I sometimes find myself confused by how many weird concepts and phrases get used commonly on this site, especially ones that are either internet-specific or scholarly in origin, so I thought just for fun I'd try to draft up a cheat-sheet of some of those terms I've seen used here a lot and let other people help with what I've missed. I figured this may be good as a refresher or a way to learn new ones. Here we go!
Bechdel-Wallace Test (commonly called the Bechdel Test): a frequently-used "lowest bar" for representation of women in a work of fiction, where a passing work must include two woman characters that have a conversation that isn't about a man. Developed as a joke by Liz Wallace and Alison Bechdel as a criticism for the lack of lesbian representation in cinema
Bidoof's Law: states that the kinds of guys that make insane posts about moral degeneracy on social media are often "openly and shamelessly addicted to hentai". Named for infamous tumblr user 'bidoof', who hopefully won't find this post
Chekhov's Gun: literary trope that suggests that one should not draw attention to specific details unless those details will be important to the story; the original example was that a play featuring a gun on a mantle in the first act must have that gun fired by the final act. Named for Anton Chekhov, who is not the guy from Star Trek
dril: infamous Twitter user who has irrevocably helped shape internet vernacular; it's commonly said that "there's always a dril tweet" for any given situation. Real name is [REDACTED]
Enshittification: economic pattern where companies (particularly ones in the tech sector) provide an excellent service at a loss in order to gather a userbase, then gradually worsen their product to attempt to gain a profit, all while hoping the userbase will continue using the service out of familiarity; inevitably, this results in the service's abandonment and death. Coined by Cory Doctorow
Godwin's Law: joke theorem that suggests that the longer an internet argument goes on, the more likely someone will mention the Nazis. Internet tradition typically follows the belief that, should an heated debate result in someone comparing the other party to a Nazi, and the debate otherwise has absolutely nothing to do with Nazis/fascism, that person has lost the debate entirely. Coined by Mike Godwin
Hanlon's Razor: a variation on Occam's Razor (see below) that suggests that one should assume stupidity rather than malice as a driving force behind someone's actions. Named for Robert J. Hanlon, who was probably kidding
Milkshake duck: phrase used to indicate a person who achieved brief popularity on the internet only to turn out to hold bigoted opinions of some kind. Coined by Twitter user "pixelatedboat"
Murphy's Law: suggests that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Coined by Nathan A. Murphy Jr while working on a rocket sled project
Occam's Razor: the simplest solution to a problem is often the correct one. Named for William of Ockham
Pavlov's Bell: also called Pavlov's Dog, this is a reference to a classic experiment that involves linking rewards with an unrelated external stimuli, as a form of mental conditioning. Developed by Ivan Pavlov
Poe's Law: suggests that internet satire without clear intent is indistinguishable from sincere belief to an outside observer. Named for Nathan Poe
Prisoner's Dilemma: philosophical conundrum where two individuals that cannot communicate must choose to either betray one another or stay loyal: both staying loyal ensured minimal punishment, one betraying the other results in the traitor going unpunished and the loyalist receiving maximum punishment, and both betraying results in both receiving maximum punishment
Problematic fave: phrase originating on Tumblr that typically indicates a person who remains popular despite their unpleasant behavior
Rule 34: old internet saying that, if something exists, somebody somewhere has drawn pornographic content of it
Rule 63: old internet saying that, if a character exists, somebody has drawn a gender-bent version of them
Schrödinger's Cat: a reference to a thought experiment in quantum physics involving uncertainty of a situation that cannot be resolved without direct observation. Developed by Anton Schrödinger
Skitt's Law: an internet-specific variation of Muphry's Law (not a typo), which states that any post attempting to correct the grammar or spelling of a previous post will invariably include a grammatical or spelling mistake itself. Named for Usenet user "Skitt"
Trolley Problem: philosophical conundrum involving a binary choice between doing nothing and allowing multiple people to die, or to actively choose to allow a single different person to die
Wheaton's Law: a revisal of the classical Golden Rule for the internet age, which simply states "don't be a dick". Popularized by Wil Wheaton (yeah, he's pretty cool)
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