96 born · 43 peaked · 6 died
Born in 2005 96
- ●Achievement UnlockedThe pop-up and chime with which the Xbox 360 rewarded players for doing things from its l…
- ▲Afro NinjaAn audition tape in which a man in an afro attempts a backflip, lands on his head, stagge…
- ●Allow It'Stop', 'leave it', 'don't' — 'allow it' — as the London phrase that means the opposite o…
- ▲Animal Crossing: Wild WorldA village of animals, a mortgage to a raccoon, and a clock that ran in real time so the s…
- ↺Axel F (Crazy Frog)An animated frog dubbed over the Beverly Hills Cop theme, sold relentlessly as a mobile r…
- ☠BBMBlackBerry Messenger — the free, PIN-based chat between BlackBerry owners, launched in Au…
- ●Bandwidth (Corporate)'I don't have the bandwidth' — time and energy, as a network metaphor — as the corporate …
- ☠BeboThe British teenager's MySpace, sold to AOL for $850 million and bought back for $1 milli…
- ▲Boom Goes the DynamiteA Ball State student sportscaster's four-minute ordeal on college TV in March 2005, in wh…
- ☠Boom Headshot'BOOM, HEADSHOT!' — the catchphrase of a fictional gamer in a 2005 web series, shouted by…
- ↺Brain AgeSums, Stroop tests and reading aloud, with a floating polygon head of a Japanese neurosci…
- ▲Brick Breaker (BlackBerry)A Breakout clone pre-installed on every BlackBerry, played with the trackball or the scro…
- ☠Bury (Digg)To downvote a story on Digg into oblivion — the site's anonymous, unexplained negative vo…
- ▲Canon RockA rock arrangement of Pachelbel's Canon in D written by JerryC, which became famous throu…
- ●CarryTo win a game for a team that did not deserve it — to carry — and 'carried' as the state …
- ▲Chacarron MacarronA Panamanian track built on a vocal that mostly is not words. It went round the early int…
- ▲Charlie the UnicornJason Steele's 2005 Flash cartoon in which two manic unicorns drag a grumpy one to Candy …
- ●Choke (Esports)To lose a match, series or round from a position that could not be lost, under pressure a…
- ☠Chuck Norris FactsHyperbolic claims about a martial artist's power, generated in their thousands. Died when…
- ☠Club PenguinA snowy island of penguins where a generation learned to type and to be banned. Closed by…
- ●Concern TrollingUndermining a position while pretending to hold it, out of worry. The troll's only formal…
- ●Crack ShipA pairing so unlikely it must be a joke — a crack ship — and 'rarepair' for one that is m…
- ●DTR'Define the relationship' — the conversation nobody wants to start, named as a thing to s…
- ▲DesuThe Japanese copula — 'is', roughly — spammed on 4chan from 2005 as a reference to an ani…
- ☠Do Not WantDarth Vader's scream, mistranslated. The most useful three words the bootleg market ever …
- ◐Do a Barrel RollPeppy Hare's advice from a 1997 game, posted under any image of a plane, a car, or a pers…
- ●Dr. GoogleThe habit of searching one's symptoms and arriving, in three clicks, at a diagnosis and a…
- ●EOD'End of day' — the deadline that means 'today', without saying which hour, and the record…
- ●ETA?'When?' — as a question about a person, a delivery, or a promised feature, from the aviat…
- ◐FTW'For the win' — appended to anything the poster approved of, from a game to a sandwich, i…
- ◐First World ProblemsA trivial complaint, acknowledged as trivial — 'my phone charger won't reach the bed, fir…
- ●Football Manager SaveA single career in Sports Interactive's Football Manager, sometimes running for decades o…
- ◐GETA milestone post number — the millionth, the ten-millionth — and the race to claim it, on…
- ●GM'Good morning' — the two-letter greeting, older than the smartphone, which in 2021 a part…
- ●GN'Good night' — the two-letter sign-off, born on MSN and the flip phone, that ends the day…
- ●GassedExcited, or overexcited about oneself — 'gassed' — as the London word for both, and 'gass…
