a

accelerator (n.): An institution connecting college dropouts with wealthy investors eager to lose money.

actually, (intr.): A disorder in the male genome that causes the vocal cords to spasm whenever a member of the opposite sex is speaking.

advertisement (n.):

Aereo (adj.): An item so convenient and sensible that it cannot be allowed to exist.

aggregate (v.): (1) To appropriate another person’s labor and genius, as a service. (2) To plagiarize.

album (n.): An antiquated custom in which musicians would bundle 2-5 functional songs with 5-10 sub-prime factory remnants.

Apple (n.): A shadowy cult of technologists who sell Trojan horses containing U2 albums.

angel (n.): (1) A winged paragon of supernatural power. (2) A mortal who writes large checks to children wearing flip-flops.

Amazon Prime (n.): A parasite used by an apex predator to sedate its human host.

American (n.): A demonym for a citizen of the United States that doubles as a threat to extend Manifest Destiny along the latitudinal axis.

Android (n.): A mobile operating system, generally seen as inferior to iOS. See iOS

artist (n.): A pauper who receives admiration in lieu of payment.

AT&T (n.): An ongoing 19th-century experiment that gives robber barons access to monopoly conditions.

atheist (n.): A theist who has closed the gap of the gods.

augmented reality (n.): An extraordinary exercise in merging natural human perception with a vast sum of digital knowledge. It will be used primarily to locate the nearest Jamba Juice.

author (n.): A small plant that requires little nourishment, but lots of trimming.

autocorrect (n.): The Second Coming of Jesus, whose miracles include turning “sup” into soup.

b

bandwidth (n.): The scarcest of all natural resources, according to its provider, who appears to have a brand new car in their driveway.

battery (n.): An apocryphal glass of juice that’s never quite empty, and never quite full.

bias (a.): All the skeletons in the soul’s closet.

binge watch (v.): To marinate the brain in preparation for a post-embodied future.

Bitcoin (n.): A revolutionary digital currency free of central banks, deposits, or stable concepts of ownership and value.

BlackBerry (n.): Proof that defeat can just as easily be snatched from the jaws of victory.

blogger (n.): An invasive species with no natural predators.

Bluetooth (n.): A flamboyant bauble worn by time travelers from the early 2000s.

brand (n.): The locus of the true “self.” Branding has been one of the principal problems of philosophy since the fourth century BCE. Plutarch, an ancient historian, is famous for having relayed the paradox of the Shipment of Theseus, one of the most widely cited thought experiments on personal identity. The dopeness of the teens of Athens, Georgia was preserved, for they ordered new hats as their stickers decayed, putting in newer and fresher brims, insomuch that these teens became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of personal brands that grow; one side holding that the teens remained just as dope, and the other contending that they were not as dope.

bro (adj.): A strong suggestion that evolution’s only agenda is chaos.

bot (n.): Someone on the internet who is desirable to you and who inexplicably finds you desirable.

bubble (n.): What bubble?

BuzzFeed (n.): The human trial phase of behaviorism.

c

cable (n.): A siphon attached to a customer’s bank account.

calculator (n.): A tool primarily used by grade school students to simulate drug deals.

cannabis (n.): A sinister plant whose devastating effects include affability, joy, arousal, pain relief, profundity, and a desire for nachos.

car (n.): A suit of armor that grants its wearer delusions of invulnerability while depriving them of social graces.

cat (n.): A ferocious, psychopathic predator that pervades every habitable environment on Earth. The species has so far escaped serious scrutiny due to—Oh my god, who has a fuzzy widdle belly? You do! You do!

censor (v.): To violently suppress creative works by talking about them on the internet.

clickbait (n.): A headline that tricks someone into fulfilling their own desires.

climate (n.): Long-term consequences created by short-term thinkers.

code (v.): To transmute suffering into profit.

compete (v.): To slice along the abdomen, releasing the viscera.

confess (v.): To divulge one’s sins through the permeable section of a partition. Confessions were traditionally performed in a wooden box before a single person clothed in liturgical garments. The box is now made of silicon, and the audience is everyone.

