#hopping on the tumblr version of the tiktok trend

[jamietarttsnorthernattitude]

We’re fanfiction writers, of course:

We’re going to use song lyrics as titles.

We’re going to check for comments 30 seconds after we post something.

We’re going to have more WIPs than days of the month.

We’re going to use any excuse to post snippets.

We’re going to use ask box games to procrastinate.

We’re going to hype up our writer friends.

We’re going to scream, cry and throw up reading our friends’ work.

#hopping on the tumblr version of the tiktok trend #feel free to add ones I missed #writing #writing things #writers #pinned post

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

The slang simp appeared to come out of nowhere in 2019–20. It’s popularly claimed that the internet slang simp is an acronym for “Suckers Idolizing Mediocre Pussy.” But, as usual, the story of simp isn’t so simple. The internet teen slang simp, as is true of many slang terms that go mainstream, appears to come directly from Black hip-hop slang—and it’s older than you may think. Hip-hop lyrics from the late 1980s and 1990s were already using simp as an insult for a men perceived as too subservient to a woman. For instance, on Ice-T’s 1987 “Our Most Requested Record [Long Version],” DJ Evil E raps: “Taking out all simps and suckers …” Urban Dictionary entries in the early 2000–2010s also use simp in this way, with some of them maintaining that simp is a blend of sissy and pimp. Then there’s simp as a short form of simpleton (a fool), which was first recorded all the way back in the early 1900s. The relationship between the historic and contemporary slang simp is unclear, but we can’t rule out connections—or at least associations—between the two terms

Editorial essay on Dictionary.com: Where does simp come from?

I looked it up because of this Tumblr post: we have forgotten what simp really means..

Since I realized I never knew what it meant in the first place, so I couldn’t have forgotten it. And looking up words I’m not sure of has been a nervous habit since my age was still in the single digits.

Just by the look of it, I thought it was a shortening, and noun-ifying of the word simper / simpering (a goofy, put-on smile).

I’m disappointed to find out it’s another creation of toxic masculinity, built on the assumption that the only reason a man would be nice to women is because he hopes to get sex out the exchange. It is true that men sometimes put on a “nice guy” persona in expectation of sex. But “simp” isn’t mocking that sense of entitlement. It’s mocking the act of being considerate.

Oh, Well.

I’m also amused that this essay, about a slang trend that started less than nine months ago, on TikTok, is written in the same tone that a historian might take, writing about the linguistic habits of 15th-Century candle makers.

#words #vocabulary #stream of consciousness #my brain follows words down rabbit holes #queue