What is a Zombie? Why are Code Reviewers so violent and talking about killing Zombies all the time? And what ammo are they talking about? What is a TS? What does RSA mean?
And what other Code Review-specific memes are there?
(As the number of memes grows and grows, and Malachi's wish to vote for the memes more than once, this really ought to have its own meta-question)
Please provide only one, or just a few tightly-coupled, memes per answer.
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\$\begingroup\$ Many memes are listed in this answer to the Call of Duty topic. \$\endgroup\$ChrisW– ChrisW2014年02月10日 00:33:08 +00:00Commented Feb 10, 2014 at 0:33
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\$\begingroup\$ should RELOAD! be on the list? I see it occurring frequently, from Duga's daily report of unanswered questions as well as other regulars in the 2nd...maybe it is a Call of Duty phrase but I'm not familiar with the phrases in it... \$\endgroup\$Sᴀᴍ Onᴇᴌᴀ– Sᴀᴍ Onᴇᴌᴀ Mod2019年10月28日 23:57:10 +00:00Commented Oct 28, 2019 at 23:57
35 Answers 35
Meme: Zombies
Originator: Mathieu Guindon (aka retailcoder, lol.upvote, ... and/or Mat's Mug)
Cultural Height: During The Mission
Background: In a (successful) attempt to motivate the community in reducing the number of unanswered questions, a Call of Duty was made in which every unanswered question (no upvoted answers) is to be regarded as a Zombie. Every new question is to be regarded as an incoming Zombie.
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7\$\begingroup\$ Tshirt anyone? \$\endgroup\$user73428– user734282014年07月26日 10:31:48 +00:00Commented Jul 26, 2014 at 10:31
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2\$\begingroup\$ What is an "unanswered question"? A question with no answers? A question with no accepted answers? A question with answers that have no upvotes? I suppose it's the last one. It might be worth to clarify, or if already explained somewhere else, then include a link. \$\endgroup\$janos– janos2015年01月15日 13:19:35 +00:00Commented Jan 15, 2015 at 13:19
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\$\begingroup\$ @janos I don't think there is an exact definition about that. The StackExchange system handles it differently in different places, but it's definitely not related to accepted answers. \$\endgroup\$Simon Forsberg– Simon Forsberg2015年03月17日 16:43:29 +00:00Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 16:43
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\$\begingroup\$ I presume Janos and Simon could "answer' that question now, however for Posterity - it is explained in this Meta.SE answer about why the Unanswered Questions tab shows questions that have answers, which links to this SO block post \$\endgroup\$2025年11月21日 22:32:10 +00:00Commented Nov 21 at 22:32
Meme: Jamalized
Originator: Jamal ♦ (actually, apparently me)
Cultural Height: All over CR (see this chat transcript search)
Background: Jamal being a frantic editor. And he's fast. So fast, we're all waiting for the day he will edit a bad question title before it's even posted. You never know, maybe mods will have the power to edit post drafts one day.
And he knows:
I don't even pay attention to dates. I just edit like Dr. House takes Vicodin. http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/12505099#12505099
And so "Jamalized" was coined, vaguely meaning "edited". Applicable to any IEditable<T>.
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37\$\begingroup\$ I don't think this will count as a real meme until Jamal edits this post. \$\endgroup\$MrLore– MrLore2014年09月10日 19:37:47 +00:00Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 19:37
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20\$\begingroup\$ "we're all waiting for the day he will edit a bad question title before it's even posted" Maybe that's how good question titles exist already? \$\endgroup\$Kroltan– Kroltan2015年02月23日 11:03:43 +00:00Commented Feb 23, 2015 at 11:03
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5\$\begingroup\$ He might have run out of things to edit on Code Review, because he's also suggesting edits on Stack Overflow. \$\endgroup\$Laurel– Laurel2016年06月05日 19:50:29 +00:00Commented Jun 5, 2016 at 19:50
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\$\begingroup\$ Bearing in mind one likely doesn’t vocalize this term often, how should it sound when spoken? Initially in my head I presumed like ja-mal-ized, but was recently thinking it should perhaps be more like ja-mal-ized \$\endgroup\$2021年05月25日 09:01:21 +00:00Commented May 25, 2021 at 9:01
Meme: Java vs. JAVA
Originator: Jamal(?) (to be determined)
Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor (as usual), but also in various comments scattered across meta.
