89
\$\begingroup\$

What is a Zombie? Why are Code Reviewers so violent and talking about killing Zombies all the time? And what ammo are they talking about? What is a TS? What does RSA mean?

And what other Code Review-specific memes are there?

(As the number of memes grows and grows, and Malachi's wish to vote for the memes more than once, this really ought to have its own meta-question)

Please provide only one, or just a few tightly-coupled, memes per answer.

\$\endgroup\$
2

35 Answers 35

70
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: Zombies

Originator: Mathieu Guindon (aka retailcoder, lol.upvote, ... and/or Mat's Mug)

Cultural Height: During The Mission

Background: In a (successful) attempt to motivate the community in reducing the number of unanswered questions, a Call of Duty was made in which every unanswered question (no upvoted answers) is to be regarded as a Zombie. Every new question is to be regarded as an incoming Zombie.

\$\endgroup\$
3
  • 6
    \$\begingroup\$ Tshirt anyone? \$\endgroup\$
    – user73428
    Jul 26, 2014 at 10:31
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ What is an "unanswered question"? A question with no answers? A question with no accepted answers? A question with answers that have no upvotes? I suppose it's the last one. It might be worth to clarify, or if already explained somewhere else, then include a link. \$\endgroup\$
    – janos
    Jan 15, 2015 at 13:19
  • \$\begingroup\$ @janos I don't think there is an exact definition about that. The StackExchange system handles it differently in different places, but it's definitely not related to accepted answers. \$\endgroup\$ Mar 17, 2015 at 16:43
64
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: Jamalized

Originator: Jamal ♦ (actually, apparently me)

Cultural Height: All over CR (see this chat transcript search)

Background: Jamal being a frantic editor. And he's fast. So fast, we're all waiting for the day he will edit a bad question title before it's even posted. You never know, maybe mods will have the power to edit post drafts one day.

And he knows:

I don't even pay attention to dates. I just edit like Dr. House takes Vicodin. http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/12505099#12505099

And so "Jamalized" was coined, vaguely meaning "edited". Applicable to any IEditable<T>.

\$\endgroup\$
4
  • 37
    \$\begingroup\$ I don't think this will count as a real meme until Jamal edits this post. \$\endgroup\$
    – MrLore
    Sep 10, 2014 at 19:37
  • 20
    \$\begingroup\$ "we're all waiting for the day he will edit a bad question title before it's even posted" Maybe that's how good question titles exist already? \$\endgroup\$
    – Kroltan
    Feb 23, 2015 at 11:03
  • 5
    \$\begingroup\$ He might have run out of things to edit on Code Review, because he's also suggesting edits on Stack Overflow. \$\endgroup\$
    – Laurel
    Jun 5, 2016 at 19:50
  • \$\begingroup\$ Bearing in mind one likely doesn’t vocalize this term often, how should it sound when spoken? Initially in my head I presumed like ja-mal-ized, but was recently thinking it should perhaps be more like ja-mal-ized \$\endgroup\$ May 25, 2021 at 9:01
43
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: Java vs. JAVA

Originator: Jamal(?) (to be determined)

Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor (as usual), but also in various comments scattered across meta.

Background: Question with the word JAVA (instead of Java) in the title or body, is often an indication that the poster is a beginner and/or that it's a low-quality question. This has led to the separation of JAVA from Java. They are now, at least among the regulars in The 2nd Monitor on Code Review, treated as two entirely different languages.

Examples:

@skiwi Java? No, we're hiring JAVA people. Sorry.

(chat post)

Just don't learn JAVA @Jamal.

(comment on meta)

Never mind, I realised that you're talking about JAVA, which is not a language I know.

