Edgelord
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“”Chat logs from an IRC room I was in nearly a decade ago were leaked to gamergate. To say the contents of those logs were not flattering would be putting it lightly. They are, in some ways, much what you’d expect from an early-2000’s chatroom of 4chan expats trying too hard to outdo each other for shock value. Even with that context, much of what I said was gross and disturbing, and I have no interest in defending it.
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| —Sarah Nyberg[1] |
An edgelord is a participant in an internet forum whose contributions are deliberately designed to be offensive, usually in a dark and demeaning fashion. The term is mostly used in a pejorative sense to describe someone who makes outrageous statements in order to appear "edgy" or "cool", when in reality they come off as an idiot or troll, making baseless statements, in their mom’s basement, in order to disrupt conversations.
Edgelords may express nihilistic opinions, appear pretentious, and appear to be expressing their outrageous opinions solely for the purpose of getting others to notice and respond to them.[2] They will often express disdain towards established authority figures, hype themselves up as special badasses with special destinies (the specific term for that sort of silliness being "chuunibyou"[3]), and/or treat "shoot first and ask questions later" (i.e. immediately using threats and/or actual violence to get one's way) as a decent approach to problem-solving (as opposed to psychopathic behavior that tends to flush the reputation of anyone who tries it down the toilet).[4] The end result of this aloof antisociality and unpalatable opinions tends to be alienation and being treated as a joke.[5]
The general concept of edgelords originated in the dark corners of the internet and chan culture. The term appears to have thrust itself into the internet mainstream with the publication of transgender social justice activist Sarah Nyberg's article "I’m Sarah Nyberg, and I Was A Teenage Edgelord" in the fall of 2015, during the peak of the Gamergate shitstorm,[1] and has been in steady use ever since.[6]
Examples of edgelords[edit]
- Joshua Conner Moon, far-right administrator of the Kiwi Farms cyberstalking/hate speech site.[7]
- Roosh V, sleazy manosphere figure and pick-up artist known for his overt misogyny.
- Milo Yiannopoulos, alt-right figure, Gamergate figurehead, and professional troll.
See also[edit]
- Don't feed the troll
- Proll, the "old media" version
- Shitlord in the Alt-right glossary
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sarah Nyberg, I’m Sarah Nyberg, and I Was A Teenage Edgelord., Medium, 14 September 2015.
- ↑ What exactly is an edgelord? reddit.com, 3 January 2017.
- ↑ "Chuunibyou", TV Tropes. Accessed 09-SEP-2024.
- ↑ "Edgy" on 1d6chan. Accessed 09-SEP-2024.
- ↑ Gunner, Jennifer (April 14, 2022). "What's an 'Edgelord' and Why Do You Never Want to Be One?". LoveToKnow Media. "If you like attention and you’re prone to dark hyperbole, the role of edgelord sounds like a perfect fit. But don’t fill out that job application just yet — being an edgelord isn’t all its[sic] cracked up to be. Once you’ve got the reputation as an edgelord, people tend not to take you as seriously, so your actual opinions may get washed away with your over-the-top ones. Additionally, an edgelord’s intention is to alienate others with their statements and worldview, creating a schism that may be difficult to repair in the future.
If you don’t care about making nice and having friends, go ahead and hit “Post” on that crazy dark stance you’re about to make. But if you want to be taken seriously (and contrary to what they say, most edgelords really do want to be taken seriously), try to speak with a little more nuance." - ↑ Google Trends data for the term "edgelord".
- ↑ Joshua Conner Moon’s Kiwi Farms website shut down. news.crocels.com, 23 August 2016.