YouTube & streaming

● Aliven.✎ 2

Station Studios

The current YouTube identity of ImJayStation, the Canadian prank YouTuber Jason Ethier, known for 3 AM challenge videos between 2015 and 2021. The channel returned in 2025 and had about 40 thousand subscribers by 25 January 2026. Wikipedia lists it among internet memes introduced in 2026.

▸ 2026peak 2026still up

● Alivev.

Lock In

To concentrate completely, announced in advance. The productivity vocabulary of a generation that treats focus as a special event.

▸ 2024peak 2025still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 5

Fanum Tax

Taking a portion of a friend's food, named after a streamer who did. Died when it appeared in a middle-school teacher's Gen Alpha glossary, printed and laminated.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2024

◐ Dyingadj.✎ 4

Skibidi

An intensifier with no fixed meaning, derived from a series about heads in toilets. The purest example yet of a word that means only that you are the sort of person who says it.

▸ 2023peak 2024still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Ukulele Apology

The name given to a ten-minute apology video, uploaded by the YouTuber Colleen Ballinger on 28 June 2023, in which she responded to allegations about her conduct toward fans by singing an original song about a 'toxic gossip train' while playing the ukulele. The record notes it was received as the wrong instrument for the occasion, and that it became the standard against which all subsequent apology videos are measured — unfavourably.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2023

● Aliven.

Chat

The audience, addressed as a single person, by people who are not streaming. Linguists have called it a fourth-person pronoun; teenagers have called it chat, is this real.

▸ 2022peak 2024still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Dislike Button Removal

YouTube's decision, announced on 10 November 2021, to hide public dislike counts on all videos while keeping the button, framed as protecting small creators from 'dislike attacks' and received as protecting large corporations from honest feedback. The record notes the platform's own 2018 Rewind was, at the time, the most-disliked video on the site, and that the connection was drawn by everyone.

▸ 2021peak 2021still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Edit Audio

A sped-up, bass-boosted or reverbed song fragment used as the soundtrack of a short fan edit — an edit audio — as the vocabulary of the 2021 onward genre in which a character, footballer or actor is cut to a beat with flashes and shakes. The record notes 'edit audio' is now a search term, a genre and a mood, and that the songs are usually from 2008.

▸ 2021peak 2023still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

Return YouTube Dislike

A browser extension, released within days of YouTube hiding dislike counts in November 2021, that restores the number by combining archived data with its own users' votes — Return YouTube Dislike — as the civic infrastructure the platform declined to keep. The record notes its figures are estimates and are trusted more than the official ones, which are absent.

▸ 2021peak 2022still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Rizz

Charisma, specifically the romantic kind, specifically as a skill. Currently in the terminal phase every slang term enters once adults start using it correctly.

▸ 2021peak 2023still up

● Aliven.✎ 5

Copium

A gas inhaled to cope with losing. The first emotion-management vocabulary invented by people watching other people play games.

▸ 2020peak 2021still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Floor Gang

The name given by PewDiePie in 2020 to viewers who sit on the floor, against a 'ceiling gang' who do not, as an in-joke that produced a song, merchandise and a period of every comment section declaring its seating. The record notes the war was fought with the same seriousness as the T-Series one, and that the floor won, by decision of the man who made it up.

▸ 2020peak 2020†2021

◐ Dyingv.✎ 2

Malding

Getting so angry you go bald. Coined about one streamer and said mostly by his chat; will die with the hairline.

▸ 2020peak 2021still up

● Aliven.✎ 1

Subathon

A stream that lasts as long as people keep subscribing. The gig economy as a sleepover, and some of them have run for months.

▸ 2020peak 2023still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

YouTube Shorts

YouTube's vertical short-video feed, launched as a beta in India in September 2020 during the TikTok ban there and worldwide in 2021, as the platform's admission that the future was a phone held the wrong way. The record notes Shorts now serve tens of billions of views daily and that long-form creators discuss them the way novelists discuss the phone.

▸ 2020peak 2024still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Bird Box Challenge

Doing ordinary tasks blindfolded because a film had. Netflix asked people to stop, YouTube banned it, and a teenager drove into a lamp post; the whole arc took a month.

▸ 2019peak 2019†2019

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Bye Sister

The title of a 43-minute video posted on 10 May 2019 by the beauty YouTuber Tati Westbrook, criticising her former protégé James Charles, after which Charles lost about three million subscribers in days — the fastest recorded loss on the platform — before recovering most of them within weeks. The record's entry for the moment YouTube drama was covered by newspapers as if it were news, which by then it was.

▸ 2019peak 2019†2020

☠ Deadn.✎ 1

Google Stadia

Games streamed from a data centre to any screen, sold on a promise Google itself did not keep. Refunded everyone, which is more than most of these entries managed.

▸ 2019peak 2020†2023

◐ Dyinginterj.✎ 2

KEKW

Laughter, expressed by a Spanish comedian who died in 2021. Still in use on Twitch in the way a fax machine is in use at a solicitor's.

