Let’s look at ten Internet terms you may or may not know. I mean, it’s difficult to naviagate a place when you don’t speak the language, right? Let’s look at some words first then we’ll look at some acronyms.
Words
- Hashtag – A hashtag is any word that has a pound sign (#) in front of it. This is an awesome search tool and is used often on Social Media. For instance, #latergram means you are posting a picture on Instagram some time after you originally took it. If you went to Instagram (for example) and searched #latergram, you’d see all the photos people tagged with that hashtag.
- Troll – When people purposely leave comments online meant to make others angry, we call them a troll. Often, their only purpose is to inflame arguments between others. If you ever encounter this type of person, be sure to ignore or block them. The last thing you want to do is interact with them.
- Bae – Bae is actually a shortened version of Babe which is a different version of Baby.
- Photobomb – This word usually comes into play referencing a selfie. It involves someone (or some animal) showing up – either intentially or by accident – in a picture you took. Sometimes people do it for fun or even to anger the person taking the picture. Sometimes, it’s difficult to decide who is photobombing who as in THIS example.
- Meme – A meme is text or a video or an image that is modified to be humorous or to make a point. (Meme is pronounced as if it was spelled “Meem.”) You can find an example of a meme at the very bottom of my post from December of 2019 – InstaFun!
Acronyms
- IRL – I have lots of friends. However, not all of them are friends IRL. What? Let me rephrase. However, not all of them are friends in real life. Get it? IRL means “in real life.”
- DM – We get asked about this one often. DM stands for Direct Message. On some Social Media sites, you can send a message directly to a person so that others can’t read it. Note: some sites won’t allow you to send a DM unless the other person follows you or is your friend.
- FTW – Do you ever high-five someone when you score a “win?” Online, when we’re enthustatic about something going our way, we often use FTW – for the win!
- FAQ – This is an acronym we use almost every day in the technical world. You hear a tech say, “Check our FAQs before you call us!” When we have the same question asked over and over, we put it and its answer in the Frequently Asked Questions section of our site.
- NSFW – Are you at work and thinking about looking at something someone sent you that your boss might not appreciate? Hopefully, if that’s the case, the person sending marked it NSFW. These four letters stand for “Not safe for work.” By the way, shame on you! Get back to work! 😂
Loved the animal photobombs! Had to view all of them before I could move on! 😁
Joy…I understand – I’m a big animal fan myself!
Wow I loved this blog!!! I answered so many questions I’ve had for a while . I had to go view every reference before moving on . I’m sending this to many of my friends.
Question: how do you use DM?
Marie-Jeanne…Again, I appreciate your kind comment! As for using DM, it’s the Microsoft answer – it depends! LOL It depends on the app that you’re in – Facebook, Instgram, etc. Your question will be a good subject for a future blog post – next week some time. Thanks.