Background: Question with the word JAVA (instead of Java) in the title or body, is often an indication that the poster is a beginner and/or that it's a low-quality question. This has led to the separation of JAVA from Java. They are now, at least among the regulars in The 2nd Monitor on Code Review, treated as two entirely different languages.
Examples:
@skiwi Java? No, we're hiring JAVA people. Sorry.
Just don't learn JAVA @Jamal.
Never mind, I realised that you're talking about JAVA, which is not a language I know.
(@rolfl in chat) (@rolfl is among the top Java users here, but he does not know JAVA apparently)
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8\$\begingroup\$ Nice one! Who would have tough there were so many others bothered by quirky capitalization? :P \$\endgroup\$Agostino– Agostino2015年04月14日 16:19:34 +00:00Commented Apr 14, 2015 at 16:19
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\$\begingroup\$ I really feel this meme... I see this on Stack Overflow all the time. Bonus points if it’s tagged [javascript]. \$\endgroup\$Sebastian Simon– Sebastian Simon2022年03月17日 22:12:18 +00:00Commented Mar 17, 2022 at 22:12
Meme: "Thanks, Santa!"
Originator: Jamal ♦
Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor
Background: Votes are anonymous. So whenever someone upvotes a post of yours, and you think the voter might be in the chatroom, just say "Thanks, Santa!", the voter(s) will know that was for them.
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\$\begingroup\$ I forget... did this meme come up after Christmas? \$\endgroup\$2014年02月14日 17:41:29 +00:00Commented Feb 14, 2014 at 17:41
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\$\begingroup\$ @Jamal that's something I'd have to dig up to make sure, but I think it was after the Holidays :) \$\endgroup\$Mathieu Guindon– Mathieu Guindon2014年02月14日 18:28:49 +00:00Commented Feb 14, 2014 at 18:28
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\$\begingroup\$ You are welcome, though, I am a but miffed that I could not write this entry ;) \$\endgroup\$konijn– konijn2014年02月26日 00:22:13 +00:00Commented Feb 26, 2014 at 0:22
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\$\begingroup\$ Don't the post votes only show up an hour after they are cast? (in order to prevent the voter from swapping/etc. and allow it to lock in)? \$\endgroup\$user2813274– user28132742015年01月23日 23:25:38 +00:00Commented Jan 23, 2015 at 23:25
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\$\begingroup\$ @user2813274 nope. You usually get pretty much instant notification that you've earned rep ;) ...and lock-in is 5 minutes; on-page vote counts update in real-time, and vote counts on profile pages have a cache lag. \$\endgroup\$Mathieu Guindon– Mathieu Guindon2015年01月23日 23:54:47 +00:00Commented Jan 23, 2015 at 23:54
Meme: TS | RSA
Originator: SimonAndréForsberg (TS), rolfl (RSA)
Cultural Height: star-power
Background: The 2nd Monitor is quite a star-happy chatroom. How many of you know that there's only a number of times you can "star" a chat post - a star cap (like the rep cap and the vote cap, a star cap). And just when you run out of stars to sprinkle, someone posts a comment and you're dying to "star" it - no worries, you can put a theoretical star TS, and then it's possible someone applies a real one (RSA: "real star applied").
Meme: Monking
Originator: Morwenn
Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor
Background: A morning greeting to the Monkey doing his monkey-business, in other words: monking
Examples: A small chat search
Variations: Monkernoon, Monkevening, Monknight, and the reversed gniknoM sometimes used when one leaves... Important is only that it begins with Monk... ;)
Also sometimes known as Nibjubg in case your fingers are not where they are supposed to be.
