Edgelord
{{Short description|Attention-seeking extremist}}
{{Use DMY dates |date=June 2022}}
{{Wikt}}
An edgelord is someone, typically on the Internet, who tries to impress or shock by posting exaggerated opinions such as nihilism or extremist views.{{r|WebsterDict|Jeannerod|Nilan|Poole}}
According to the Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, the first known usage with this meaning was in 2015.{{r|WebsterDict}} It was added to Webster's in September 2023.{{r|WebsterDict}} Webster gave the following example:{{quote|We decided to watch It's A Wonderful Life and my dad said, "Every year I wait for Jimmy Stewart to jump off that bridge but he never does it"—merry Xmas from the original edgelord.{{r|WebsterPlay}}}}
Edgelords were characterised by author and journalist Rachel Monroe in her account of criminal behaviour, Savage Appetites:
{{quote|...internet cynics lumped the online Nazis together with the serial killer fetishists and the dumbest goths and dismissed them all as edgelords: kids who tried to be scary online. I thought of most of these edgelords as basement-dwellers, pale faces lit by the glow of their computer screen, puffing themselves up with nihilism. An edgelord was a scrawny guy with a LARP-y vibe, possibly wearing a cloak, dreaming of omnipotence. Or a girl with excessive eyeliner and lots of Tumblr posts about self-harm. The disturbing content posted by edgelords was undermined by its predictability...{{r|Monroe}}}}
It is frequently associated with the forum site 4chan.{{r|Goldsmith}}{{r|Bissell}}{{r|McHugh}} The renegade rhetoric of the edgelord is often intentionally used by the far-right to troll leftist targets.{{r|Nilan}}
See also
{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
{{div col end}}
References
{{reflist |refs=
{{Cite web |title=Edgelord (noun) |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/edgelord |work=Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary |publisher=Merriam-Webster |date=September 2023 }}
{{Cite book |last=Nilan |first=Pam |page=4 |title=Young People and the Far Right |date=2021-05-10 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-981-16-1811-6 |language=en}}
{{Cite book |last=Poole |first=Steven |author-link=Steven Poole |chapter=Edgelord |title=A Word for Every Day of the Year |date=2019-10-03 |publisher=Quercus |isbn=978-1-78747-859-6 |language=en}}
{{Cite book |title=Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime and Obsession |page=205 |first1=Rachel |last1=Monroe |author-link=Rachel Monroe |year=2020 |isbn=9781501188893 |publisher=Scribner}}
{{Cite web |title=Words We're Watching: Doing the Work of the 'Edgelord' |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/what-is-an-edgelord-slang-definition-words-were-watching |work=Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary |publisher=Merriam-Webster}}
{{Cite book |title=Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/rereadingamerica0000unse_o4i6/page/292/mode/2up?q=edgelord |chapter=Zoë and the trolls |publisher=Bedford/St. Martins Press |location=Boston, MA |last1=Goldsmith |first1=Kenneth |author-link=Kenneth Goldsmith |editor1-last=Colombo |editor1-first=Gary |year=2019 |page=293 |isbn=9781319056360}}
{{Cite magazine |first1=Tom |last1=Bissell |author-link=Tom Bissell |date=January 5, 2021 |title=The Uneasy Afterlife of 'A Confederacy of Dunces' |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/the-uneasy-afterlife-of-a-confederacy-of-dunces |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date=July 21, 2022}}
{{Cite web |url=https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2022/04/26/why-progressives-hate-elon-musk-00027933 |title=Why progressives hate Elon Musk |work=Politico |first1=Calder |last1=McHugh |date=April 26, 2022 |access-date=July 21, 2022}}
}}
{{Internet slang}}