Congress (n.): The spiritual successor to the Roman Colosseum. In each chamber, corporate champions engage in single and group combat.

consumer (n.): The natural prey of brands.

consciousness (n.): To supplant awareness of one’s surroundings with a less interesting object: one's self.

copyright (n.): To torture the imagination until it reveals where the money is hidden.

corporation (n.): A person.

cord cutter (n.): A noble descendant of Heracles on a quest to slay the coaxial hydra.

crowdfunding (n.): A maximally efficient innovation on the traditional pyramid scheme that leaves just one degree of separation between a charlatan and their victims.

cyber- (prefix): (1) A linguistic cue informing the reader that the meaning of the word to follow should only be construed in the context of vaguely imminent threats and the need for more federal funding. (2) Something “computery.”

d

dating (n.): To receive unsolicited pornography.

democracy (n.): A system in which you and a person who just wrote an outrageously racist internet comment containing several grammatical errors are indistinguishable.

developer (n.): The person who's really behind your eviction.

dictionary (n.): A catalog of words rendered obsolete by SMS.

disrupt (v.): A legally sanctioned means of pillaging neighboring rivals until they are forlorn and penniless. This is viewed by capitalists as a major improvement over the original model, which saw the homes of the defeated burned to the ground and thus unable to generate rental income from new tenants.

district (n.): An electoral map drawn in the style of M.C. Escher.

dog (n.): What’s up?

doge (n.): Handsome canine ruler of an Italian city-state.

dogpile (v.): To mob someone who definitely, maybe deserves it.

dox (v.): To publish highly sensitive information that was once delivered to every doorstep in an enormous, bright yellow book.

Dr. Oz (n.): A doctor less credible in administering medical advice than his cousin, a fictional magician living in a sparkling emerald fortress.

drone (n.): An exciting new field in applied ethics that seeks to determine how many deaths society will find acceptable in exchange for a cool new way of delivering toiletries by air.

e

ebook (n.): A technophobic regression from the codex to the scroll.

earnings (n.): A quarterly report on a company’s success in squeezing its customers and paying its employees just enough to prevent them from dying.

Easter egg (n.): A secret location accessible in many locales by proceeding up, then up again, then down, then down again, then left, then right, then left, then right, then the B path, and then the A path.

ecosystem (n.): A community of living programmers, designers, and PR people who work together with the non-living devices in their environment, such that energy is turned into money.

EDM (n.): A military-grade sonic weapon used to remind the elderly that they are not for this world.

egg (n.): A psychopathic imp.

election (n.): A process for distributing power that uses the system of voting most beneficial to the incumbents.

email (v.): “Fellow man! Your whole life, like a sandglass, will always be reversed and will ever run out again, — a long minute of time will elapse until all those conditions out of which you were evolved return in the wheel of the cosmic process. And then you will find every pain and every pleasure, every friend and every enemy, every hope and every error, every blade of grass and every ray of sunshine once more, and the whole fabric of things which make up your life. This ring in which you are but a grain will glitter afresh forever.” Please consider this before sending an email.

embed (v).: Socially permissible theft.

entropy (n.): A shitty excuse for not getting out of bed.

eviscerate (v.): To rebuke.

explainer (n.): A vegetable that fancies itself a fruit.

eyeballs (n.): The round parts of the eyes of a vertebrate, traditionally amputated and shipped to advertisers upon the viewing of content.

f

Facebook (n.): A product invented by a lecherous boy that (a) keeps detailed personal records on more than one billion people; (b) tracks their major life events including, but not limited to: travel, interpersonal relationship status, employment status, and immigration status; (c) maintains a metadata-rich library of photos subject to facial recognition; (d) keeps a detailed profile of their personal interests and affiliations subject to algorithmic processing for advertising and scientific research purposes, including, but not limited to: videos they have watched, comments they have endorsed, third-party articles and websites they have visited and commented on, companies they endorse, people they are associated with, tastes in music, tastes in movies, tastes in literature, religious views, and political views; (e) allows strangers to “poke” them.

fan (n.): A person studiously dedicated to preventing the improvement of their favorite things.

fan fiction (v.): A significant creative work reimagined as a poorly edited romance novel.