Name: Overly long acronyms
Originator: Simon André Forsberg with this message
Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor
Background: IWNPFETTOLAI (I will not provide further explanation than this overly long acronym itself)
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11\$\begingroup\$ Really, I started those? I'm blaming monkeys... \$\endgroup\$Simon Forsberg– Simon Forsberg2014年03月26日 18:13:41 +00:00Commented Mar 26, 2014 at 18:13
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1\$\begingroup\$ @Simon then prove it and edit ;) \$\endgroup\$Vogel612– Vogel6122014年03月26日 18:22:25 +00:00Commented Mar 26, 2014 at 18:22
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\$\begingroup\$ @Vogel612 aha! He declines. Proof given. \$\endgroup\$user95591– user955912016年05月29日 23:08:22 +00:00Commented May 29, 2016 at 23:08
Meme: LOL - AutoStar
Originator: Mat's Mug / Jamal
Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor
Background: "lol" somehow got targeted at this point here (the first starred lol):
retailcoder: lol (darn, again)
Followed shortly by:
Jamal: lol (don't star that)
And then the tradition was cemented with:
Meme: Yet another linked-list (also nooooooooo)
Originator: skiwi
Cultural Height: The apparent popularity of linked list implementations
Background: The site has received a lot of linked list questions with more coming in over time. It has also led to many duplicate titles and even some duplicate information in answers. Some users even (jokingly?) posted linked list implementations on April Fools Day for review (or just for teh lulz). This was proposed in CR on April 1 by skiwi
Other forms: Yet another fizz-buzz
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8\$\begingroup\$ -1 just because it's related to Linked-Lists (Also related to: nooooooooooo) \$\endgroup\$Simon Forsberg– Simon Forsberg2014年04月25日 20:36:31 +00:00Commented Apr 25, 2014 at 20:36
Meme: [TTQW | TTGH] | TTGTB
Originator: [attributed to] Simon André Forsberg (first TTQW here)
Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor
Background: leaving the chatroom and/or going AFK isn't something we do often. These funky acronyms efficiently communicate that it's either time to quit work (or time to get home), or time to go to bed.
Related: stack-and-drive (don't do that!)
Meme: Exploding bear traps
Originator: Grace Note
Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor, Website Graduation
Background: During the endless talk about Code Review graduation, some were wondering whether Code Review could even graduate some day or was doomed and would close. The answer was as follows:
There really isn't an axe over your heads even now. You'd have to, like, torch everyone on the site and then set exploding bear traps for new visitors in order to drop things low enough to get you guys in any sort of danger zone.
Examples:
ChrisW: exploding bear traps would reduce the number of new users ...
Also:
Mat's Mug: note: torching everyone on the site wouldn't be enough. We'd have to also set exploding bear traps for new visitors!
Or even:
rolfl: That immature side of me really feels that some of the new questions deserve exploding bear-traps...
Simon André Forsberg: @rolfl when in doubt, use exploding bear traps?link
Generally speaking, torching everyone on the site is less used but has the same meaning. But that does not sound half as fun as exploding bear traps.
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6\$\begingroup\$ Lest it be misunderstood, my using "exploding bear traps" in that context was meant to be a "reductio ad absurdum": to cast doubt on the usefulness of a metric which (it seems to me) will penalize a site for having a continuous influx of new users; and not to suggest that new users are unwelcome. \$\endgroup\$ChrisW– ChrisW2014年04月03日 13:08:05 +00:00Commented Apr 3, 2014 at 13:08
Meme: Smoking The Documentation / STM
Originator: Simon, in response to a question by rolfl
Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor
Background: "The documentation." is now a common response to rhetorical question like "What was I smoking when I wrote this?". This is often followed by "STM again?" (Smoking the manual again?).
