on camera, until the pyramid does what pyramids of milk crates do. Banned within the month after a lot of hospital visits. The record's entry for the challenge that was mostly a fall.

▸ 2021peak 2021†2021

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Panoramic

'Pandemic', avoided — 'the panoramic', 'the panini', 'the panorama' — as the algospeak for the thing nobody was allowed to name in 2021 content. The record's entry for the euphemism that was also a coping mechanism.

▸ 2021peak 2021†2022

● Aliven.✎ 3

Photo Dump

A carousel of unrelated, unedited photos — a coffee, a friend, a receipt, a blurry sky — posted as a monthly catch-up with the caption 'dump'. The 2021 aesthetic of not having an aesthetic, which became one. The record's entry for the casual as a genre.

▸ 2021peak 2022still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Poolrooms

Endless tiled rooms of shallow water, lit from nowhere — a Backrooms level that became its own aesthetic, with renders, videos and a specific calm dread. The record's entry for the swimming pool as a liminal space.

▸ 2021peak 2022still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Red Flag Emoji

A dealbreaker followed by a row of red flags. Twitter reported 1.5 million uses in a single day in October 2021; brands had arrived by Thursday.

▸ 2021peak 2021†2021

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Regencycore

Empire waists, corsets, gloves and a string quartet playing pop, from a television series in the first lockdown winter — the 2021 aesthetic for people who wanted to be at a ball. The record's entry for the period drama as a wardrobe.

▸ 2021peak 2021†2022

☠ Deadphr.✎ 3

Right-Click Save

Downloading the image someone had paid to own. The correct response for one year, and then there was no one left to say it to.

▸ 2021peak 2021†2022

● Aliveadj.✎ 3

Scrunkly

Small, odd, strangely loveable — scrunkly, skrunkly — as the word for a character or creature that is not cute and is loved as if it were. The record's entry for the adjective that has no dictionary meaning and a precise emotional one.

▸ 2021peak 2022still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Seggs

'Sex', misspelled to evade the algorithm — the most-used word of algospeak, and the one that made a generation say 'seggs' out loud with a straight face. The record's entry for the euphemism that was a spelling.

▸ 2021peak 2022still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Silhouette Challenge

A doorway, a red filter, a silhouette — the January 2021 challenge that was sensual, then everywhere, then the subject of a warning about people removing the filter. The record's entry for the red light as a trend and a lesson.

▸ 2021peak 2021†2021

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Super Follows

Twitter's 2021 attempt at paid fan subscriptions — followers could pay a creator monthly for 'bonus' tweets, a badge and a Space or two — which launched in September 2021 to a handful of US accounts and was renamed Subscriptions in April 2023 after the new owner decided the word 'super' was doing too much. The record notes very few people ever super-followed anyone, and that the ones who did were mostly following a person explaining Super Follows.

▸ 2021peak 2022†2023

● Aliven.✎ 2

Trauma Dumping

Sharing heavy personal history with someone who did not ask — at a party, in a group chat, on a first date — named in 2021 as a thing to stop doing and, the record notes, mostly a name for what friends used to do. The record's entry for the confession as an imposition.

▸ 2021peak 2022still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Twitter Blue

Twitter's subscription, launched quietly in June 2021 as a $2.99 undo-button and folder feature, then relaunched in November 2022 as an $8 blue checkmark for anyone with a card, which lasted two days before a fake Eli Lilly account announced free insulin. Rebooted, mocked as a paid badge of wanting a badge, and renamed X Premium in July 2023 when the company stopped being called Twitter.

▸ 2021peak 2022†2023

☠ Deadphr.

Understood the Assignment

Did the thing exactly right, said about a costume or a performance. Used by brands within the quarter; retired by everyone else within the year.

▸ 2021peak 2021†2022

◐ Dyingn.✎ 2

BeReal

An app that pinged everyone at the same random moment and gave them two minutes to post an unfiltered photo, front and back camera, which was the summer of 2022's honesty experiment and the record's example of authenticity as a notification. Faded when people started waiting for a better moment.

▸ 2020peak 2022still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Bimbocore

The reclaiming of 'bimbo' — pink, glossy, unbothered by being thought stupid, and often politically pointed — as a 2020–22 TikTok aesthetic and a philosophy: 'be hot, be kind, don't read the comments'. The record's entry for the insult worn as an outfit.

▸ 2020peak 2022still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Cat Vibing

A cat nodding in perfect time to a Finnish folk song played by a Turkish street musician — the vibing cat — which was the sound of autumn 2020 and the record's entry for the most cross-cultural meme it holds: a Finnish song, a Turkish drummer, an American cat.

▸ 2020peak 2020still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Clubhouse

Invite-only live audio rooms that felt urgent for exactly one locked-down spring. Every other platform cloned it in a quarter and everyone stopped using all of them together.