(@rolfl in chat) (@rolfl is among the top Java users here, but he does not know JAVA apparently)

\$\endgroup\$
2
  • 8
    \$\begingroup\$ Nice one! Who would have tough there were so many others bothered by quirky capitalization? :P \$\endgroup\$
    – Agostino
    Apr 14, 2015 at 16:19
  • \$\begingroup\$ I really feel this meme… I see this on Stack Overflow all the time. Bonus points if it’s tagged [javascript]. \$\endgroup\$ Mar 17, 2022 at 22:12
38
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: TS | RSA

Originator: SimonAndréForsberg (TS), rolfl (RSA)

Cultural Height:

Background: The 2nd Monitor is quite a star-happy chatroom. How many of you know that there's only a number of times you can "star" a chat post - a star cap (like the rep cap and the vote cap, a star cap). And just when you run out of stars to sprinkle, someone posts a comment and you're dying to "star" it - no worries, you can put a theoretical star TS, and then it's possible someone applies a real one (RSA: "real star applied").

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38
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: "Thanks, Santa!"

Originator: Jamal ♦

Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor

Background: Votes are anonymous. So whenever someone upvotes a post of yours, and you think the voter might be in the chatroom, just say "Thanks, Santa!", the voter(s) will know that was for them.

\$\endgroup\$
5
  • \$\begingroup\$ I forget... did this meme come up after Christmas? \$\endgroup\$
    – Jamal
    Feb 14, 2014 at 17:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Jamal that's something I'd have to dig up to make sure, but I think it was after the Holidays :) \$\endgroup\$ Feb 14, 2014 at 18:28
  • \$\begingroup\$ You are welcome, though, I am a but miffed that I could not write this entry ;) \$\endgroup\$
    – konijn
    Feb 26, 2014 at 0:22
  • \$\begingroup\$ Don't the post votes only show up an hour after they are cast? (in order to prevent the voter from swapping/etc. and allow it to lock in)? \$\endgroup\$ Jan 23, 2015 at 23:25
  • \$\begingroup\$ @user2813274 nope. You usually get pretty much instant notification that you've earned rep ;) ...and lock-in is 5 minutes; on-page vote counts update in real-time, and vote counts on profile pages have a cache lag. \$\endgroup\$ Jan 23, 2015 at 23:54
36
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: Monking

Originator: Morwenn

Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor

Background: A morning greeting to the Monkey doing his , in other words:

Examples: A small chat search

Variations: Monkernoon, Monkevening, Monknight, and the reversed gniknoM sometimes used when one leaves... Important is only that it begins with Monk... ;)

Also sometimes known as Nibjubg in case your fingers are not where they are supposed to be.

\$\endgroup\$
0
33
\$\begingroup\$

Name: Overly long acronyms

Originator: Simon André Forsberg with this message

Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor

Background: IWNPFETTOLAI (I will not provide further explanation than this overly long acronym itself)

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3
  • 10
    \$\begingroup\$ Really, I started those? I'm blaming monkeys... \$\endgroup\$ Mar 26, 2014 at 18:13
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @Simon then prove it and edit ;) \$\endgroup\$
    – Vogel612
    Mar 26, 2014 at 18:22
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Vogel612 aha! He declines. Proof given. \$\endgroup\$
    – user95591
    May 29, 2016 at 23:08
27
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: LOL - AutoStar

Originator: Mat's Mug / Jamal

Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor

Background: "lol" somehow got targeted at this point here (the first starred lol):

retailcoder: lol (darn, again)

Followed shortly by:

Jamal: lol (don't star that)

And then the tradition was cemented with:

Jamal: Why the heck would you star "lol"? sigh

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25
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: Yet another (also )

Originator: skiwi

Cultural Height: The apparent popularity of linked list implementations

Background: The site has received a lot of linked list questions with more coming in over time. It has also led to many duplicate titles and even some duplicate information in answers. Some users even (jokingly?) posted linked list implementations on April Fools Day for review (or just for teh lulz). This was proposed in CR on April 1 by skiwi

Other forms: Yet another

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • 8
    \$\begingroup\$ -1 just because it's related to Linked-Lists (Also related to: nooooooooooo) \$\endgroup\$ Apr 25, 2014 at 20:36
25
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: [TTQW | TTGH] | TTGTB

Originator: [attributed to] Simon André Forsberg (first TTQW here)

Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor

Background: leaving the chatroom and/or going AFK isn't something we do often. These funky acronyms efficiently communicate that it's either time to quit work (or time to get home), or time to go to bed.

Related: (don't do that!)