- ☠GchatThe chat box inside Gmail — officially Google Talk from August 2005, but never called tha…
- ☠Google ReaderA tool for reading every site you cared about in one place, killed for being used by the …
- ◐Guild WarsAn online RPG with no monthly fee, built by three former Blizzard staff, that sold millio…
- ☠Guitar HeroA plastic guitar with five coloured buttons and a game that made a living room feel like …
- ▲Hey ClipTwo Israeli film students lip-syncing to the Pixies' 'Hey' in a bedroom in Ramle on 24 Au…
- ▲Hurra TorpedoA Norwegian band who play covers on kitchen appliances, hitting chest freezers and cooker…
- ●IKR'I know, right?' — agreement with an upward inflection, in three letters, from mid-2000s …
- ●Inb4'In before' — pre-empting a predictable reply by posting it first: 'inb4 someone says ski…
- ●It Is What It IsAcceptance, in five words — 'it is what it is' — from sports interviews into everyone's m…
- ◐It's a Trap!Admiral Ackbar's three-word warning from Return of the Jedi, posted from the mid-2000s un…
- ●JFC'Jesus f***ing Christ' — exasperation with a blasphemy, compressed, and the record's entr…
- ●K.The single letter reply — 'k' — that means 'I have read this and I am not happy', with a …
- ●Karma (Reddit)Points from upvotes, which cannot be spent and are pursued anyway — karma — and 'karma wh…
- ●Keyboard WarriorA person who is brave only when typing — the keyboard warrior — as the mid-2000s name for…
- ●LMK'Let me know' — the acronym of the mild request, born in mid-2000s texting and now the wa…
- ☠Lazy SundayA rap about cupcakes and Narnia that made YouTube a household name over a single Christma…
- ▲Leeroy JenkinsA man shouting his own name and ruining a plan. Was staged, which nobody minded, then app…
- ●Let's Take This Offline'Let's take this offline' — the phrase that ends an argument in a meeting by promising to…
- ●LongTedious, too much effort — 'that's long' — as the London word for anything that takes tim…
- ◐Lurk Moar'Lurk more' — the instruction to a newcomer to read before posting, in the spelling of th…
- ☠MSN NudgeA button that shook your friend's window to get their attention. The last piece of softwa…
- ●Me at the ZooThe first video uploaded to YouTube — 19 seconds of co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Die…
- ☠MegauploadFour per cent of all internet traffic, one New Zealand mansion, and a police helicopter. …
- ●Meta (Gaming)The current best strategy — the meta — as what everyone does because it works, in a game,…
- ☠MySpace AngleA camera held high and to the side, at arm's length, in a bathroom mirror. The first pose…
- ▲NintendogsA puppy on the bottom screen that you stroked with a stylus and called by name into the m…
- ●No Mames'No way', 'you're kidding' — the Mexican expression of disbelief, vulgar in origin and un…
- ●OCOriginal content, as opposed to a repost. The distinction that separates a poster from a …
- ●OMW'On my way' — the text sent by a person who is not yet on their way, as a promise rather …
- ●OOO'Out of office' — the automatic reply, the status, and, since 2020, the boast: 'OOO until…
- ●One More GameThe lie that precedes the next three hours — 'one more game' — as old as multiplayer and …
- ●Pay to WinA game where the shop beats the skill. The accusation has become so broad that it now app…
- ●PengAttractive, excellent — 'peng' — from London youth slang into the national vocabulary via…
- ▲Penguin of Doom'hi every1 im new!!!!!!! *holds up spork*' — the opening of a mid-2000s copypasta written…
- ↺Pepe the FrogA comic frog that was community property until it wasn't. The clearest case study of a me…
- ▲Pics or It Didn't HappenA demand for proof, back when a picture was proof. Retired as a phrase when it became cle…