FOIA (v.): To annoy the government.

free speech (n.): A mandate to shove one’s worst ideas into the public sphere.

friend (n.): Always the liker, never the lover.

future (n.) : The period of time inaccessible to history. This explains why the future is the eminent domain of bullshitters.

g

game (n.): All possible worlds that involve shooting things with guns.

Gamergate (n.): A coordinated leaderless hate movement consumer revolt dedicated to harassing women promoting ethics in games journalism. [This entry has been locked from further edits.]

gang (n.): An organized criminal enterprise, often seen operating in broad daylight. The prototypical gang uniform includes a nightstick, a pair of handcuffs, a gun, and a badge.

GIF (n.): Many prefer to pronounce this word “GIF,” instead of the more controversial-sounding “GIF.”

GMO (n.): An evil, inorganic foodstuff produced by a heterodox cult in the most abhorrent of lairs: laboratories. These should not be confused with organic foods, formed through more than 10,000 years of selective breeding in outdoor laboratories, also known as farms.

Google (n.): The kind of fun, colorful name you stick with to conceal the fact that your mega-corporation has become objectively terrifying.

gun (n.): The citizenry’s defense against tyranny by means of suicide.

h

hacker (n.): Anybody who understands computers more than you do.

homeopathy (n.): The belief that sharing a root with homeostasis is sufficient to maintain it.

hot take (n.): Prose from a person who believes “well said” is better than “well done.”

holiday (n.): A ritual sacrifice in which the youngest member of the family is delivered to the tech support gods.

human (n.): An animal remarkable for its obstinate pride in self-conscious thought, the one feature that distinguishes it from other, happier creatures.

hype (n.): Obsequious devotion to something that does not yet exist.

Hyperloop (n.): A futuristic concept for human transportation that roughly leans on the principles of plumbing.

i

i- (prefix): Nobody knows what this means.

Icahn (n.): An activist whose mission is the transfer of all money from individuals not named Carl Icahn to individuals named Carl Icahn.

income (n.): A measure of whether the economy is rigged for you or against you.

Instagram (n.): A persistent reminder that people you know can afford more expensive restaurants and better vacations than you.

insurance (n.): One of the only ways to administer socialism to a capitalist, often by concealing it in piece of cheese or a hot dog.

intellectual property (n.): An example of oxymoron.

internet (n.): A place that borrows waste management strategies from New York City, where everyone throws their garbage on the street.

Internet Service Provider (n.): A modern rationing authority.

iOS (n.): A mobile operating system, generally seen as inferior to Android. See Android

IPO (n.): An acronym for “initial public offering” that neglects to mention the taking.

j

jealous (adj.): This word does not mean what you probably think it means.

journalist (n.): (1) A professional storyteller with superior integrity and judgement, who speaks truth to power and breathes life into democracy. (2) Someone at Gawker who presses publish.

jury (n.): A more intimate form of voting that ruins a single person’s life instead of the entire nation.

justice (v.): Colloquial term for murder.

k

Kanye (n.): The talent of an unstoppable force married with the tact of an immovable object.

keynote (n.): A method of selling a two-hour infomercial as hard news.

Kickstarter (n.): A contemporary take on the marketplace wherein people exchange money for lies.

killing it (v.): (1) Fashionable hyperbole used to praise behavior that would be considered a minimum requirement of one's job in any rational environment, beneath mention or merit. (2) A lie told to a group of people who will soon be fired.

l

lag (n.): The temporal gulf between a demand and its satisfaction. The anticipation of instant gratification is so severe that lag is measured in milliseconds.

larp (n.): To modulate the frightening prospect of human interaction by wearing costumes and carrying fake weapons.

law (n.): (1) A statement that predicts natural behavior. (2) A statement that precludes natural behavior.

