This glossary exists because the language of now moves faster than institutions can track it. By the time academics write papers about clipfarming or ragebaiting, twelve new engagement tactics have already emerged. Marketers might co-opt “core” aesthetics, but they’ll never capture what corecore actually means.
This glossary maps the infrastructure of how meaning moves online: the algorithmic physics that rewards outrage over nuance, the economic incentives that turn conversations into content farms, and the cognitive shortcuts we’ve developed to cope with information overload. They capture both the tactics creators use to game platforms and the cultural mutations that happen when everyone becomes a broadcaster.
chat
As the stream of chat messages in popular streamers on platforms like Twitch, Kick or YouTube often moves so fast, it makes it hard to read the screen names before the messages. You kind of filter them out to keep up with the speed at which the messages appear. This way, the many voices become one hivemind and is revered by streamers as one entity: chat. When they single out a specific person, it will be a “chatter”. A streamer might ask “chat, is this real?” to get a quick fact-check. As a consequence, this phrase has been adopted by young people to express their disbelief in situations they find themselves in, even when they are not on a livestream or even streamers themselves. Complicating matters, non-native English speakers often call ChatGPT simply “chat” (mishearing “GPT”), accidentally merging the AI assistant with Twitch collective consciousness in the cultural vocabulary.
clipfarming
Clipfarming is the practice of chopping up long podcasts, streams, or interviews into bite-sized viral clips designed to blow up on TikTok, Reels, and YouTube Shorts. Born around 2020, when everyone realised short-form video was eating the internet, it involves hunting for the spiciest 30-second moments and repackaging them as standalone content. The problem? These clips often strip away all context, turning nuanced hour-long conversations into misleading soundbites that spread like wildfire. Worse, it’s created a perverse incentive where hosts now deliberately say outrageous things just to generate clip-worthy moments, prioritising virality over actual substance.
cognitive offloading
The practice of using external tools or systems to handle mental tasks that would otherwise require internal memory or reasoning. Where previous generations offloaded memory to notebooks and navigation to maps, we now hand off entire cognitive processes to AI systems: drafting our writing, generating ideas, and retrieving knowledge on demand. This expands what individuals can accomplish, but also raises questions about cognitive dependency – if AI handles more and more of our reasoning, do we gradually lose the ability to think through hard problems on our own?
corecore
Associated with a particular practice of arranging moving-images that has emerged through social media apps like TikTok, taking its name from the -corification of aesthetics (e.g., cottagecore). It is characterized by rapid, dissonant montages of footage – news clips, film scenes, nature imagery, advertisements, memes – stitched together to evoke emotional disorientation. Unlike other “core” aesthetics that organize around a coherent vibe or subculture, corecore is deliberately fragmented and hard to define, mirroring the experience of existing online in an age of infinite, context-collapsed content. It often carries an implicit critique of late capitalism, media saturation, and the numbness that comes from consuming too much too fast.
For You
The For You Page, or the For You model, refers to a feed that consists of content from any creator that the platform’s algorithm determined you will probably engage with. Where the “algorithmic feed” which predated it only reshuffles the order of the content of accounts and pages you follow, the For You feed throws content in there from ones you don’t follow. The For You Page was made popular by TikTok, where it is the main feed, the one you immediately see when you open the app. Platforms like Instagram and YouTube followed with similar feeds for short-form videos in 2020 with Reels and Shorts. Twitter introduced a For You feed in 2023.
hikikomori
Traditionally defined as a form of pathological social withdrawal marked by extreme social isolation in one’s home, leading to significant functional impairment or distress. However, shifts in work and study habits since COVID-19 have introduced the concept of ‘non-pathological hikikomori’ to describe individuals who are isolated at home but do not experience functional impairment or distress. Hikikomori are frequent users of the internet and social media, which raises interesting questions regarding the relationship between social withdrawal and physical withdrawal.
lowkenuinely
Combination of “lowkey” and “genuinely”. Might have started out as in-crowd hyperonline joke slang, but got adopted by people actually using it. Also see “lowkirkenuinely”,
lowkirkenuinely
Version of “lowkenuinely” with “Kirk” inserted. After the assassination of the US Christian nationalist influencer Charlie Kirk, people have been adding his face and last name into any and every place as a means to mock him and dilute his legacy.
monetisation
On certain social media/video platforms, posts can be “monetised”, meaning the creator gets a share of the ad revenue of the platform. To qualify for this, the creator and the post usually need to meet terms like a minimum amount of followers and a minimum amount of views or engagement with the post. For certain platforms, like TikTok and Twitter, for example, monetisation is only available for creators based in select countries. And on platforms like YouTube videos can be “demonetised”, disqualified for monetisation, when they contain copyrighted material, language that’s deemed inappropriate or harmful content.
neo-orality (or new orality)
The return to speech-based, conversational communication styles in digital spaces after decades of online text dominance. Driven by voice notes, audio messages, podcasts, social audio apps (Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces), and video platforms prioritising talking-head content, neo-orality marks a shift from carefully composed written text back to the spontaneity and intimacy of spoken language. It’s more stream-of-consciousness, more parasocial, more personality-driven, with all the messiness of “ums”, tangents, and tonal nuance that text editing used to strip away. Some theorists suggest this shift echoes pre-literate oral cultures, where information circulated through speech rather than writing.
nkɔmɔ
A Ghanaian word for audio media meaning “going deep” or “deeply listening”. The term describes a mode of engaged, immersive listening that goes beyond passive consumption, emphasising depth of attention and connection with sound. In the context of digital culture, nkɔmɔ offers a framework for understanding podcasting and audio-based media as forms that invite sustained, contemplative engagement rather than quick scrolling or surface-level interaction.
post-discursive web
A theoretical framework describing online spaces where communication has moved beyond text-based argumentation and rational discourse. In the post-discursive web, meaning is increasingly conveyed through affective signals (vibes, aesthetics, memes, algorithmic recommendations, and audiovisual fragments) rather than through linear, logical exchange of ideas. This shift reflects how platforms prioritise engagement and emotional resonance over coherent debate, fundamentally changing how information circulates and how collective understanding is formed.
ragebaiting
Posting something deliberately provocative or inflammatory, often ironically, with the intention to piss people off as an engagement tactic. When people respond with angry comments or replies, they’ve fallen for it, and those reactions boost the post’s ranking in the algorithm. Ragebaiting exploits platform mechanics that reward any engagement, regardless of sentiment, turning outrage into algorithmic currency and making anger a more valuable response than indifference.
slop
Low-quality content with little meaning or value. Today, the term is mostly used for generative AI images (AI slop) but it predates this usage and can describe anything from ASMR videos to MCU movies to Buzzfeed listicles. It has become a suffix used to diminish any content you don’t like: Your Shein shirt? That’s fast fashion slop. The Salsa Shop bowl at the train station? Bowlslop. The endgame of this was probably reached last year when a 4chan user wrote: “this is just qualityslop. You only like it because it’s good. The term originated from “goyslop” on 4chan’s /pol/, an antisemitic term for low-quality food supposedly used to weaken non-Jews, which eventually detached from its far-right context and evolved into the general “thing+slop” format used today.
vagueposting
Posting content online that deliberately leaves out key information, making it only legible for those already in the know. Posting like this has become a strategy for engagement, as those in the know will feel validated and like the post, whereas people who don’t get it often ask for an explanation in the comments or replies, boosting the post in the algorithm. Also see “ragebaiting”.