\$\endgroup\$
22
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: Exploding bear traps

Originator: Grace Note

Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor, Website Graduation

Background: During the endless talk about Code Review graduation, some were wondering whether Code Review could even graduate some day or was doomed and would close. The answer was as follows:

There really isn't an axe over your heads even now. You'd have to, like, torch everyone on the site and then set exploding bear traps for new visitors in order to drop things low enough to get you guys in any sort of danger zone.

Examples:

ChrisW: exploding bear traps would reduce the number of new users ...

Also:

Mat's Mug: note: torching everyone on the site wouldn't be enough. We'd have to also set exploding bear traps for new visitors!

Or even:

rolfl: That immature side of me really feels that some of the new questions deserve exploding bear-traps...


Simon André Forsberg: @rolfl when in doubt, use exploding bear traps?link

Generally speaking, torching everyone on the site is less used but has the same meaning. But that does not sound half as fun as exploding bear traps.

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • 6
    \$\begingroup\$ Lest it be misunderstood, my using "exploding bear traps" in that context was meant to be a "reductio ad absurdum": to cast doubt on the usefulness of a metric which (it seems to me) will penalize a site for having a continuous influx of new users; and not to suggest that new users are unwelcome. \$\endgroup\$
    – ChrisW
    Apr 3, 2014 at 13:08
22
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: Smoking The Documentation / STM

Originator: Simon, in response to a question by rolfl

Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor

Background: "The documentation." is now a common response to rhetorical question like "What was I smoking when I wrote this?". This is often followed by "STM again?" (Smoking the manual again?).

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0
21
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: Pimping my answer

Originator: rolfl

Cultural Height: Lack of voting on answers

Background: In an effort to increase exposure to under-voted answers, users on The 2nd Monitor started "pimping their answers" for more attention. It can be used for your own answer, answers from others, or even entire questions with good answers.

During the mission this was also referred to as: "killcam"

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20
\$\begingroup\$

This meme has been retired by community decision on Nov 25 2014. It is thus considered a veteran meme. Usages may still occur, but the meme has largely vanished from our site.

Meme: We could really use your ammo

Originator: syb0rg

Cultural Height: Side-effects of The Mission?

Related: and DVLR (daily vote limit reached)

Background: Activity on CR has recently taken a hell of a spike. 40 votes/day isn't enough ammunition to shoot at all the good answers that are thrown at all incoming zombies. Increased activity is awesome.

But basically:

We need your soul votes!

It's a matter of life vs death. We could really use your ammo is serious business.


The bottom line is: we (you & us all) own this site. Let's give it the lovin' it deserves, and make it run on a healthy economy of votes and reputation points, with people putting bounties on good unanswered questions zombies they stumble upon, people coming here on meta and asking questions about the site, where CR is, where it's headed and where it should be. Be Code Review!.

\$\endgroup\$
0
18
\$\begingroup\$

Name:

Originator: Jamal

Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor

Background: Often used to point out that, even though some code technically works, it is so bad that it deserves a weapons-grade facepalm. It can also be used to describe a "feature" of a language or program that's just a PITA.

It was popularized by Jamal, skiwi, Mat'sMug, ckuhn203 and yours truly. Its origin is linked to the JAVA meme.

Jamal: @Mat'sMug brb synonymizing [JAVA] and - Jun 30 8:35 PM

\$\endgroup\$
2
  • 4
    \$\begingroup\$ A "weapons-grade facepalm"? Is that like a nuke to the face or something? \$\endgroup\$ May 19, 2015 at 14:11
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Basically yes :) \$\endgroup\$
    – Phrancis
    May 19, 2015 at 14:16
18
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: hello / hi / hey there

Originator: Code Reviewers

Cultural height: The 2nd Monitor

Background: Code Reviewers like to greet each other in chat, and most of the time it's just a casual "Hello" then "Hi @someone". But on days of high activity, some unusual things can happen...

heythere

Or...

hello

Or even...

hi

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • 10
    \$\begingroup\$ This is not only restricted to the 2nd monitor... in the tavern this is called 'trains' and it happens with.. lots of words \$\endgroup\$
    – Vogel612
    Dec 3, 2014 at 23:01
17
\$\begingroup\$

This meme has been retired by community decision on Nov 25 2014. It is thus considered a veteran meme. Usages may still occur, but the meme has largely vanished from our site.