-ly (suffix): “The URL we really wanted for our startup was already taken”

lean in (v.): Advancing diagonally to climb vertically.

librarian (n.): A vestigial crypt keeper who may be useful if they possess a Wi-Fi password.

lifehack (v.): To embarrass your ancestors by bragging about an “ingenious” solution to a trivial problem.

Like (v.): To satisfy one's moral obligation to aid the less fortunate by doing nothing.

listicle (v.): A method of writing an article for the functionally illiterate.

literally (adj.): Petition by a liar seeking amnesty.

livetweet (v.): To mimic the behavior of a purse-sized yapping dog.

m

man (n.): Ironically, a product of the fastest-evolving chromosome in the human genome.

Mars (n.): The long-awaited sequel to The Donner Party.

mashup (n.): A bucket of pop culture chum that will get more attention than the best original art you could possibly produce.

Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game (n.): A contract made between a customer and a corporation whereby the corporation agrees to suspend the customer’s cognitive activity in exchange for a modest monthly fee.

masturbate (v.): To repeatedly apply pressure to the left side of an apparatus while occasionally applying pressure to the right side. Stimulation of the center wheel may also be required.

meme (n.): An onomatopoeia of the sound heard when a meme is shared: “Me! Me!”

Microsoft (n.): (1) The creator of the version of Windows you love. (2) The creator of the version of Windows you hate.

moderator (n.): A human being who has obtained a modest amount of authority in an internet forum. Despite the unexceptional nature of this power, those conferred with it are prone to exhibit the wanton tendencies of mad kings.

monopoly (n.): A never-ending board game and economic condition that inflicts permanent suffering on everyone except the winner.

music (n.): An art form whose medium is copyright law.

musical (n.): A remedial academy for mediocre singers who can act, and mediocre actors who can sing.

mute (v.): To encroach on the free speech rights of another person by concealing their violent threats of rape and murder.

n

national park (n.): The future site of a data center.

native advertisement (n.): Ads that jealously guard their privileged placement with xenophobic zeal, while denigrating foreigners Around The Web.

net neutrality (n.): A government takeover of the internet. This is considered a bad idea by the internet service providers since the people they are trying to rob are the same people the government serves.

ninja (n.): An unusually skilled programmer.

notification (n.): The means by which software asserts its rightful control over human consciousness.

NSA (n.): A primordial humanoid beast of gargantuan proportions, with a single oversized eyeball in the middle of its forehead. The NSA sees all and towers over weaker mortals of smaller stature and significance. For instance, members of Congress.

o

offline (adj.): Deceased.

old (adj.): Something from an hour ago.

operating system (n.): A set of instructions designed to make a particular machine incompatible with other machines.

ombudsman (n.): Anybody on the internet with an opinion.

Oscar (n.): To gild a groveler.

oversight (v.): The act of staring over the head of a rascal so they may keep doing whatever they want.

p

patent (v.): A method of legally proclaiming “first!”

parenthood (n.): An accident equal in proportion to your existence.

person (n.): A male persona.

persona (n.): A female person.

Photoshop (n.): A picture worth a thousand lies.

philosophy (n.): The domain of human knowledge related to insisting that the progress of science must be leashed by navel-gazing.

pitch (n.): A reminder that every piece of human creativity can be reduced to an advertisement.

pirate (v.): To insist that stealing a movie is a principled act of civil disobedience.

pivot (n.): Corporate jargon for “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

plagiarize (v.): To take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.

police (v.): To bring people in the community together by putting them in the same cage.

poster (n.): Coming in 2017.

president (n.): A person whose presumed authority exceeds their actual authority by several orders of magnitude.

pre-teen (n.): A sac of mutable cells that will emerge from its chrysalis once obtaining an allowance.

