edgelord

plural edgelords

1. derogatorymildlySomeone who tries to appear edgy by doing or saying provocative, controversial, taboo, or offensive things.

   This is the man who aspires to save our planet and get us a new one to inhabit: clown, genius, edgelord, visionary, industrialist, showman, cad[…]

   2021 December 13, Molly Ball, Jeffrey Kluger, Alejandro de la Garza, “Elon Musk: Person of the Year 2021”, in Time, archived from the original on 13 Dec 2021

   4 more examples

   Given that I have a certain personality that draws in a certain type of person, I have a ton of people on my feed who are Wiccan, Pagan, Satanist or some other kind of fringe religion or cult member. […] They make extra sure to remind you that they never take down their Halloween decorations, because, in the dark, black heart of an edgelord, every day is Halloween.

   2018 October, Brad Cox, “Top 5 Things That I Hate About Halloween”, in Exotic, volume 26, number 4, Portland, OR: XMAG LLC, →OCLC, page 54

   But the joke, in the end, is that there is no joke. The sensibility of the edgelord—who pushes the boundaries of offensive humor—is really one long tumble into the abyss.

   2019 March 19, Talia Lavin, “The Death of Fascist Irony”, in The New Republic, →ISSN

   [Felix] Kjellberg knew plenty of edgelords — he was a gamer, after all — but he never considered himself one of them. Sure, he cursed and shouted while playing video games, but that was normal behavior.

   2019 October 9, Kevin Roose, “What Does PewDiePie Really Believe?”, in The New York Times Magazine, →ISSN

   The good thing about the music industry being so against this is that it seems pretty easy to strike things down. But I also think it’s good for there to be one edgelord moment.

   2023 May 24, Joe Coscarelli, quoting Grimes, “Grimes Invited Anyone to Make A.I. Grimes Songs. Here Are Her Reviews.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

present singular third person edgelords · participle present edgelording · participle past edgelorded · past edgelorded

1. derogatorymildlyTo behave like an edgelord; to provoke with risqué behavior.

   Logan is a great example of the false depth that comes from denying morals just for the sake of edgelording.

   2018, Richard Greene, Joshua Heter, editors, Westworld and Philosophy: Mind Equals Blown, Open Court Publishing, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   The Crimson doesn't name any names, probably because no one wants to be known as the kid who almost went to Harvard except they edgelorded too hard.

   2017 June 5, Sarah Jeong, “Students Lose Acceptance to Harvard Over Racist Memes”, in Vice

   I have personally used and enjoyed the Perl language for nearly 30 years, and it's distressing to see the bigotry and edgelording coming from prominent elements of the community—not to mention the board's failures to respond decisively.

   2021 August 14, Jim Salter, “The Perl Foundation is fragmenting over Code of Conduct enforcement”, in Ars Technica