▸ 2019peak 2021still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 2

Minecraft Manhunt

The video format in which one Minecraft player tries to beat the game while several others try to kill him, popularised by Dream from 2019 and watched, at its 2020 peak, by more people than most live sports. The record notes the format's entire appeal is a man running away from friends, and that this was enough.

▸ 2019peak 2020still up

● Aliven.✎ 2

Podcast Bros

Men with microphones, a black backdrop, a two-camera setup and opinions about testosterone, discipline and women — podcast bros — as the term that arrived around 2019 for the video-podcast genre in which a group of friends talk for three hours and clip the worst 40 seconds for TikTok. The record notes the microphone is always a Shure SM7B and always slightly too close.

▸ 2019peak 2023still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Raid: Shadow Legends Sponsor

The sponsored segment for a mobile fantasy game that appeared in, by common estimate, most of YouTube in 2019 and 2020 — 'this video is sponsored by Raid: Shadow Legends' — as the sponsor read so ubiquitous that the reads became the joke, and the game became a byword for a sponsor nobody had asked for. The record notes the script's phrase 'over 400 champions' was recited by children who had never installed it.

▸ 2019peak 2020still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

SponsorBlock

A crowdsourced browser extension, released in July 2019, that lets viewers mark and automatically skip sponsor segments, intros, outros and 'reminders to subscribe' in YouTube videos — SponsorBlock — as the audience's counter-weapon to the sponsor read. The record notes it has a category for 'non-music sections in music videos' and that creators discuss it with the resignation of a landlord discussing rain.

▸ 2019peak 2023still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Unus Annus

A YouTube channel launched on 15 November 2019 by Markiplier and Ethan Nestor with a single premise — one video a day for one year, then the whole channel deleted forever — and deleted, on schedule, during a live stream on 13 November 2020, with 4.5 million subscribers watching it go. The record notes it was the first channel whose death was the content, and that reuploads are removed by fans, not lawyers.

▸ 2019peak 2020†2020

● Aliven.✎ 2

Channel Membership

A monthly subscription to a specific YouTube channel — a channel membership — for badges, custom emoji and 'members-only' videos, rolled out in 2018 after a 2017 test under the name 'sponsorship'. The record's entry for the 'join' button beside 'subscribe', and notes that the two words mean the same thing to a newcomer and $4.99 to the platform.

▸ 2018peak 2021still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Dhar Mann

A YouTube channel of short moral dramas — a bully learns a lesson, a rich man is humbled, a cashier is kind — run by Dhar Mann since 2018, each ending with the host's voice explaining the lesson and the phrase 'we're not just telling stories, we're changing lives'. The record's entry for the most-watched morality plays since the Middle Ages, and notes the acting.

▸ 2018peak 2021still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Dramageddon

The name given to the 2018–2020 series of feuds among beauty YouTubers — Dramageddon 1 (2018, Jeffree Star, Manny MUA, Laura Lee and others), Dramageddon 2 (2019, Westbrook and Charles) and a 2020 coda involving Shane Dawson — as the moment a corner of the platform devoted to eyeshadow became its most-watched soap opera. The record notes the word implies an end, and that the cast simply moved to other platforms.

▸ 2018peak 2019†2021

● Aliven.✎ 3

Last to Leave

The challenge format in which contestants stay in, on or near something — a circle, a pool, a car — and the last one to leave wins it or a sum of money. Popularised on YouTube by MrBeast from 2018, and now the template for a genre in which patience is filmed and paid for. The record notes the money is real; the circle is tape.

▸ 2018peak 2020still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Nine-Year-Olds

PewDiePie's 2018 onward name for his own audience — 'my 9-year-olds', the 'nine-year-old army' — a joke about being watched by children that his adult viewers adopted with pride and that became the label for the whole T-Series-era fanbase. The record notes the age was not a demographic finding, and that the nine-year-olds of 2018 are now sixteen and nostalgic.

▸ 2018peak 2019still up

● Alivephr.✎ 2

Nobody's Gonna Read This But

The opening line of a comment that hopes very much to be read — 'nobody's gonna read this but…' — followed by a wish for the reader's day, a confession, or a plea for subscribers. The record's entry for the humility that is also a hook, and notes that the lie in the first clause is the point.

▸ 2018peak 2020still up

☠ Deadphr.✎ 3

Sub to PewDiePie

The battle cry of the 2018–2019 subscriber race — 'subscribe to PewDiePie' — chanted, sprayed on walls, bought on billboards and printed on hacked printers, in a campaign to keep a Swedish gamer ahead of an Indian record label. The record notes its creator asked for it to stop on 28 April 2019, after the phrase was used in contexts he did not want it in.

▸ 2018peak 2019†2019

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

T-Series War

The 2018–2019 contest for the most-subscribed YouTube channel between PewDiePie and T-Series, an Indian music label, which the internet treated as a war and the label treated as a Tuesday. The record notes T-Series won in spring 2019, and that a Bollywood distributor's victory over a man in a chair was the moment the platform stopped being a person.

▸ 2018peak 2019†2019

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

TanaCon

A YouTuber convention organised by Tana Mongeau in June 2018 as a rival to VidCon, which sold thousands of tickets for a venue that could hold hundreds, left fans waiting outdoors in the heat, and was cancelled on its first day. The record's entry for the event that became a byword for an influencer promising more than the fire code allows.