Meme: Pimping my answer
Originator: rolfl
Cultural Height: Lack of voting on answers
Background: In an effort to increase exposure to under-voted answers, users on The 2nd Monitor started "pimping their answers" for more attention. It can be used for your own answer, answers from others, or even entire questions with good answers.
During the mission this was also referred to as: "killcam"
This meme has been retired by community decision on Nov 25 2014. It is thus considered a veteran meme. Usages may still occur, but the meme has largely vanished from our site.
Meme: We could really use your ammo
Originator: syb0rg
Cultural Height: Side-effects of The Mission?
Related: out-of-ammo and DVLR (daily vote limit reached)
Background: Activity on CR has recently taken a hell of a spike. 40 votes/day isn't enough ammunition to shoot at all the good answers that are thrown at all incoming zombies. Increased activity is awesome.
But basically:
We need your (削除) soul (削除ここまで) votes!
It's a matter of life vs death. We could really use your ammo is serious business.
The bottom line is: we (you & us all) own this site. Let's give it the lovin' it deserves, and make it run on a healthy economy of votes and reputation points, with people putting bounties on good (削除) unanswered questions (削除ここまで) zombies they stumble upon, people coming here on meta and asking questions about the site, where CR is, where it's headed and where it should be. Be Code Review!.
Name: wtf-is-this-shit
Originator: Jamal
Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor
Background: Often used to point out that, even though some code technically works, it is so bad that it deserves a weapons-grade facepalm. It can also be used to describe a "feature" of a language or program that's just a PITA.
It was popularized by Jamal, skiwi, Mat'sMug, ckuhn203 and yours truly. Its origin is linked to the JAVA meme.
Jamal: @Mat'sMug brb synonymizing [JAVA] and wtf-is-this-shit - Jun 30 8:35 PM
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4\$\begingroup\$ A "weapons-grade facepalm"? Is that like a nuke to the face or something? \$\endgroup\$Ethan Bierlein– Ethan Bierlein2015年05月19日 14:11:26 +00:00Commented May 19, 2015 at 14:11
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1\$\begingroup\$ Basically yes :) \$\endgroup\$Phrancis– Phrancis2015年05月19日 14:16:09 +00:00Commented May 19, 2015 at 14:16
Meme: hello / hi / hey there
Originator: Code Reviewers
Cultural height: The 2nd Monitor
Background: Code Reviewers like to greet each other in chat, and most of the time it's just a casual "Hello" then "Hi @someone". But on days of high activity, some unusual things can happen...
heythere
Or...
hello
Or even...
hi
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10\$\begingroup\$ This is not only restricted to the 2nd monitor... in the tavern this is called 'trains' and it happens with.. lots of words \$\endgroup\$Vogel612– Vogel6122014年12月03日 23:01:03 +00:00Commented Dec 3, 2014 at 23:01
This meme has been retired by community decision on Nov 25 2014. It is thus considered a veteran meme. Usages may still occur, but the meme has largely vanished from our site.
Meme: napalmd
Originator: Mat's Mug (/retailcoder /lol.upvote)
Cultural Height: During The Mission
Background: War against zombies sometimes needs more than a single bullet. When CR forces unite to take down a zombie with multiple answers, the term napalmd indicates, in The 2nd Monitor, that all answers (and the question) have been upvoted.
Of course that only happens when all answers deserve a vote!
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\$\begingroup\$ Let us continue this discussion in chat. \$\endgroup\$2014年08月28日 00:52:45 +00:00Commented Aug 28, 2014 at 0:52
Meme: For some values of X
Originator: Probably Phrancis
Cultural Height: The 2nd monitor
Background: It all seems to have started with this message by Phrancis:
I'm a web dev, for some values of web dev. Not many.
Followed 2 days later by Mat's Mug's:
well that works.. for some values of "works"
In the VBA Rubberducking room, followed by a rather explosive usage around the election time, see also the chat search
Meme: JDQ
Originator: rolfl
Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor
Background: JavaDeveloper is one of the users who has posted the most questions on Code Review1 . A JDQ is of course, a JavaDeveloper Question. JavaDeveloper is the first one, and currently the only one, who have received the newly invented Socratic golden badge.
