Away from keyboard. Once a real status; now an artefact of a time when leaving the machine was a distinct, announceable event.
The tell with AFK is who is saying it. In 1996 it marked you as early. By 2004 it marked you as present. After that it marked you as someone who had not checked recently.
I tried to explain AFK to my father in 2004. He asked, sincerely, what it was for. I explained. He then explained it, with my explanation attached, to his entire address book. That is how these things actually spread.
Sighting, 14 February, a railway platform departures board, overridden by staff. AFK, in a font that has not been updated since 1996. The term and the typography have met at last.
We used to argue about AFK on a forum that no longer exists, run by a man whose name I never knew, and I would give a lot to read those threads again. The argument was better than anything I have read about it since.
The one thing missing from the headnote: AFK landed differently on people who had been online since the 1990s than on anyone who arrived later, and the later arrivals were the ones who spread it.
Filed as evidence: a university's clearing hotline hold message, 2 March. AFK, used correctly, in full, with no visible irony. Nobody involved is under fifty.
We used to type this before answering the door. The door. Imagine having to tell a stranger on the internet that a physical person had arrived at your house.
What does it mean? Write it the way you would say it out loud.