privacy (n.): A basic human right one irrevocably surrenders upon the severing of their umbilical cord, to be returned no earlier than the moment of their death.

publication (n.): Any of the following: (1) a newspaper (2) a magazine (3) a newspaper’s website (4) a magazine’s website (5) a digital news service (6) a “real-time” magazine (7) a curation engine (8) algorithmically generated prose (9) a news feed (10) a stock ticker (11) a book (12) an ebook (13) a blog (14) a collection of blogs (15) a newsletter (16) a pamphlet (17) a digital-native multimedia platform (18) a tweet (19) a tweetstorm (20) a screenshot (21) a snap (22) The Ten Commandments (23) something written on a bar napkin.

q

qat (n.): A flowering plant native to the triple word score region.

quantum (n.): A canary that signifies the author has no idea what they are writing about.

query (v.): To request a list of pornographic websites.

quirky (adj.): Someone who wears glasses.

quote (n.): A misattributed statement that has been optimized for search engines.

quick-question (n.): A post-ironic way of demanding a long answer.

r

racist (adj.): A jealous guardian of shameful artifacts, the racist often fancies himself a historian without realizing history will not be kind to him.

rating (n.): The only constellation in astrology with real consequences.

rebate (n.): A game of chance. The player wins if they remember the house owes them money before time expires.

reform (v.): To improve an institution by introducing legislation that will never be voted on.

religion (n.): A chronic illness whose symptoms are exposed on Facebook.

reverse racism (n.): A super-fantasy wherein the people of Middle Earth believe they are being systematically oppressed by Hobbits.

robocall (n.): A politician’s way of telling you that you are not important enough to be spoken to by a real person.

rubble (n.): The brick and mortar left in Amazon’s wake.

s

Satan (n.): (1) The Prince of Darkness. (2) Your internet service provider.

satire (n.): A straightforward profession of one's most deeply held beliefs, with added exclamation points.

school (v.): To mold young people into a state agreeable to bureaucracy.

science (n.): A substance whose physical properties change depending on its proximity to religion.

scientist (n.): Someone with a highly advanced academic degree who seems to only use their wealth of knowledge to make pedantic challenges against the movies you love.

sea-lion (v.): To politely demand the respectful attention of someone you are currently bludgeoning.

Seamless (n.): A way to garnish one’s plate by garnishing one’s wages.

selfie (v.): A perfectly rendered self-portrait offering a facsimile of the subject’s appearance, physical well-being, social status, and income, often fabricated in close proximity to one’s toilet.

Series (A, B, C, etc.) (n.): Increasingly large sacks of money, deposited at your doorstep in the hopes that they will multiply.

share (v.): According to Silicon Valley, sharing occurs when a benefactor generously donates temporary ownership of an object while receiving permanent ownership of the borrower’s money.

silence (n.): An exotic and bewildering absence of sound, permanently vanquished in the late 20th century.

Skynet (n.): A boogeyman commonly invoked by luddites whose misplaced fear restrains the progress of human civilization. This was definitely not written by Skynet.

smart (adj.): Capable of transmitting intimate details about your life to a major corporation or governmental entity.

smartphone (n.): A device used to accomplish almost any task except making phone calls.

smartwatch (n.): An ironic remark on the social intelligence of its wearer.

social (n.): An app or website that simulates what it might be like to interact with other people.

Soylent (n.): An edible reminder that the ideal startup environment closely resembles a military prison.

star (n.): The cosmic cousin of the Anglerfish, which dazzles nearby objects with a bright light before eventually consuming them.

startup (n.): A new company distinguished by its taste in trendy furniture.

Star Trek (n.): The sequel to Star Wars.

