Reply guy is an internet slang term for someone who excessively responds to social media posts, often in an annoying, condescending, or overly familiar or flirtatious manner. Reply guys are often men, often have few followers of their own, and tend to respond to posts by celebrities, those with large follower bases, or women.[1][2][3] The phenomenon has been called an example of benevolent sexism.[4][5]
Origins
editThe term reply guy has been used with less negative connotations at least as far back as 2012, when a social media manager for the Applebee's restaurant chain became known as "Applebee's Reply Guy" on Facebook for regularly responding to comments left on the page. By 2015, term shifted more toward referring to someone whose posts were perceived as annoying, rude, or as mansplaining.[1][2]
US President Donald Trump is known to have so-called "reply guys" who comment under his Tweets with "insults, corrections, threats, memes, soundbites, self-promotion, or simply the same thing over and over and over again".[6][7]
Actions by social media platforms
editIn 2020, Twitter released a feature to allow users to limit who can reply to their tweets to only people who follow them, or to only people they mention in a tweet. This was described by Vox as motivated in part by a desire to reduce unpleasant interactions with reply guys.[8]
In 2023, the Mastodon social network released an experimental feature to display a reminder when users compose a response to a stranger, or to a post that is over three months old. This was described by TechCrunch as an attempt to "tackl[e] ... the scourge of the 'reply guys'".[9]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b "What Is A Reply Guy?". Dictionary.com. May 30, 2019. Archived from the original on July 18, 2023. Retrieved January 7, 2024.
- ^ a b Black, Chris (May 14, 2020). "The Reply Guys Are More Online Than Ever". GQ. Archived from the original on September 2, 2023. Retrieved January 7, 2024.
- ^ Gault, Matthew (June 17, 2022). "The Reply Guy From Hell". VICE. Retrieved November 16, 2024.
- ^ Al-Sibai, Noor (July 28, 2018). "Meet the 'reply guys': Obnoxious Twitter trolls try to challenge prominent women — and fail miserably". Raw Story. Archived from the original on January 8, 2024. Retrieved January 7, 2024.
- ^ Bryan, Chloe (February 19, 2019). "The curse of the Twitter reply guy". Mashable. Archived from the original on January 8, 2024. Retrieved January 7, 2024.
- ^ "The Unwelcome Return of Trump's #Resistance Reply Guys". The Daily Beast. November 25, 2022. Retrieved November 16, 2024.
- ^ Klee, Miles (December 14, 2022). "Trump's Cringiest Reply Guys Are Out of Twitter Jail. Their New Target Is Elon Musk". Rolling Stone. Retrieved November 16, 2024.
- ^ Ghaffary, Shirin (August 11, 2020). "Twitter is finally helping people shut out "reply guys"". Vox. Archived from the original on November 30, 2022. Retrieved January 7, 2023.
- ^ Perez, Sarah (November 22, 2023). "Mastodon tackles the problem of 'reply guys' with its latest feature". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on December 23, 2023. Retrieved January 7, 2024.
External links
edit
The dictionary definition of reply guy at Wiktionary