- ●Ping Me'Ping me' — send me a message — from a network diagnostic into every office, and the reco…
- ●Poe's LawWithout a clear signal of intent, parody of an extreme view is indistinguishable from the…
- ●Rage QuitLeaving a game in anger, mid-match. Extended to jobs, relationships and group chats witho…
- ●RepostSomething already posted, posted again. Also the mechanism by which everything in this di…
- ●SideloadingInstalling an app from outside the official store — a term the phone industry used from t…
- ▲Smosh Pokémon ThemeTwo teenagers lip-syncing the English Pokémon theme in a bedroom. It became the most view…
- ●Streisand EffectTrying to suppress something and thereby publicising it. Named for a lawsuit over one aer…
- ●Sugoi'Amazing', 'wow' — the Japanese exclamation that every subtitle left untranslated and eve…
- ◐TekkersShort for 'technique', popularised by the Saturday morning show Soccer AM in the 2000s: '…
- ▲The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate DestinyNeil Cicierega's 2005 song, animated for Newgrounds, in which Godzilla, Batman, Abraham L…
- ●This ^'This' — with an arrow pointing up at the post above — as the forum's way of agreeing wit…
- ●Tilde~ — the tilde at the end of a word, for a sing-song tone: 'hello~', 'thanks~'. From anime…
- ●TimepassSomething done merely to pass the time — a film, a scroll, a conversation — as the Indian…
- ☠Top 8Eight friends, ranked in public, on your profile. The most emotionally dangerous feature …
- ●UwU'UwU' — a face of extreme cuteness, eyes closed, mouth a small w — and 'OwO', its surpris…
- ●Wall of TextA post with no paragraph breaks, presented as an assault — a wall of text — and the reply…
- ●WastemanA useless person — 'wasteman' — as the London slang's verdict on a man who contributes no…
- ◐WebkinzA plush toy with a code on the tag that unlocked a virtual version of itself in a browser…
- ●WeebA non-Japanese person too into Japanese culture — from a 4chan word filter in 2005 to a g…
- ☠Yahoo AnswersWhere the public asked how babby was formed and other people guessed. Sixteen years of qu…
- ●YandereThe tsundere's dangerous cousin: a character who is sweet ('dere') and sick with it ('yan…
- ●[Citation Needed]Wikipedia's tag for an unsourced claim, adopted by the internet as a joke to attach to an…
- ●kkkk (Brazilian Laugh)'kkkkk' — the Brazilian laugh, from the sound 'ca-ca-ca', which alarms English speakers w…
- ●o7A salute made of characters — the o is a head, the 7 a raised arm — from a spaceship game…
Peaked in 2005 43
- ●AFAIK'As far as I know' — the hedge that has opened uncertain claims since Usenet, and survive…
- ☠America's ArmyA free tactical shooter published by the United States Army as a recruiting tool, in whic…
- ●BTW'By the way' — the aside, in three letters, from Usenet to the present, and one of the fi…
- ●Caps Lock ShoutingALL CAPS AS SHOUTING — a rule of netiquette since the 1980s, when it was explained to new…
- ↺Crazy FrogA blue animated frog with a motorcycle and an exposed absence of trousers, built in 2003 …
- ↺CybergothNeon dreadfalls, goggles, gas masks, platform boots and a dance that looks like stamping …
- ▲Day of DefeatA Second World War team shooter that began as a Half-Life mod, was bought by Valve and be…
- ↺DecoraDozens of hair clips, layered neon, plastic toys pinned to a cardigan, and a colour count…
- ●EVO Moment 37The fifteen seconds at EVO 2004 in which Daigo Umehara, at one pixel of health, parried e…
- ◐FlamebaitA post designed to provoke a flame war — flamebait — as the Usenet ancestor of ragebait, …
- ●Foo BarThe placeholder names for anything in a code example — foo, bar, baz — from 1960s hacker …
- ●GGGood game, typed at the end whether it was or not. The one piece of sportsmanship the int…
- ●Godwin's LawAs an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a Nazi comparison approaches one…
