Platforms & apps

● Alivephr.✎ 2

Smash That Like Button

The YouTuber's request — 'smash that like button, hit subscribe, ring the bell' — said so often it became the sound of the platform, and a joke about itself by 2018. The record's entry for the call to action that was also a catchphrase.

▸ 2013peak 2017still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

Soft Block

Blocking and immediately unblocking someone, so that they are forced to unfollow you without knowing — the soft block — as the internet's most delicate rejection. The record's entry for the gesture that nobody sees, and for the people who notice anyway.

▸ 2013peak 2019still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Stories

The 24-hour vertical slideshow — invented by Snapchat in October 2013, copied by Instagram in August 2016 with an honesty about the copying that was almost admirable, and then by Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, LinkedIn and, briefly, Twitter. The record notes 'posting to my story' now means the low-stakes version of posting, and that the format's genius was that it disappears before anyone can be embarrassed by it.

▸ 2013peak 2018still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Vine

Six seconds, looping. Still supplying the shared reference library of an entire generation nine years after it was switched off, which is more than most surviving platforms manage.

▸ 2013peak 2015†2017

● Aliven.✎ 2

Collab

A collaboration between creators, shortened — 'collab' — as the unit of internet friendship, from YouTube into brands, and the record's entry for the word that made working together sound like a product launch, which it usually was.

▸ 2012peak 2018still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Draw Something

Pictionary by phone, fifty million downloads in fifty days, bought for $180 million in week seven. Lost five million daily users in the month after the sale, which is the fastest documented regret in this dictionary.

▸ 2012peak 2012†2012

● Aliven.✎ 2

Hot Take

An opinion published faster than it was thought. Coined as an insult and adopted as a job description.

▸ 2012peak 2015still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Ko-fi

The tip jar, founded in 2012, whose whole pitch is 'buy me a coffee' — a one-off few dollars sent to an artist, fanfic writer or emulator developer with no subscription and no shame. The record notes 'my ko-fi is in the bio' as the standard closing of a piece of free art from 2018 on, and that the coffee is a polite fiction for rent.

▸ 2012peak 2020still up

● Aliven.

Lewis's Law

The comments on any article about feminism justify feminism. Filed as a law because it has never once needed an exception.

▸ 2012peak 2015still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

Neutral Face

😐 — the neutral face, which is never neutral: it is the reply to a bad joke, a bad excuse, or a message that deserved nothing. The record's entry for the straight line that says more than a paragraph, and for 😑, its closed-eyed sibling, which says it with less patience.

▸ 2012peak 2020still up

☠ Deadn.

Soft Grunge

Nirvana shirts with flower crowns. The Tumblr aesthetic, before Tumblr had many; killed by the fashion press using the phrase without irony.

▸ 2012peak 2013†2015

● Aliven.✎ 3

Sonder

The realisation that every stranger has a life as complex as your own — coined in 2012 by a web project and, by 2020, the most-quoted invented word on the internet, on posters, in captions, and in a lot of songs. The record's entry for a neologism that succeeded.

▸ 2012peak 2020still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Uber for X

An app that summoned a stranger to do a thing. Uber for laundry, for dog walking, for parking; none survived, and neither, quite, did the model.

▸ 2012peak 2015†2017

☠ Deadadj.✎ 7

#blessed

Grateful, in a way that showed the boat. Used sarcastically by 2014 and then not at all.

▸ 2011peak 2013†2016

● Aliveabbr.✎ 2

2FA

Two-factor authentication — the six-digit code from an app or text that stands between your password and your account, which Google offered everyone in February 2011 and which everyone turned on after being hacked, not before. The record notes '2FA' entered ordinary speech around 2020, that 'do you have 2FA' is now what 'do you have a lock' used to be, and that the code always arrives on the phone in the other room.

▸ 2011peak 2020still up

▲ Fossiln.✎ 3

Abbottabad Live-Tweet

The night a resident of Abbottabad, Sohaib Athar, posted on Twitter about a helicopter over the town at 1am without knowing it was the raid in which US forces killed Osama bin Laden. President Obama's announcement followed within hours, and Twitter set its record for posts per second. The record's entry for the first breaking news that broke itself.

▸ 2011peak 2011†2011

● Aliven.✎ 3

AirDrop

Apple's over-the-air file transfer, born on the Mac in 2011 and on the iPhone in 2013, which sends a photo between nearby devices without anyone needing to explain how — and, since it works on strangers too, made 'AirDrop the whole train carriage a meme' a teenage sport by 2019. Also a verb ('AirDrop it to me'), and the record notes it is the only Apple feature people are told to turn off before boarding a plane.

