"Best Friends Forever" from a South Park tv show episode: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Friends_Forever Nancy McDonald-Kenworthy, GA CSTW Writing Center Tutor www.cstw.org Cultural Studies, Coll. of ED, OSU. ----- Original Message ----- From: Nancy Baym <nbaym@ku.edu> Date: Saturday, September 29, 2007 9:13 pm Subject: [Air-L] BFF
Does anyone on here know the origin of the term BFF? A scholar who studies friendship has asked me and I don't know.
Nancy
-- Nancy Baym http://www.ku.edu/home/nbaym Communication Studies, University of Kansas Bailey Hall, 1440 Jayhawk Blvd., Room 102, Lawrence, KS 66045- 7574, USA Blog: http://www.onlinefandom.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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NANCY MCDONALD-KNWRTHY wrote:
"Best Friends Forever" from a South Park tv show episode:
The abbreviation is older than that episode, which aired in March 2005, though: Cyber bullies stalking online playground. Candy J. Cooper The Record (Bergen County, N.J.) Apr. 21, 2004 10:45 AM "Conflict escalates quickly online, where facial expression and voice intonation are replaced by "jk," for just kidding, or "lol," for laughing out loud. Matters are complicated when two "bff's," or best friends forever in cyber-slang, share one another's passwords, as girls often do. When the falling-out comes, they can wreak havoc by sending damaging messages everywhere - with their new enemy's name attached. " I have no idea how much older it might be than that.
I can say with conviction that this term predates the internet. My junior high days (this probably dates me) the expressions and "BFF" (or its shortened version F/F for friends forever) "j/k," "KIT" peppered all our notebooks and yearbooks. I imagine that most yearbooks from the early 90s onwards would be abound with these expressions, however I grew up in southern California and am unsure if these terms were in common use throughout the country at the same time. In the Urban Dictionary, the earliest entry for BFF comes from 2001. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bff -lilly On Sep 30, 2007, at 11:12 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
NANCY MCDONALD-KNWRTHY wrote:
"Best Friends Forever" from a South Park tv show episode:
The abbreviation is older than that episode, which aired in March 2005, though: Cyber bullies stalking online playground.
Candy J. Cooper The Record (Bergen County, N.J.) Apr. 21, 2004 10:45 AM
"Conflict escalates quickly online, where facial expression and voice intonation are replaced by "jk," for just kidding, or "lol," for laughing out loud. Matters are complicated when two "bff's," or best friends forever in cyber-slang, share one another's passwords, as girls often do. When the falling-out comes, they can wreak havoc by sending damaging messages everywhere - with their new enemy's name attached. "
I have no idea how much older it might be than that. _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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Lilly Nguyen PhD Student, Dept. of Information Studies lillynguyen@ucla.edu aim: deuxlits
Earliest results in the Wayback Machine for Urbandictionary.com are in 2002. I don't know how authoritatively one can conclude from this that Urbandictionary was born around that time, but it's interesting to me all the same. From the Wikipedia page, I see that Urbandictionary was founded on Oct 14, 2001, meaning that a BFF entry must have be added almost immediately, so it was obviously a popular term at the time. I think we're all agreed the term massively predates the internet. I'm just having fun with other things, now. =) Conor lilly nguyen wrote:
I can say with conviction that this term predates the internet. My junior high days (this probably dates me) the expressions and "BFF" (or its shortened version F/F for friends forever) "j/k," "KIT" peppered all our notebooks and yearbooks. I imagine that most yearbooks from the early 90s onwards would be abound with these expressions, however I grew up in southern California and am unsure if these terms were in common use throughout the country at the same time. In the Urban Dictionary, the earliest entry for BFF comes from 2001. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bff
-lilly
On Sep 30, 2007, at 11:12 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
NANCY MCDONALD-KNWRTHY wrote:
"Best Friends Forever" from a South Park tv show episode:
The abbreviation is older than that episode, which aired in March 2005, though: Cyber bullies stalking online playground.
Candy J. Cooper The Record (Bergen County, N.J.) Apr. 21, 2004 10:45 AM
"Conflict escalates quickly online, where facial expression and voice intonation are replaced by "jk," for just kidding, or "lol," for laughing out loud. Matters are complicated when two "bff's," or best friends forever in cyber-slang, share one another's passwords, as girls often do. When the falling-out comes, they can wreak havoc by sending damaging messages everywhere - with their new enemy's name attached. "
I have no idea how much older it might be than that. _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Lilly Nguyen PhD Student, Dept. of Information Studies lillynguyen@ucla.edu aim: deuxlits
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participants (4)
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Conor Schaefer -
Jimmy Wales -
lilly nguyen -
NANCY MCDONALD-KNWRTHY