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Glossary of Avocado-Specific Terms

Please post your suggestions for terms and definitions to help make this thread more accurate and comprehensive!

  • Austin Freaks A post from early on in the Avocado’s history (when it was called the ‘AVClub After Dark’) asked if there were any ‘Austin freaks’ around, inadvertently spawning an unofficial community nickname ‘Home of the Austin Freaks’
  • The AVClub Also known as ‘The Mothership’ and the ‘Old Country.’ A spin-off from the Onion, this pop culture website fostered the growth of a snarky, Simpsons quote-obsessed community of weirdos in the comment sections below their articles
  • The AVClub After Dark This earlier name for the Avocado’s disqus community emphasized that it was a spin-off from the AVClub that catered to its commenting community. The name for the ‘Avocado’ began as a acronym shorthand ‘AVCAD’ which transitioned into ‘AVoCADo’
  • The Avocado The name of this website. Users are various known as Avocados/Avocadians/Avocadoans/Guacs; “The Avocado” A reply, usually made in bold or italic text, to a comment describing something that the commenter who is replying thinks could also apply to describing the website as a whole. Often humorously derogative
  • Book Nook Our weekly thread to discuss what you have been reading. Posted every Wednesday
  • Bork The perpetual breakage of Disqus which can result in missing notifications, upvotes, duplicate posts, and an assortment of other problems
  • CSC Comic Strip Club, a daily thread to celebrate and/or mock syndicated comic strips.
  • Dad’s Casa A totally real sitcom you don’t remember. It starred Tim Allen and his zany hi-jinks. Ran for about 10 seasons (It’s not real. That’s the whole thing)
  • Dawes/”The Laurel Canyon Sound” A meme gently mocking the AVClub (after they had over-prominently featured the rock band ‘Dawes’) for their promotion of paid content. It became one of the most enduring AVClub memes. See also: Black Label Hormel Bacon, Duracell
  • Day Thread Fighter of the Night Thread. The 12 hour daily Open Thread, posted at 11am EST
  • The Dissolve (a.k.a. “The Ruins of the Dissolve”) A short-lived, fondly remembered movie review site that employed several former members of the AV Club professional staff before folding in 2016
  • Euro Best Friends Club The time of day where the Open Thread is mostly populated by European Avocados, who may insult each other constantly but all secretly love each other. If you are awake and posting during this time, no matter where you are, then you my friend are in the club!
  • Flags A favourite Avocado topic to spiral upon
  • Flounce To dramatically and publicly announce your exit from the site. No one ever sticks the Flounce
  • Frinkiac/Morbotron Websites that allow users to create GIFs of Simpsons/Futurama episodes
  • Garbage Ape A character in the long-running Heathcliff comic strip, the Garbage Ape, a kind of Santa Claus figure for its universe of dumpster diving cats who brings garbage instead of presents, was introduced to the Avocado in 2017 and quickly caught on due (at least initially) to the utter inexplicability of the character’s existence
  • Good FryDay The annual day where everyone (only if you want to, of course) changes their avatar to Fry from Futurama
  • Giftmas A yearly Secret Santa Avocado-wide gift exchange
  • Giz The appropriate response to any post referring to cooked meals or incoming fast food delivery
  • Hello friends, Deadpool movie Spambot posts on the old Avocado site often had brief text placed above an active link to make the posts ever so slightly less suspicious
  • Hot Take Distinct from the traditional definition of a ‘hot take,’ defined as a clickbait argument argued for the sake of contrariness, here ‘hot take’ refers to a user’s prefacing a potentially controversial opinion by declaring it to be controversial
  • Hyperbeam The website used for special community screenings of films
  • Identify This GIF! A weekly game posted on Friday afternoons where you can post GIFs from films, television shows, music videos and computer games, and guess the ones others post
  • Kinja The commenting system that replaced the Disqus commenting system on the AVClub during the Summer of 2017, prompting an exodus of the AVClub’s commenting community
