The Out-of-Touch Adults' Guide to Kid Culture: What's a 'Wojak'?

Credit: Stephen Johnson

School's nearly back in session, and the collective energy of young people seems to be focused more on new backpacks and water bottles (North Face and Stanley are the cool brands, respectively) than they are on anything else, so it's a slow week. In other words, the perfect time to take a deep dive into one of the internet's most lasting meme format: the wojak.

The wojak universe, explained

Over the last decade and a half, the hive mind of the internet created wojaks: simple drawings that serve as a pictographic language that's nearly universally understood by the very online but a mystery to nearly everyone else. So let's get you up to speed.

First, a definition: "Wojak" is Polish for "soldier," but on the internet, wojak refers to drawings of people that are used either to react to something, or combined with other wojaks to express more complex ideas.

The original wojak was a drawing of a nondescript bald person that first appeared online around 2009. It seems intentionally neutral, and in the early days, it was often used to say "I relate to you" in memes like this:

Wojaks quickly grew in popularity, and before long, users were posting variations of the original drawing that represented different kinds of people or stereotypes.

Here are some of most-used categories of wojaks and what they mean:

Wojak: The original wojack was generally used as a visual representation of the "everyman," the person behind the screen.

Crying wojak A wojak in tears represents someone who isn't getting their way.

NPC: This wojak appeared around 2018, and is named after the computer-controlled characters in video games. It's meant to represent someone who can't think for themselves.

Coomer: This wojak variant represents someone who masturbates too much. He is often depicted with an overly muscular right arm.

Doomer: The doomer wojak represents a person who is depressed or nihilistic.

Chad: This wojak depicts a very attractive man.

Soyjak: The opposite of a chad, a soyjak is a beta-male.

Big-brain: This wojak is almost always used ironically to mock people seen as pseudo-intellectuals. The most popular big-brain has a brain so big he uses it as a chair.

CHUD: CHUD wojaks originally were meant to make fun of alt-right people, but they were quickly adopted by the alt-right.

Trad-wife: An image that depicts a woman who adheres to traditional gender roles.

Masks: A crying wojak wearing a smug-looking mask appears frequently. It says something like, "you are actually upset, even if you're pretending you aren't."

There are many other categories of wojaks, and endless individual variations of the drawings. The ones that "work" (ie: are relatable to the kinds of people who spread memes) stick around, while less useful variations are forgotten.

People use wojak memes to express all kinds of ideas, but they often boil down to "why people like me are better than other people," as in the following:

But wojaks are versatile enough to be used to make the exact opposite point, too:

While wojaks began as a way for an online user to represent themselves as an anonymous, regular person, later variations of wojaks are almost exclusively meant to mock others instead. It's interesting how the Chad is replacing the original wojak too, because Chad in a meme usually is used to mean, "cool guys like me think like this," where wojak is a much more humble self-insert.

What does “o7” mean?

If someone responds to you online with "o7," they are saluting you. It's an emoticon used in chats to say something like "yes, sir/ma'am," or as general greeting/or farewell. It's often used in online gaming when a game is ending to say, "it's been an honor to serve with you."

Asking chatGPT to roast your instagram feed

The hot trend of the moment is asking ChatGPT to roast your Instagram feed. It's ridiculously easy to do. Here's how it works:

1) Take a screenshot of your Instagram feed.

2) Log into ChatGPT

3) Click the paperclip and upload your sceenshot.

4) Say "roast my instagram."

5) Enjoy being roasted.

I had to try this out, and, while I don't usually love AI, I found it interesting to see how it critiqued my Insta (see photo above.)

As expected most of its "roast" is mid and obvious, like so:

But I have to admit, this one got to me a little:

(It was actually our kid's friend's bar mitzvah.)

Viral video of the week: A$AP Rocky - Tailor Swif (Official Video)

I can't even begin to describe the greatness of A$AP Rocky's video for "Tailor Swif." It just came out an hour ago (as I write this), but I'm confident it will have gone massively viral by the time you read this. It's so funny, weird, and otherworldly, it demands that you watch it three or four times in a row before forwarding it on to your friends.

Directed by Vania Heymann & Gal Muggia and shot on location in Kyiv, Ukraine, two months before the Russian invasion, Tailor Swif is a non-stop barrage of surreal imagery, a combination of those "Can you find 10 things wrong in this picture?" drawings we all loved as children and the films of Luis Buñuel. It's kind of a masterpiece and you should watch it right now, before you do anything else.