According to a rough SEDE query, at least a total of 9540 reputation has been created on the site thanks to answers to the questions posted by JavaDeveloper.
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3\$\begingroup\$ At this moment @Mat'sMug is the second one who received the badge \$\endgroup\$chillworld– chillworld2016年01月11日 05:58:14 +00:00Commented Jan 11, 2016 at 5:58
Meme: phpoop
Originator: Mat's Mug
Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor
Background: php is frequently used (see "related tags") along with oop. The contraction of the two gave birth to phpoop... only in the chatroom (don't you dare actually create that tag!).
Related: phpoop-security
Meme: German OverengineeringTM
Originator: Vogel612
Cultural Height: Various questions, answers, and chat messages involving @Vogel612
Background:
Programmers like to abstract and engineer things. Sometimes, it just becomes too much.
German OverengineeringTM is exactly what it sounds like, a case of when something has become overly-engineered.
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9\$\begingroup\$ Variations may include Dutch and Swedish overengineering \$\endgroup\$Vogel612– Vogel6122014年09月27日 19:50:41 +00:00Commented Sep 27, 2014 at 19:50
Meme: Friday
Originators: rolfl, SimonForsberg & Jamal
Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor
Background: On Jan 10 2014, the following remark was made in the chat room:
Simon André Forsberg: It's Friday, Friday. Gotta write code on Friday. singing
And then this happened:
omg
Since then, it has been customary for Simon to tease on Friday:
hey @Malachi... you know what day it is?
Shortly followed by the YouTube video, and shortly afterwards by OMG, nooooooooo or noooooo or even "You monster." from others present in the chat room.
Since this meme has begun, some users in the 2nd Monitor have rebelled and begun posting this The Cure video instead.
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2\$\begingroup\$ According to Mat's Mug Friday is the time to refactor every thing and push to production by 5PM. \$\endgroup\$2016年09月10日 16:38:00 +00:00Commented Sep 10, 2016 at 16:38
Meme: @CaptainObvious (the bot formerly known as @StackExchange)
Originator: Unknown/CR chat community
Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor
Background: @CaptainObvious is the ever-vigilant bot/feed of Code Review, faithfully posting new questions, good and bad, to The 2nd Monitor. It is often interjected @CaptainObvious with a comment about the latest question, such as...
Jamal May 5 6:44 PM | @CaptainObvious Could use a better title. This one is kinda useless.
rolfl May 1 3:16 PM | @CaptainObvious Code is obviously broke, Captain Obvious.
skiwi May 1 8:37 PM | @CaptainObvious Strange... replacing a standard utility with his/her own invented implementation and then complaining that the performance is too low.
Simon André Forsberg May 4 4:54 PM | @CaptainObvious Holy mother of over-engineering!
Phrancis Aug 1 6:59 PM | @CaptainObvious Optimizing the title of my question
RubberDuck Jul 28 4:45 AM | lol. Looks like it. Poor @CaptainObvious must get lonely when we're not around.
@CaptainObvious has even been witnessed, some say, to drop by and say Hi! on rare occasions...
Hi
Meme: Stargree, Stargreed
Originator: Skiwi
Cultural Height: A conversation about a duck
Background: Stars shine in CR chat quite fluently, and it sort of means that we either find it funny or that we agree, if this were Facebook they would be Likes
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6\$\begingroup\$ Quack!!!!!!!!!! \$\endgroup\$RubberDuck– RubberDuck2014年08月25日 23:43:01 +00:00Commented Aug 25, 2014 at 23:43
Meme: Malachi'd
Originator: Malachi
Cultural Height: Whenever there is something that is amusing or entertaining and it hasn't been starred yet.
Background: Starring everything that is amusing or entertaining.
Alternate Meaning: Randomly posting a picture or video in chat to break up the monotony of the daily grind at work.