Meme:

Originator: Mat's Mug (/retailcoder /lol.upvote)

Cultural Height: During The Mission

Background: War against zombies sometimes needs more than a single bullet. When CR forces unite to take down a zombie with multiple answers, the term indicates, in The 2nd Monitor, that all answers (and the question) have been upvoted.

Of course that only happens when all answers deserve a vote!

\$\endgroup\$
1
17
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: For some values of X

Originator: Probably Phrancis

Cultural Height: The 2nd monitor

Background: It all seems to have started with this message by Phrancis:

I'm a web dev, for some values of web dev. Not many.

Followed 2 days later by Mat's Mug's:

well that works.. for some values of "works"

In the VBA Rubberducking room, followed by a rather explosive usage around the election time, see also the chat search

\$\endgroup\$
17
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: JDQ

Originator: rolfl

Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor

Background: JavaDeveloper is one of the users who has posted the most questions on Code Review1. A JDQ is of course, a JavaDeveloper Question. JavaDeveloper is the first one, and currently the only one, who have received the newly invented Socratic golden badge.

According to a rough SEDE query, at least a total of 9540 reputation has been created on the site thanks to answers to the questions posted by JavaDeveloper.

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ At this moment @Mat'sMug is the second one who received the badge \$\endgroup\$
    – chillworld
    Jan 11, 2016 at 5:58
16
\$\begingroup\$

Meme:

Originator: Mat's Mug

Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor

Background: is frequently used (see "related tags") along with . The contraction of the two gave birth to ... only in the chatroom (don't you dare actually create that tag!).

Related:

\$\endgroup\$
0
15
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: German Overengineeringâ„¢

Originator: Vogel612

Cultural Height: Various questions, answers, and chat messages involving @Vogel612

Background:

Programmers like to abstract and engineer things. Sometimes, it just becomes too much.

German Overengineeringâ„¢ is exactly what it sounds like, a case of when something has become overly-engineered.

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • 9
    \$\begingroup\$ Variations may include Dutch and Swedish overengineering \$\endgroup\$
    – Vogel612
    Sep 27, 2014 at 19:50
15
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: Friday

Originators: rolfl, SimonForsberg & Jamal

Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor

Background: On Jan 10 2014, the following remark was made in the chat room:

Simon André Forsberg: It's Friday, Friday. Gotta write code on Friday. singing

And then this happened:

omg

Since then, it has been customary for Simon to tease on Friday:

hey @Malachi... you know what day it is?

Shortly followed by the YouTube video, and shortly afterwards by OMG, nooooooooo or or even "You monster." from others present in the chat room.


Since this meme has begun, some users in the 2nd Monitor have rebelled and begun posting this The Cure video instead.

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ According to Mat's Mug Friday is the time to refactor every thing and push to production by 5PM. \$\endgroup\$
    – pacmaninbw
    Sep 10, 2016 at 16:38
14
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: @CaptainObvious (the bot formerly known as @StackExchange)

Originator: Unknown/CR chat community

Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor

Background: @CaptainObvious is the ever-vigilant bot/feed of Code Review, faithfully posting new questions, good and bad, to The 2nd Monitor. It is often interjected @CaptainObvious with a comment about the latest question, such as...

Jamal May 5 6:44 PM | @CaptainObvious Could use a better title. This one is kinda useless.

rolfl May 1 3:16 PM | @CaptainObvious Code is obviously broke, Captain Obvious.

skiwi May 1 8:37 PM | @CaptainObvious Strange... replacing a standard utility with his/her own invented implementation and then complaining that the performance is too low.

Simon André Forsberg May 4 4:54 PM | @CaptainObvious Holy mother of over-engineering!

Phrancis Aug 1 6:59 PM | @CaptainObvious Optimizing the title of my question

RubberDuck Jul 28 4:45 AM | lol. Looks like it. Poor @CaptainObvious must get lonely when we're not around.

@CaptainObvious has even been witnessed, some say, to drop by and say Hi! on rare occasions...

