NIFOC, BOGSAT, and 1000s More in FBI Glossary of Internet Slang Acronyms

leet l337 speak
Share the knowledge

The FBI glossary of Internet slang acronyms reads like a leet speak (l337 5p3@k) primer, albeit a massively over-inclusive one. Indeed, in the time it would take an FBI agent to skim through the Internet slang glossary looking for a particular term, one would hope they could have just inferred it from context. Put together by the FBI Intelligence Research Support Unit (IRSU) and starting with ADN (Any Day Now) and ending with ZOMG (“emphasized OMG”) and ZUP (“what’s up?”), and everything in between, the FBI primer on ‘net slang is a whopping 83 pages containing nearly 3000 terms, many of them, if not most of them, not even really a thing. Although we are fond of BOGSAT (bunch of guys sitting around talking) and are now using it every chance we get.

Of course we reported on the ‘dialect’ known as netspeak or leetspeak nearly ten years ago, so it’s not as if this is a new discovery. However the FBI glossary, produced in response to a Freedom of Information request from FOI news site MuckRock, is worth reading over, if only for the sheer entertainment value. And while titled as a glossary of Twitter terms, the FBI acknowledges that these terms are also used in “instant messages, Facebook and Myspace1.”

[(1)MySpace was a service offered in the dark ages of the Internet. Recent efforts to reanimate MySpace have not been successful, although scientists are still looking at the possibility of cloning MySpace for visitors to a MySpace park.]

 

As Caitlin Dewey of the Washington Post points out, many of the entries in the FBI glossary are not used terribly often. Says Dewey, “ALOTBSOL”, which despite sounding like a new steroid actually stands for “always look on the bright side of life”, has been used fewer than 500 times on Twitter across Twitter’s entire eight year lifetime, and “AMOG”, which supposedly stands for the “alpha male of group” usually is actually a typo in a Spanish tweet, where the tweeter intended “amor” (love) or “amigo” (friend).

Here below are some of the other acronyms from the FBI’s glossary of Internet acronyms – can you guess what they (are said to) mean? Use them at your own risk.

The Internet Patrol is completely free, and reader-supported. Your tips via CashApp, Venmo, or Paypal are appreciated! Receipts will come from ISIPP.

CashApp us Square Cash app link

Venmo us Venmo link

Paypal us Paypal link

not what LOL means   not what WTF means

AYFKMWTS
BFFLTDDUP
BTDTGTTSAWIO
BTWITIAILWY
CRUNK
DILLIGAD
DITYID
DMAL
E2EG
EMFBI
GNSTDLTBBB
GOAT
FF
GIWIST
HAFTA
HCDAJFU
IAWTCSM
IITYWIMWYBMAD
IFF
IMA
KEWT
LLTA
LMSO
NIFOC
PMYMHMMFSWGAD
SOMSW
TOTES FRESH
TOTT
WAPCE
WANNA
W4W
YKWRGMG

You can see the entire list of the FBI glossary on Internet slang acronyms here.

Get New Internet Patrol Articles by Email!

The Internet Patrol is completely free, and reader-supported. Your tips via CashApp, Venmo, or Paypal are appreciated! Receipts will come from ISIPP.

CashApp us Square Cash app link

Venmo us Venmo link

Paypal us Paypal link

 


Share the knowledge

2 thoughts on “NIFOC, BOGSAT, and 1000s More in FBI Glossary of Internet Slang Acronyms

  1. Hi Rick – thank you for asking! There is now a “share” button along the lefthand side of every page, with all the other social media buttons (thank you for letting us know that it wasn’t there!)

  2. Can you tell me how to share your articles on FB? If we could I think it works open up more followers to you.

    Thx,
    Rick

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.