▸ 2011peak 2019still up

◐ Dyingabbr.✎ 3

F4F

'Follow for follow' — the offer to exchange followers, with 'L4L' for likes and 'S4S' for shoutouts, as the currency of early Instagram. The record's entry for the barter economy of attention, and for the accounts that were built on it and are now hollow.

▸ 2011peak 2014still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Google Plus

Google's social network, launched in June 2011 with 'Circles', Hangouts and a forced integration with YouTube comments that made the whole internet hate it at once. Claimed hundreds of millions of users, most of whom had been signed up by opening Gmail; shut down for consumers on 2 April 2019 after a data bug exposed a network of empty profiles. The record notes it was the best-designed ghost town of the decade.

▸ 2011peak 2012†2019

● Aliven.✎ 3

Green Bubble

The colour an iPhone gives to a text from an Android user — green instead of iMessage blue — since October 2011, and the small caste system it produced among American teenagers, for whom a green bubble in a group chat means a broken group chat and, by 2022, a dating red flag. Google spent 2022 begging Apple to fix it; Apple adopted RCS in 2024 and kept the colour. The record notes the bubble is green because Apple wants it to be.

▸ 2011peak 2022still up

☠ Deadphr.✎ 7

I Can't Even

An unfinished sentence expressing being overwhelmed. Finished for everyone by a Times op-ed about it in 2014.

▸ 2011peak 2013†2015

◐ Dyingn.

Is This a Pigeon

An anime character misidentifying a butterfly. Dormant for seven years, then the format of 2018, and now a resting shape any misunderstanding can be poured into.

▸ 2011peak 2018still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Seapunk

Teal hair, dolphins, Windows 95 marble textures. Ran for about eighteen months before the New York Times described it and Rihanna performed it on Saturday Night Live in the same season, each fatal on its own.

▸ 2011peak 2012†2013

● Aliven.✎ 3

Shower Thought

A small, odd realisation — 'your stomach thinks all potatoes are mashed' — from a subreddit into the general word for any idea that arrives while doing something else. The record's entry for the epiphany with a bathroom.

▸ 2011peak 2015still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

Sub (Twitch)

A paying subscriber to a streamer, and the word — 'sub', 'subbed', 'gifted subs' — for the economy of watching someone play a game. The record's entry for the audience that pays to be a name in the chat, and for the 'sub goal' that every stream has.

▸ 2011peak 2018still up

☠ Deadv.

Tebowing

Kneeling in prayer on one knee wherever you happened to be. Trademarked by the quarterback in 2012, which is the moment a gesture stops being funny.

▸ 2011peak 2011†2012

● Aliven.✎ 2

Unpopular Opinion

'Unpopular opinion:' — the prefix for an opinion that is, in nearly every case, extremely popular: 'unpopular opinion: pizza is good'. The record's entry for the disclaimer that guarantees agreement, and for the puffin who first said it.

▸ 2011peak 2016still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

ASMR

Autonomous sensory meridian response — the tingle from whispering, tapping and crinkling — named in 2010 and turned into a YouTube genre of people whispering into microphones for millions. The record's entry for the sound of a feeling, and the reason 'ASMR' now precedes any quiet video.

▸ 2010peak 2018still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Ask.fm

The Latvian anonymous-question site, launched in June 2010, that took over from Formspring, reached 180 million users, and in 2013 became the subject of a British prime minister asking parents to boycott it after a series of teenage suicides. Bought and sold several times, it still exists, and the record notes that 'ask.fm' was the last place a teenager's name appeared before their parents learned what anonymity meant.

▸ 2010peak 2013still up

● Aliveadj.✎ 4

Based

Reclaimed from an insult into the highest available compliment for saying something unpopular without flinching.

▸ 2010peak 2020still up

● Alivephr.✎ 2

Blowing Up

Suddenly popular — 'this is blowing up' — or, of a phone, receiving too many notifications to hold, as the vocabulary of the moment a post escapes. The record's entry for the explosion as a career, and for 'rip my notifications', which follows it.

▸ 2010peak 2018still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Content

Anything posted — content — as the word that flattened video, writing, art and a photo of lunch into one substance to be fed to a platform. The record's entry for the noun that everyone makes and nobody likes, and for 'it's content' as an excuse.

