Doomslang

 Read: https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/a60295595/doomslang-trend/

Doomslang also takes different forms depending on your politics. Yee-Lum Mak, a rhetoric scholar and the author of Other-Wordly, pointed out that she mostly hears doomslang among highly educated folks under 35 from “reasonably comfortable backgrounds.” She noted the left-leaning tint to much of this language—e.g., “You know how it is in our neoliberal dystopia” or “How are you holding up under late-stage capitalism?” Mak said that some speakers might see it as “politically irresponsible” not to acknowledge the state of the world, even casually. Doomslang could serve as “a small act of resistance to groups they oppose, like climate change deniers or politicians averse to climate legislation.”

But not every doomslanger is in Mak’s algorithm. Compare progressive speakers’ jokes about the brain-eating zombie virus that is Fox News to the alt-right’s “wojak” and “doomer” memes. Originating on 4chan, wojak is a simple outlined sketch of a man, symbolizing melancholy and loneliness. Its cousin, doomer, depicts the same character beanie-clad and smoking a cigarette. According to The Atlantic reporter Kaitlyn Tiffany, the doomer meme represents young men who “are no longer pursuing friendships or relationships, and get no joy from anything because they know that the world is coming to an end.”