  • Kinjapocalpyse The event whereby the Kinja commenting system replaced the disqus commenting system on the AVClub, causing mass consternation
  • Langoliers Mouth-like creatures from a Steven King novella that feed off of time. A GIF featuring these creatures is sometimes posted at the end of Night/Day Threads to help indicate that people should move on to the new Open Thread
  • Leader Beans The Avocado moderating team, a group of volunteers who try to keep the peace
  • Manimal Verb; to uncouthly upvote your own comments
  • Mayor McSquirrel A rule, often invoked in the Politics Thread, not to directly threaten harm to any group or individual
  • Meme Spiral A behavioral pattern in response to a popular comment, meme, or incident (such as an unfortunate typo) where commenters repeatedly post things either related to the topic, riffing off of the topic, or (if sufficiently annoyed) complaining that people should stop talking about it
  • NOCAYB An acronym for ‘No One Cares About Your Boner,’ the phrase is sometimes posted in a reply to a comment declaring an outsized sexual interest in a celebrity or topic, and is intended to nudge commenters questioning whether such comments are always appropriate or welcome
  • Night Thread The 12 hour daily Open Thread, posted at 11pm EST; “Night Thread!” A (usually joking) exhortation made in reply in order to ask a commenter to save risqué material or topic for the Night Thread, traditionally associated with more frank and open discussion due to most of the Avocado’s population not being at work when it posts
  • Open Thread Also known as OT. A fast-moving thread on nearly any topic under the Sun where posters can talk about whatever comes to mind (political discussion excepted) and post funny images and GIFs
  • Passersby Were Amazed at the Unusual Amount of Blood A jokingly disturbing “lorem ipsum” (or placeholder text) expression used to fill white space in the old days of the Onion/AV Club print edition
  • Pet Thread The Avocado loves our pets, and there is a weekly thread posted every Saturday to post pictures of them
  • The Pits An annual Avocado Award Ceremony
  • Politics Thread A spin-off of the Open Thread, mostly focused on political debate and discussion; “Politics Thread!” A humorous exhortation to take any politics discussion to the correct thread
  • Popcorn Children A humorous mispronunciation of “popcorn chicken” which has been lovingly adopted by all
  • Rabbit A website where users can watch videos together and chat in text boxes
  • /Serious A disclaimer to any post where you would prefer no comedic or sarcastic replies
  • Shelfie A photograph of your book or pop-culture memorabilia shelves
  • “Shut the Hell up!” Correct response to anyone who expresses sincere love or appreciation for the community
  • Sleffo Slang for ‘selfie.’ A self-portrait photograph
  • Sex Clams A newspaper headline, intended to say ‘Party Divided over Sex Claims’ tragically misspelled a key word in their headline. News articles about this headline in the Politics Thread were posted and reposted so often that the term became Avocado shorthand for any news story, tweet, cartoon, or other type of post that has already been shared on the site
  • Shitpost Originally referring to a specifically kind of post (i.e. “I am pooping.”) that added comparatively little to Open Thread discussion by providing no objective reason why anyone else other than the person who posted it would necessarily find it interesting, shitposting came to be jokingly associated with all content posted on the Open Threads
  • Snubbies A tournament-style voting thread intended to provoke discussion about worthy movies snubbed by the Academy Awards
  • Stride Mother A reference to a subtype of spambot post. A word error in copied or substituted text in a spambot post inspired this memorable meme
  • Sunday Kreb A photograph of a crab to brighten up the slow hours of the Open Thread early on Sunday mornings
  • Two Things A Simpsons quote used in response to any question with multiple options indicate a false dichotomy. Short for “It can be two things!” a quote by Mayor Quimby upon learning the day he had chosen to be ‘Flaming Moe’s Day’ was already Veteran’s Day. Sometimes used in mock defensiveness
  • Vomit The worst spiral in site history, which brought shame upon us all
  • Werewolf A popular mafia-style party game