41 born · 14 peaked · 9 died
Born in 2004 41
- ●Anon'Anonymous', shortened — the name every poster had on a board without names, and therefor…
- ◐Cave StoryA robot boy with no memory wakes in a cave full of rabbit-like creatures called Mimigas a…
- ☠DiggThe front page of the internet until version 4 shipped and the users left in a single wee…
- ●DofusA turn-based tactical MMORPG drawn in Flash by a small studio in northern France, with a …
- ●EVO Moment 37The fifteen seconds at EVO 2004 in which Daigo Umehara, at one pixel of health, parried e…
- ●Eco RoundA round in Counter-Strike (and later Valorant) in which a team buys nothing, or almost no…
- ☠Epic (2000s)'Epic' — the mid-2000s' word for anything good, from a battle to a sandwich: 'epic win', …
- ●FOMOFear of missing out. The rare business-school coinage that turned out to describe a real …
- ◐FlickrThe photo-sharing site, launched in February 2004 from the wreckage of a Vancouver video …
- ●Garry's ModA sandbox built on Half-Life 2 in which players spawn props, weld them together, and pose…
- ●GmailGoogle's webmail, announced on 1 April 2004 with a gigabyte of free storage at a time whe…
- ●Going ViralSpreading uncontrollably — viral — as the word for anything seen by millions in a day, fr…
- ↺Grand Theft Auto: San AndreasThree cities, a countryside, a gym, a jetpack and a protagonist called CJ. The 2004 game …
- ☠Halo 2The sequel that made Xbox Live: matchmaking, party chat, a ranking system, and a midnight…
- ●K/D RatioKills divided by deaths — the number by which shooter players have measured their worth s…
- ↺Katamari DamacyRoll a sticky ball around a house until it picks up the house, then the town, then the sk…
- ◐Knight OnlineA Korean MMORPG with two nations, Karus and El Morad, at permanent war, that found its re…
- ☠Long TailThe theory that niche products would together outsell the hits. Right about the shape of …
- ▲Magical TrevorJonti Picking's 2004 Flash song about a magician who makes a cow disappear — 'Everyone lo…
- ↺Malice at the PalaceThe Pacers–Pistons brawl of 19 November 2004 in which Ron Artest went into the stands aft…
- ◐Metin2A Korean martial-arts MMORPG that Europe adopted after a German publisher localised it in…
- ●Monster HunterHunt a large creature, make armour from it, hunt a larger one. A PlayStation 2 game nobod…
- ◐No JohnsA Smash Bros. community rule against excuses, named after a player called John whose reas…
- ☠Numa NumaA man in a chair lip-syncing to a Romanian pop song with his whole upper body. The first …
- ●OFC'Of course' — the acronym of easy agreement, from mid-2000s chat, whose tone runs from wa…
- ☠OrkutGoogle's first social network, enormous in Brazil and India and invisible to the people w…
- ●PBPersonal best: a speedrunner's fastest time in a category, borrowed from athletics into t…
- ●Park the BusTo defend with every player behind the ball and no intention of leaving. José Mourinho us…
- ↺PokeA button that notified someone you had pressed a button. Nobody could ever explain it; Fa…
- ◐RsrsThe Brazilian typed laugh that is not 'kkkk': an abbreviation of 'risos' (laughs), repeat…
- ●SMH'Shaking my head' — disappointment, compressed — from AAVE text culture into general use …
- ◐Salad FingersDavid Firth's green, long-fingered hermit who loves rusty spoons and talks to finger pupp…
- ●TBH'To be honest' — the prefix for opinions, and, in 2015, a whole teenage Instagram genre: …
- ☠TheFacebookThe name Facebook launched under on 4 February 2004: a directory for Harvard students, th…
- ☠Wall PostA public message left on someone's profile for everyone to read. Replaced by the Timeline…
- ☠Web 2.0Rounded corners, gradients, beta labels and the user as the product. The last version num…
- ☠Wisdom of CrowdsGroups guessing better than experts. Held up for ox-weighing and collapsed for everything…
- ●WonderkidA teenage prospect with a big reputation, usually from Football Manager, where 'wonderkid…
- ●World of WarcraftThe massively multiplayer game that made the genre mainstream: twelve million subscribers…
- ↺YTMNDA picture, a sound, some tiled text, forever. Went dark in 2019 and returned in 2021 on a…
- ◐Yume NikkiA girl called Madotsuki refuses to leave her flat, goes to bed, and explores dreams that …
Peaked in 2004 14
- ◐AFKAway from keyboard. Once a real status; now an artefact of a time when leaving the machin…
- ☠Badger Badger BadgerBadgers, a mushroom, a snake, on a loop. Ran uninterrupted for seventeen years and then s…
- ☠Battlefield 1942Sixty-four players, tanks, planes and boats on Second World War maps, in a game where the…
- ●Counter-StrikeTerrorists against counter-terrorists, one life per round, bought weapons and a bomb. A f…
- ◐Dance Dance RevolutionAn arcade machine with a floor of four arrows and a screen telling you when to step. Kona…
- ●LOLLaughing out loud, no longer implying either. The most successful acronym in the language…
- ↺Mall GothTripp pants, a Slipknot hoodie, chains, a spiked collar and a devotion to Hot Topic — the…
- ◐ROFLRolling on the floor laughing, which nobody was. Outlived by its younger sibling and now …
- ▲Shock SiteA website existing only to show one unbearable image, linked to the unsuspecting as a pra…
- ▲SmarterChildThe AIM buddy that answered questions about the weather, the cinema and the news, and end…
- ●SpamUnwanted messages in bulk. One of the very few internet words to enter the language, the …
- ●The SimsA dollhouse simulator in which small people speak gibberish, need the toilet and can be d…
- ☠Warcraft IIIA real-time strategy game with heroes, a story that became World of Warcraft's, and a map…
- ▲You Are the Millionth VisitorThe flashing banner that announced you had won — 'You are the 1,000,000th visitor! Click …
Died in 2004 9
- ▲All Your Base Are Belong to UsA mistranslated line from a forgotten shoot-'em-up, and the first thing the entire web la…
- ↺DoomThe first-person shooter that defined the phrase, uploaded as shareware to a university F…
- ▲Grand Theft Auto IIIA 3D city you could drive around, with radio stations, a silent criminal and the option t…
- ☠GuestbookA page where strangers wrote that they had visited. The first comment section, and the la…
- ▲Half-LifeA physicist with a crowbar, a tram ride instead of a cutscene, and a story told without t…
- ▲Halo: Combat EvolvedThe launch game that justified the Xbox: a console shooter with a working control scheme,…
- ☠MIDI Background MusicA tinny synthesised song that started when the page loaded and could not be stopped. The …
- ↺RollerCoaster TycoonA theme-park builder written by one Scottish programmer in assembly language, in which ch…
- ▲Starsiege: TribesA team shooter with jetpacks, enormous outdoor maps and vehicles, in which players discov…