- ↺Grand Theft Auto: San AndreasThree cities, a countryside, a gym, a jetpack and a protagonist called CJ. The 2004 game …
- ◐GunBoundWorms with cartoon tanks, wind and angle calculations, and avatars you dressed in bought …
- ↺GyaruTan, bleached hair, dramatic lashes, platform boots, and a deliberate rejection of Japane…
- ☠Halo 2The sequel that made Xbox Live: matchmaking, party chat, a ranking system, and a midnight…
- ↺Homestar RunnerA cartoon website with no adverts, no algorithm and a regular update schedule. The Strong…
- ☠HotmailThe first big free webmail, launched on American Independence Day 1996 as a symbol of fre…
- ●ID10T ErrorAn error code that spells 'idiot' — the helpdesk's way of noting on a ticket that the use…
- ●Innit'Isn't it' — as a tag for any statement regardless of grammar: 'he's coming, innit', 'I w…
- ↺Katamari DamacyRoll a sticky ball around a house until it picks up the house, then the town, then the sk…
- ◐LiveJournalA diary with friends-only locks, mood icons and the current music field. Sold to a Russia…
- ▲Magical TrevorJonti Picking's 2004 Flash song about a magician who makes a cow disappear — 'Everyone lo…
- ◐Match.comThe dating website that went live in April 1995 and turned a personals column into a data…
- ●Muphry's LawAny criticism of someone's spelling will itself contain a spelling error. Named with the …
- ↺NeopetsVirtual pets, a stock market, and a fandom that learned HTML to decorate its shop. Lost m…
- ●Nigerian PrinceThe email from a royal who needs help moving a fortune and only your bank details will do…
- ☠Numa NumaA man in a chair lip-syncing to a Romanian pop song with his whole upper body. The first …
- ☠O RLY?A snowy owl asking whether you were serious. The first image macro with a call and respon…
- ◐OwnedDefeated, humiliated, beaten completely — 'owned' — from hackers taking over a machine to…
- ●PEBKAC'Problem exists between keyboard and chair' — tech support's code for 'the user is the pr…
- ☠Peanut Butter Jelly TimeA dancing banana that would not stop. Killed by a television sitcom using it, then by Fla…
- ●RTFM'Read the f***ing manual' — the reply to a question the manual answers, from the earliest…
- ◐Ragnarok OnlineA 2D-sprites-in-3D-world MMORPG based on a Korean comic, with a Norse setting and a sound…
- ●Script KiddieA person who uses other people's hacking tools without understanding them — a script kidd…
- ●Skitt's LawAny post correcting an error will contain at least one error. The Usenet version of Muphr…
- ●StarCraftThree asymmetric alien races in a real-time strategy game that South Korea adopted as a n…
- ▲T9'Text on 9 keys' — the predictive typing on a numeric keypad, from 1997, that let a perso…
- ◐TTYL'Talk to you later' — the sign-off of the instant-messaging era, when conversations had e…
- ▲The End of the WorldA 2003 Flash cartoon in which world leaders trade nuclear strikes in ninety seconds — 'WT…
- ☠XangaA blog with eProps, where every teenager wrote a diary in public and nobody's parents kne…
- ●YMMV'Your mileage may vary' — the disclaimer from petrol adverts, adopted by Usenet as the po…
Died in 2005 6
- ☠A/S/LAge, sex, location, asked in that order of every stranger. Died when platforms began answ…
- ↺Final Fantasy VIIThe role-playing game that made the genre mainstream in the West, sold the PlayStation as…
- ↺Hit CounterAn odometer at the bottom of the page announcing you were visitor number 000412. Most wer…
- ↺Malice at the PalaceThe Pacers–Pistons brawl of 19 November 2004 in which Ron Artest went into the stands aft…
- ☠Star Wars KidA teenager swinging a golf-ball retriever like a lightsaber, leaked without his consent. …
- ☠TheFacebookThe name Facebook launched under on 4 February 2004: a directory for Harvard students, th…