▸ 2020peak 2021still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Cluttercore

Rooms full of things — collections, colours, every surface used — as an aesthetic in reaction to minimalism, named in 2020 when everyone was looking at their own walls. The record's entry for mess as a movement.

▸ 2020peak 2021still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Creator Economy

The industry of people making content for platforms, named as an economy in 2020 when investors noticed, and the record's entry for the phrase that turned hobbies into a sector and 'creator' into a job title on a tax return.

▸ 2020peak 2022still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Dreamcore

Images that look like a dream half-remembered — an empty playground, a blurry hallway, text that almost makes sense — as the gentler sibling of weirdcore in the lockdown year. The record's entry for the aesthetic of a memory you did not have.

▸ 2020peak 2021still up

☠ Deadn.

Fleets

Twitter's disappearing stories, launched to lower the pressure of tweeting. Removed after nine months when it became clear the people using them were the people already tweeting.

▸ 2020peak 2021†2021

● Aliven.✎ 2

Green Screen (TikTok)

Standing in front of a screenshot, a news article or a tweet and talking about it — the green-screen effect — which became the format for commentary in 2020 and the reason every explainer has a person's head in the corner. The record's entry for the pointing as a genre.

▸ 2020peak 2021still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

Himbo

A man who is handsome, kind and not clever — the himbo — as the internet's favourite male type of 2020, celebrated as the opposite of the smart cruel man in every other show. The record's entry for the affectionate stereotype, which was coined in 1988 and waited.

▸ 2020peak 2021still up

☠ Deadphr.

Nature Is Healing

Wildlife supposedly returning to empty cities, mostly fabricated, then the joke about the fabrication. Died within weeks of becoming a caption for a man on a scooter.

▸ 2020peak 2020†2020

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Oh No Oh No

'Oh no, oh no, oh no no no no no' — a sound laid over any video in which something is about to go wrong, and the most-used TikTok audio of 2020. The record's entry for the sound of a mistake arriving.

▸ 2020peak 2020†2021

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Put a Finger Down

'Put a finger down if…' — a ten-finger quiz read to camera, in which the viewer lowers fingers for each thing that applies, and the 2020 format for finding out you are a specific kind of person. The record's entry for the checklist as a video.

▸ 2020peak 2020†2021

● Alivephr.✎ 2

Rent Free

Occupying someone's thoughts without their consent. A housing metaphor for obsession, coined at the point rent became everyone's obsession.

▸ 2020peak 2021still up

◐ Dyingphr.✎ 3

Return to Monke

'Reject modernity, return to monke' — the 2020 joke that the answer to everything was to go back to being an ape, illustrated with a monkey and a lot of sincerity from people who were, at the time, indoors. The record's entry for primitivism as a meme.

▸ 2020peak 2021still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Rug Pull

A project whose founders leave with the money. The one crypto term that has proved useful outside crypto.

▸ 2020peak 2022still up

● Alivev.✎ 4

Soft Launch

Posting a partner's elbow, or their hand, without their face. Borrowed from product marketing, which tells you how people think about their relationships now.

▸ 2020peak 2021still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Stitch

Clipping a few seconds of someone else's video and continuing it with your own — the stitch — which became the format for answering, correcting and mocking, and the reason 'tell me you're X without telling me' had a reply. The record's entry for the quote-tweet as video.

▸ 2020peak 2021still up

☠ Deadphr.✎ 2

Tell Me Without Telling Me

'Tell me you're British without telling me you're British' — a prompt for indirect evidence, answered with a photo of a teabag or a video of a queue, which was 2020–21's participation format and dead by 2022. The record's entry for the indirect confession.

▸ 2020peak 2021†2022

● Aliven.✎ 3

Thumbs Up (Passive-Aggressive)

👍 — the thumbs up, which older workers use to mean 'received' and younger ones read as 'I am dismissing you', a gap so wide that it made the news in 2022. The record's entry for the reaction that divides an office by birth year.

▸ 2020peak 2022still up

● Alivephr.

Touch Grass

An instruction to go outside, issued to someone whose position could only have been formed indoors. The most efficient insult of the decade.

▸ 2020peak 2022still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Toxic Positivity

Insisting on the bright side so hard that it becomes a way of not listening — 'good vibes only' as a dismissal — named on the internet in 2020, when a lot of people needed to be sad and were told not to be. The record's entry for the smile as a weapon.

▸ 2020peak 2021still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

WAP

A song and a dance and a discourse, in August 2020, which produced a month of politicians being upset, a dance challenge, and a lot of parents learning what the acronym meant. The record's entry for the song as an event, filed for the discourse.

▸ 2020peak 2020†2021