Meme: HOLY CARP
Originator: Malachi
Cultural height: Mostly The 2nd Monitor
Background: Dec 2013
It may or may not have been a typo, but as recorded in The 2nd Monitor originally:
Malachi Dec 11 '13 11:10 PM 105.1k close votes needed on Stackoverflow. holy carp
It has since been used fairly frequently, often in SHOUT CASE, to express surprise or astonishment.
PS: It is also occasionally accompanied by other references to fish like "mackerel" and such.
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9\$\begingroup\$ For the record, "Holy mackerel" is a phrase I've heard in the real world. \$\endgroup\$Nic– Nic2015年06月30日 07:20:20 +00:00Commented Jun 30, 2015 at 7:20
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1\$\begingroup\$ And Holy Halibut \$\endgroup\$Malachi– Malachi2015年07月14日 20:56:47 +00:00Commented Jul 14, 2015 at 20:56
Meme: Using puns in the titles of burninate-request questions on Meta.
Originator: @Jamal
Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor & Meta
Background: Meta is often a serious(削除) ly fun (削除ここまで) place, so any kind of humorous jokes we can slip in here and there go a long way.
@Simon: A burninate-request without a pun? How is that even possible?
Examples:
I don't think this tag [functions] quite well
Is [methodology]'s methodology worthy of burnination?
set [null] = null? (or "Burninate [null]?")
action = ([ternary-operator] == bad_tag ? "burninate" : "keep")
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9\$\begingroup\$ this goes waaaayy back to the early days of MSO.. people making punny titles for burninate requests is as old as burninate-requests \$\endgroup\$Vogel612– Vogel6122015年07月03日 22:40:07 +00:00Commented Jul 3, 2015 at 22:40
Meme: BTW
Originator: [attributed to] Malachi, Mat's Mug and Others
Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor
Background: The many ways of backronymizing btw led to the introduction of the BTW enum:
public enum BTW{
Bananas,
Bring,
Normal,
Waffles,
Wall,
Web,
Win,
Woods,
Work
}
This list does not claim completeness. New interpretations may happen any time
Also somewhat related: TTQW
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\$\begingroup\$ Bananas To Work, Bring To Work, Behind The Wall \$\endgroup\$Malachi– Malachi2014年03月24日 16:26:55 +00:00Commented Mar 24, 2014 at 16:26
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2\$\begingroup\$ Back To Work not Bring To Work....*ugh* \$\endgroup\$Malachi– Malachi2014年07月10日 18:14:38 +00:00Commented Jul 10, 2014 at 18:14
Meme: s/old message/new message/
Originator: Unknown
Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor.
Background:
Often in chat, a user will type something like this:
s/funny/annoying/
In response to what another user said as a "joke edit". Occasionally it is actually used to correct spelling.
The meme comes from GNU's SED.
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5\$\begingroup\$ For the record, it's also used in other chatrooms. \$\endgroup\$Morwenn– Morwenn2015年08月11日 12:00:31 +00:00Commented Aug 11, 2015 at 12:00
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\$\begingroup\$ It certainly pre-dates the GNU implementation of sed - used throughout Usenet in the 1980s IIRC. \$\endgroup\$Toby Speight– Toby Speight2024年09月27日 15:46:56 +00:00Commented Sep 27, 2024 at 15:46
This meme has been retired by both community decision and Simon's decision on the 1/11/2015. It is thus considered a veteran meme. Usages may still occur, but the meme has largely vanished from our site.
Meme: "INTERRUPT"
Originator: Possibly @EthanBierlein
Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor.
Background:
Whenever Duga posts the message:
RELOAD!
in chat, a user might say:
INTERRUPT!
@Mat'sMug: it's a race-duga-to-chat thing
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4\$\begingroup\$ Retired, as @Duga now posts only one message at RELOAD time. Retired as of November 2, 2015. \$\endgroup\$user34073– user340732015年11月02日 00:11:01 +00:00Commented Nov 2, 2015 at 0:11