▸ 2010peak 2020still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Dogpile

A crowd attacking one person at once — a dogpile, a pile-on — as the internet's word for the moment a bad post becomes a public event. The record's entry for the mob as a noun, and for the fact that everyone in one thinks they are the only one.

▸ 2010peak 2018still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

Fan War

A conflict between fandoms — over charts, awards, or nothing — conducted in replies and hashtags, as the stan internet's national sport. The record's entry for the war with no casualties and no end, and for the trending topic that is its battlefield.

▸ 2010peak 2018still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

Grammys Snub Discourse

The night after the Grammys, when the internet decides who was robbed, and the fandoms fight about it for a week with charts. 2025's edition was about Beyoncé finally winning Album of the Year; 2026's was about whoever did not. The record's entry for an annual meme with a fixed date.

▸ 2010peak 2025still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Humans of New York

Brandon Stanton's project of photographing strangers in New York and posting the picture with a few lines of what they said. Started in November 2010, it became one of the most followed pages on Facebook and a template for every caption that begins with a quotation. The record's entry for the stranger with a story.

▸ 2010peak 2014still up

◐ Dyingn.

Humblebrag

A boast disguised as a complaint. Named by a comedian who died in 2015; the word is fading in the way that a joke does when its author is not around to police it.

▸ 2010peak 2012still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Instagram (2010)

The photo-sharing app Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger released on 6 October 2010: a square picture, a filter, a feed. Facebook paid a billion dollars for it in April 2012, when it had thirteen employees. The record's entry for the launch, before the app became the thing that makes a meal wait.

▸ 2010peak 2016still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Kik

The username-only messenger from Waterloo, Ontario, launched in October 2010, that reached a million users in fifteen days and became the app teenagers used precisely because it needed no phone number and no parent. Peaked in 2016 with 300 million registered accounts and a reputation that made 'kik?' in a comment section a red flag; announced its shutdown in 2019 and was rescued by a holding company. The record notes it is still running, mostly for people who left in 2017.

▸ 2010peak 2016still up

◐ Dyingphr.✎ 2

Live Laugh Love

Three words on a wooden sign in a suburban kitchen, mocked by the internet from 2016 as the motto of a specific kind of mother, and reclaimed since as a joke about earnestness: 'live laugh love' as the reply to any small pleasure. The record's entry for the sign as a type.

▸ 2010peak 2018still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Mukbang

Eating a large amount of food on camera, with the sounds, for an audience that watches while eating alone — from Korean streaming in 2010 to a global genre by 2015 and a health discourse by 2019. The record's entry for the meal as company.

▸ 2010peak 2019still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Old Spice Guy

A shirtless man on a horse answering tweets in real time. The one advert that was a meme from birth; filed here because the industry spent the next decade failing to do it again.

▸ 2010peak 2010†2010

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Ping (Apple)

Apple's music social network, bolted into iTunes 10 in September 2010, in which you could follow Lady Gaga and see what your friends were buying, except that Facebook refused to connect, your friends were not on it, and Lady Gaga posted twice. Steve Jobs said a million people joined in 48 hours; the record notes they did not come back. Switched off on 30 September 2012 and remembered mainly as the reason Apple stopped saying 'social'.

▸ 2010peak 2010†2012

● Aliven.✎ 3

Reaction Video

A person watching something and reacting, on camera, as the content — from 'kids react' in 2010 to a whole economy of streamers watching videos in 2020 and the argument about whether that is theft. The record's entry for the audience as the show.

▸ 2010peak 2020still up

● Aliveinterj.✎ 2

Slay

To do exceptionally well; also an all-purpose affirmation. Appeared in a high-street bank's onboarding flow in 2024 and survived it, which almost nothing does.

▸ 2010peak 2022still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

The Timeline

The feed, as a place — 'the timeline is a mess today', 'the TL' — with its own weather, moods and wars, and the record's entry for the word that made a list of posts into a landscape. 'Cleanse the timeline' is a post of a dog.

▸ 2010peak 2018still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

Weary Face

😩 — the weary face, which the internet decided meant desire rather than tiredness, so that it now appears under attractive people more than under long shifts. The record's entry for exhaustion reassigned to longing.

▸ 2010peak 2019still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Wunderlist

The Berlin to-do app, launched in November 2010, that was clean, fast and beloved, and that Microsoft bought in 2015 and shut down on 6 May 2020 in favour of Microsoft To Do, which was Wunderlist with a worse name and its founders gone. The record notes the founder publicly offered to buy it back in 2019 and was refused, and files it as the standard acquisition story with the standard ending.

▸ 2010peak 2015†2020