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Websites, products, technology, people, media, games, memes, slang and timeline events, all with sources.
The forums that cost ten bucks
Something Awful's forums, where an account cost $9.95, were one of the most influential communities on the 2010 internet. Goons popularised Let's Play videos, ran early Minecraft servers and produced...
vBulletin, phpBB, signatures, post counts and the ban hammer
Before Reddit and Discord ate them, forums were where the internet talked in 2010: vBulletin and phpBB boards for every hobby, game and band, with avatars, signature images, post counts, moderators...
China's search engine, after Google walked away
Baidu was already the dominant search engine in China when Google stopped censoring google.cn in March 2010 and redirected users to Hong Kong. Baidu's share of Chinese searches climbed past three...
A black border, a photo, a word in serif, and a cruel caption
Demotivational posters parodied corporate motivational posters: a photo in a black frame, a one-word title and a deflating caption. Despair.com started the joke in 1998, and by 2010 the format was...
Sunglasses drop, argument over
The "Deal With It" GIF, a pair of pixel sunglasses sliding onto a face, originated on the Something Awful forums in 2010 and became the standard way to end an argument on Reddit and Tumblr. It was...
Do not feed the trolls
Trolling, provoking people online for amusement, was the internet's defining pastime in 2010, from YouTube comment wars to 4chan raids to Trollface. "Don't feed the trolls", "u mad?" and "problem?"...
A Java game sold from a one-man website, before it ruled the world
In 2010 Minecraft was an alpha you bought for about 10 euros from Markus "Notch" Persson's website and played in a Java window. Survival mode had arrived in 2009, Alpha began on 30 June 2010, and...
tl;dr: Too long; didn't read. A complaint about a long post, or a one-line summary placed at the end of one. Example: "tl;dr Digg v4 sucks, we're all on Reddit now"
The blockbuster of 2010, and the BWONG that launched a thousand trailers
Christopher Nolan's Inception, released in July 2010, was the year's most discussed film online: forums argued about the spinning top, the trailer's booming brass note became the Inception BWONG...
The series finale the internet argued about for weeks
Lost ended on 23 May 2010 with a two-and-a-half-hour finale watched by about 13.5 million Americans and dissected on forums, Twitter and recap blogs for weeks. The show's six seasons had been the...
Russia's Facebook, with a music library
VKontakte (VK) was the dominant social network across Russia and the former Soviet states in 2010. Its interface closely resembled early Facebook, but it let users upload and stream music and video...
Where MySpace and forum images lived
Photobucket hosted the images that people hot-linked into MySpace profiles, forum signatures and eBay listings. In 2010 it was one of the most-visited image hosts in the United States, quietly...
Wait 60 seconds, then download
RapidShare was the file locker of the late 2000s: paste a link, wait through a countdown, download one file at a time unless you paid for premium. In 2010 it was still among the most-visited sites on...
Reaction GIFs, GIF sets and Tumblr's looping economy
Animated GIFs, a 1990s relic, came roaring back in 2010 thanks to Tumblr's reblog culture: reaction GIFs from TV shows, GIF sets of scenes, and glitter graphics ironically revived. With no native...
From Something Awful screenshots to YouTube commentary
Let's Plays, playing a game while narrating it, began as screenshot threads on Something Awful and became a YouTube video genre by 2010, with Minecraft and horror games like Amnesia driving a boom...
A taunt implying the other person is angry, often paired with Trollface.
u mad?: A taunt implying the other person is angry, often paired with Trollface. Example: "u mad bro?"
Sarcastic dismissal of a boring or pointless post.
cool story bro: Sarcastic dismissal of a boring or pointless post. Example: "cool story bro"
A demand for proof of a claim made online.
pics or it didn't happen: A demand for proof of a claim made online. Example: "you met Bieber? pics or it didn't happen"
Posting in a forum thread to push it back to the top of the list.
bump: Posting in a forum thread to push it back to the top of the list. Example: "bump, still looking for a Halo: Reach group"
Reviving a long-dead forum thread, usually frowned upon.
necro: Reviving a long-dead forum thread, usually frowned upon. Example: "nice necro, this thread is from 2007"
The signature image or text under every forum post, often an animated banner.
sig: The signature image or text under every forum post, often an animated banner. Example: "nice sig, is that from your guild?"
A moderator's power to ban users, imagined as a hammer.
banhammer: A moderator's power to ban users, imagined as a hammer. Example: "the mods brought out the banhammer"
Send me a private message on the forum.
PM me: Send me a private message on the forum. Example: "PM me for the torrent link"
Shaking my head; disappointment in three letters, rising on Twitter in 2010.
smh: Shaking my head; disappointment in three letters, rising on Twitter in 2010. Example: "AT&T killed unlimited data. smh"
The Game: A mind game everyone is playing; thinking about it means you just lost. Posting "I lost the game" made everyone else lose. Example: "I just lost the game"
About 13.5 million Americans watched The End, and the internet argued about it for weeks on forums, Twitter and recap blogs.
Markus Persson's Minecraft moved from Infdev to Alpha, sold from his website for about 10 euros, and began its word-of-mouth climb through forums and YouTube.
Verified Supported Editorial Labels show how well each record is documented; open any result for its sources.
