In Jokes

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When you have an eight-year-old community of over 50,000 members and many more readers, you build up a good amount of common history and in-jokes. Some ubiquitous injokes, alphabetized for the sake of some kind of order, are:

  • "." (The Period) - The reason people place a period as the sole content of their comment is usually to denote a moment of silence. Not really a joke, but certainly a bit of MeFi slang.
  • ___Filter. Not a reference to the multiple other MeFi-workalike or MeFi-related websites, but a reference to MetaFilter being taken over by a single topic. Lately this has been IraqFilter, but more generally it's a reflection of the NewsFilter problem.
  • [NOT -IST] Editorial note, after stating your honest views, that you are not something-ist, usually not racist. The original usage by stavrosthewonderchicken in this MetaTalk comment used paretheses, not square brackets. Don't miss his epic comment on Korean culture directly above the InJoke inspiring one linked here.
  • "1) Brief idea... 2) ????.... 3) Profit": Implies that a business plan or idea is badly thought out. The in-joke seems to have moved over from SlashDot. Derived from the Underpants Gnomes episode of South Park.
  • Acronyms. MetaFilter specific acronyms you should know.
  • "administrator! please hope me!!!" Sometimes used by older MeFi members in a time of need; see original post
  • "I just don't know." Pops up occasionally in threads, seemingly out of context. It is almost never commented on. Who started it? I just_dont_know.
  • "Is this 'X' something you need a Y to have heard of?" Originated in this post by mischief, when he asserted that he didn't know who Janeane Garofalo was because he didn't own a television.
  • "Metafilters's own xxxx". Any user who is famous in any way.
  • Metageist - two consecutive Ask MetaFilter threads that, while not identical, are similar enough in subject to be notable.
  • Mushrooms (a reference to an incredibly contentious, lengthy, and ultimately silly undeleted thread)
  • "Nader Nader Nader". During the 2000 US Presidential race, MetaFilter was inundated with threads discussing Ralph Nader's third-party candidacy, though he never drew more than single-digit support in polls. The InJoke today would probably be "NaderFilter". Also see DeanFilter.
  • Pancakes (people tend to post things like "who here likes pancakes?" when they find a post stupid)
  • Pepsi Blue (posts that appear to be an advertising shill)
  • Plate Of Beans During intense discussions on MetaFilter, users are sometimes accused of overthinking a plate of beans.
  • Plo Chops - just say it in an Arnold Schwarznegger accent. (Blow Jobs)
  • Ponies (people tend to ask for ponies on MeTa whilst asking for particularly improbable feature requests)
  • quoting SCIENCE can be noted in an effort to make feigned outrage that much more outrageous (you DELETED them?), or can be used to denote tongue-in-cheek spurious statistics.
  • "So this subject of post, it vibrates?" There were so many attempts to post the news story about the Harry Potter vibrating broomstick, it became an InJoke. Also recently spotted as "So this subject of post, it verb?"
  • summary quotes, which are taught in livejournalism school, can be used either to call out a quote as invalid, or to invalidate a quote one makes for the sake of hilariousness.
  • Taglines. If you look at MetaFilter's logo in the top left corner of every page, you'll see a tagline (on this wiki, we stole 'weblog as conversation'). Posters often like to create new taglines depending on the situation. If you reference your own post as a tagline, or change the quote, you will be mocked. See a vast collection of MetaFilter taglines.
  • "This is probably bad news for insert name here." Example, origin. aznblader links to a scanned and posted book, "The New Soldier," containing Vietnam-era antiwar material, believing the cover photograph depicts Presidential candidate John Kerry. The cover does not, and the mocking is merciless (even extending to aznblader's personal blog comments), instantly spawning a new joke. The embarrased aznblader refers, in-thread, to the original post as "an abortion of idiocy."
  • "This is why we can't have nice things." Often said when people act up in MetaTalk.
  • "Viking (That's where I'm a...)" A Simpsons reference (aren't they all, deep down?) that became a subject of general on-line debate. A Front Page Post, June 11, 2007 describing the debate turned into a contentious 467-comment argument; a statement from a Simpsons producer/writer, October 26, 2007 is regarded by some as a definitive victory for the literalists. Originally referring to "Sleep", now used in a variety of references as "(Location or condition). That's where I'm a (group type, including but not limited to Viking, Pirate, Ninja, Curmudgeon)"
  • "WHAT. THE. FUCK. MATT?" or variants of it. First sighted in this MetaTalk thread, it is now used in more humorous situations. Example: WOULD YOU LIKE. A COOKIE. MATT?
  • "This will Wendell", "This will not Wendell" and some other references to Wendell refer to the likelihood of a thread ending badly, as 'Wendell' is an anagram of 'end well', as first pointed out by Jessamyn. Since phrases like "This will end in tears" or "This will end in flames" are used elsewhere, this represents one of the few MeFi In-Jokes to utilize understatement. It should also be noted that the user Wendell has not ended, well or otherwise.

General humour in a thread is fine. In-jokes, though, are frowned upon because they clutter the site and confuse those outside the MeFi community. Matt doesn't like them. In fact, he tends to delete them on a regular basis. Fresh, original wit is probably a better way to contribute.

In-jokes aren't really supposed to make any sense; there are no complicated backstories behind them. You'll often find them in Dead Threads that people are messing about in (that said, threads that do contain in-jokes - even a large number - are not necessarily dead). If you see an offhanded reference to (say) pancakes and it doesn't appear to make any sense - don't worry, you aren't missing out on anything.

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