Star Wars (n.): The prequel to Star Trek.

stock options (n.): An update to indentured servitude that offers a worker equity instead of payment, and defers disbursement until conditions are ideal for dilution of its value.

subtweet (v.): A web-based simulation of your mother talking about you on the phone like you’re not in the same room.

superhero (n.): An above-average person who loudly advertises their critical weakness.

surveillance (n.): Something that should be of no concern to those with nothing to hide. Why are you sweating?

swat (v.): To communicate one’s commitment to rational, unbiased discourse through the medium of armed killers.

t

tab (n.): Something opened, then closed, then opened again, then closed again, for eternity.

technology (n.): (1) The cumulative manifestation of homo sapiens’ attempt to negotiate the exterior world and cope with existence, through all the sound and fury of the short, brutish lives of its countless generations, toward the liberation of humankind, or its ultimate self-destruction. (2) A glowing rectangle used to completely ignore the person sitting next to you.

thief (n.): A salesman without pretense.

Tinder (n.): Unlike war, a method of determining both who is right, and who is left.

transhumanist (n.): Someone so enamored with the misery of a natural lifespan that they wish to make it endless. See wealthy

troll (v.): (1) To make harmless, good-natured pranks. (2) To employ taboo in the pursuit of disquietude. (3) To anonymously make death threats.

trump (n.): (1) A good card to play. (2) A cad with a toupee.

tweet (v.): The act of using few words to express fewer ideas.

u

Uber (n.): “Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours.” Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

undo (ctrl-v.)

user (n.): The primary ingredient in Soylent.

v

vaccine (n.): A breakthrough in medicine capable of saving children from nearly every one of humanity’s great plagues, except the stupidity of their parents.

valuation (n.): An arbitrary number produced by a coven of warlocks who have bound their souls to a VHS copy of the 1987 film Wall Street.

The Verge (n.): (1) This website (2) (fr.) A penis.

verified (adj.): An ordained narcissist.

Verizon (n.): A man missing since 2002 who has been observed desperately talking into a cellphone with nobody on the other end. He is known to say “can you hear me now” into the microphone, and pretends to receive a response. If you have any information on his whereabouts please inform your local police department — his family misses him very much.

virtual reality (n.): A high-tech recycling program for Wired headlines.

w

war on drugs (n.): The noble enterprise of preserving the sanctity of alcoholism.

war on terror (n.): An attempt to extinguish a fire by dousing it with gasoline.

wealthy (adj.): A person who graciously relieves money from the duty of saving lives.

wearable (n.): A trendy dog collar.

webinar (n.): A modern nickname for what Dante identified as the eighth circle of hell. Please enter your passcode to gain entry to the correct bolgia.

whistleblowing (v.): A patriotic act of ruining one’s own life forever, to expose the wicked deeds of the powerful. These efforts will result in a sanitized 30-second cable news segment that may be interrupted if there is literally anything novel that can be aired about Justin Bieber.

Wikipedia (n.): The most impressive library erected in human history. The knowledge it contains is occasionally obscured by the face of a man with puppy dog eyes and his personal appeal for your loose change.

Windows Phone (n.): A phone likely to be seen flying out of a window.

wireless (adj.): An object that regularly requires a wire to operate.

x

xenu (n.): Xenu was the dictator of a Galactic Confederacy who brought billions of people to Earth 75 million years ago, only to stuff them in volcanoes and destroy them with hydrogen bombs. This publication may be subject to lawsuits from the Church of Scientology for publishing this proprietary science fiction.

y

young (adj.): Unburdened by the knowledge that it would be better to never have been born.

YouTube (n.): A proving ground for minor fiends who hope to advance, through illiterate notes, to the status of devil.

z

zombie (n.): A partially decayed corpse revived for the purpose of symbolizing nuclear war, capitalism, consumerism, the exotic other, human cruelty, solipsism, biotechnical advances, teens, or the desire for surefire movie deals.

Zune (n.): A brown gravestone with the engraving: “here lies imitation.”

Zynga (n.): Modern spelling of “Ozymandias.”

#

3D printing (n.): A neo-Marxist socioeconomic phase wherein robots seize the means of production

404 (n.): An electronic shadowbox that the architects of the internet use to store memes and references to William Ferrell comedies.