▸ 2018peak 2018†2018

☠ Deadn.✎ 6

Tide Pod Challenge

Eating laundry detergent, on camera, as a joke that a few people took literally. YouTube removed the videos and the manufacturer hired an American footballer to say don't; both were unnecessary by February.

▸ 2018peak 2018†2018

● Aliven.✎ 3

YouTube Premiere

A scheduled video release with a countdown, a live chat and the creator in the comments — a YouTube Premiere — introduced in 2018 as a way of making an upload an event, and used since to make a 12-minute video feel like a cinema opening. The record notes the two-minute countdown screen has its own memes, and that many viewers arrive after it, which was not the point.

▸ 2018peak 2020still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

YouTube Rewind 2018

The 2018 edition of YouTube's annual year-in-review video, which within a week of its 6 December release became the most-disliked video in the site's history, overtaking a Justin Bieber single, for featuring Will Smith, Fortnite and celebrities and none of the year's actual creators or events. The record notes Rewind 2019 was a top-ten list and Rewind 2020 was cancelled, which is the arc of a franchise.

▸ 2018peak 2018†2020

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

3AM Challenge

The 2017 video format in which a creator does something ordinary — plays a game, orders a pizza, calls Siri — at three in the morning, in the dark, and is visited by a ghost, a clown or a man in a mask who is a friend. The record notes the titles were in capitals, the thumbnails were red, and the genre lasted about eighteen months before the audience learned the time.

▸ 2017peak 2017†2019

◐ Dyingn.✎ 2

Adpocalypse

The 2017 crisis in which major advertisers pulled spending from YouTube after their ads appeared beside extremist content, leading to sweeping demonetisation and the word 'adpocalypse' for any subsequent revenue collapse. The record notes the first adpocalypse was March 2017, the second late 2017, and that creators now count them the way farmers count droughts.

▸ 2017peak 2017still up

● Aliven.

Blinking White Guy

A man blinking in disbelief, in a GIF that fits every situation. The subject uses his fame to raise money for MS research, which makes him the only person in this dictionary who came out ahead.

▸ 2017peak 2017still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Commentary YouTube

The genre in which a creator, filmed against a wall or over footage, discusses another creator, a trend or a scandal, with jokes — commentary YouTube — as the label that arrived around 2017 for what had been called 'drama channels', 'reaction' or 'talking about things'. The record notes the genre's stars (Cody Ko, Danny Gonzalez, Drew Gooden, Kurtis Conner) are now themselves commented on, which is how it eats.

▸ 2017peak 2020still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Elsagate

The 2017 scandal over YouTube videos aimed at children — often featuring Elsa, Spider-Man and Peppa Pig — that contained violence, injections, pregnancy plots and other content generated for the algorithm and watched by toddlers on autoplay. The record notes the channels were mass-deleted after press coverage in November 2017, and that the word covers both the videos and the discovery that nobody had been watching.

▸ 2017peak 2017†2019

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

HQ Trivia

A live quiz at 3pm and 9pm with a real host and real money. Two million people at once, for a year, then a founder's death, then a livestreamed final episode with the host drunk.

▸ 2017peak 2018†2020

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

It's Everyday Bro

A 2017 song and video by Jake Paul and his 'Team 10' housemates — 'It's Everyday Bro' — about uploading daily and owning a Lamborghini, which was for a time the third most-disliked video on YouTube and produced the line 'England is my city', delivered by a man from England, which it is not. The record notes the song charted, which is the part to remember.

▸ 2017peak 2017†2019

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

Logan Paul Forest Video

The vlog uploaded by Logan Paul on 31 December 2017, filmed in Japan's Aokigahara forest, which showed the body of a person who had died by suicide; it was removed by Paul the next day after widespread condemnation. The record's entry for the incident that made YouTube change its rules, cost Paul his Google Preferred status, and became the reference point for what a vlog must not do.

▸ 2017peak 2018still up

◐ Dyinginterj.✎ 4

Poggers

Excitement, expressed by a frog. Survived the removal of its parent emote by about two years, then aged out with the streamers who used it.

▸ 2017peak 2020still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Super Chat

A paid message in a YouTube live chat — a Super Chat — highlighted in colour and pinned for a length of time proportional to the money, launched in January 2017 and since then the main way a viewer buys a creator's attention for the price of a coffee. The record notes the red ones cost the most, and are read out, and are often just 'hi'.

▸ 2017peak 2021still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 3

5-Minute Crafts

The channel of fast, wordless 'life hacks' — a hot glue gun, a plastic bottle, a result that does not work — launched in 2016 by a Cyprus-based content company and for a while the most-subscribed non-music channel on the platform. The record notes the hacks were tested by other channels and found wanting, and that this was also content.

▸ 2016peak 2019still up

☠ Deadn.

Baby Shark

A campfire song about a family of sharks, rebuilt in neon. The most-viewed video on YouTube, and the only entry whose cause of death is also its entire audience.

▸ 2016peak 2018†2019