Hi

\$\endgroup\$
13
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: Stargree, Stargreed

Originator: Skiwi

Cultural Height: A conversation about a duck

Background: Stars shine in CR chat quite fluently, and it sort of means that we either find it funny or that we agree, if this were Facebook they would be Likes

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • 6
    \$\begingroup\$ Quack!!!!!!!!!! \$\endgroup\$
    – RubberDuck
    Aug 25, 2014 at 23:43
12
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: Malachi'd

Originator: Malachi

Cultural Height: Whenever there is something that is amusing or entertaining and it hasn't been starred yet.

Background: Starring everything that is amusing or entertaining.


Alternate Meaning: Randomly posting a picture or video in chat to break up the monotony of the daily grind at work.

\$\endgroup\$
10
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: HOLY CARP

Originator: Malachi

Cultural height: Mostly The 2nd Monitor

Background: Dec 2013

It may or may not have been a typo, but as recorded in The 2nd Monitor originally:

Malachi Dec 11 '13 11:10 PM 105.1k close votes needed on Stackoverflow. holy carp

It has since been used fairly frequently, often in SHOUT CASE, to express surprise or astonishment.

PS: It is also occasionally accompanied by other references to fish like "mackerel" and such.

\$\endgroup\$
2
  • 9
    \$\begingroup\$ For the record, "Holy mackerel" is a phrase I've heard in the real world. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nic
    Jun 30, 2015 at 7:20
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ And Holy Halibut \$\endgroup\$
    – Malachi Mod
    Jul 14, 2015 at 20:56
10
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: Using puns in the titles of questions on Meta.

Originator: @Jamal

Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor & Meta

Background: Meta is often a seriously fun place, so any kind of humorous jokes we can slip in here and there go a long way.

@Simon: A burninate-request without a pun? How is that even possible?

Examples:

I don't think this tag [functions] quite well

Do we need this [crud]?

Dispose of [idisposable]?

Is [methodology]'s methodology worthy of burnination?

set [null] = null? (or "Burninate [null]?")

action = ([ternary-operator] == bad_tag ? "burninate" : "keep")

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • 9
    \$\begingroup\$ this goes waaaayy back to the early days of MSO.. people making punny titles for burninate requests is as old as burninate-requests \$\endgroup\$
    – Vogel612
    Jul 3, 2015 at 22:40
10
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: BTW

Originator: [attributed to] Malachi, Mat's Mug and Others

Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor

Background: The many ways of backronymizing btw led to the introduction of the BTW enum:

public enum BTW{
   Bananas,
   Bring,
   Normal,
   Waffles,
   Wall,
   Web,
   Win,
   Woods,
   Work 
}

This list does not claim completeness. New interpretations may happen any time

Also somewhat related: TTQW

\$\endgroup\$
2
  • \$\begingroup\$ Bananas To Work, Bring To Work, Behind The Wall \$\endgroup\$
    – Malachi Mod
    Mar 24, 2014 at 16:26
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ Back To Work not Bring To Work....*ugh* \$\endgroup\$
    – Malachi Mod
    Jul 10, 2014 at 18:14
7
\$\begingroup\$

This meme has been retired by both community decision and Simon's decision on the 1/11/2015. It is thus considered a veteran meme. Usages may still occur, but the meme has largely vanished from our site.

Meme: "INTERRUPT"

Originator: Possibly @EthanBierlein

Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor.

Background:

Whenever Duga posts the message:

RELOAD!

in chat, a user might say:

INTERRUPT!


Why?

@Mat'sMug: it's a thing

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • 4
    \$\begingroup\$ Retired, as @Duga now posts only one message at RELOAD time. Retired as of November 2, 2015. \$\endgroup\$
    – user34073
    Nov 2, 2015 at 0:11
6
\$\begingroup\$

Meme: s/old message/new message/

Originator: Unknown

Cultural Height: The 2nd Monitor.

Background:

Often in chat, a user will type something like this:

s/funny/annoying/

In response to what another user said as a "joke edit". Occasionally it is actually used to correct spelling.

The meme comes from GNU's SED.

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • 5
    \$\begingroup\$ For the record, it's also used in other chatrooms. \$\endgroup\$
    – Morwenn
    Aug 11, 2015 at 12:00

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