Blogger Dictionary - Terms You Need To Know

As many of you know and to the few of you who don't, most of the people in my every day life don't know I blog. This isn't a post going into all of the reasons I don't share it, but I needed to mention it because there are a few people in my every day life who DO know I blog and who read this blog. None of the rest of them are bloggers, so it is not unusual for me to get a text or email asking what the hell I'm talking about sometimes.

So I thought I'd be a smart little cookie and do one big round up of some blogging terms and slang so I can let my every day people in on the awesome-ness of blogging. Also to the new bloggers - I WAS YOU ONCE and I wish I had a dictionary to explain some things. Here you are, my snicklefritzes..

I present to you a Blogger Dictionary.

Adorbs - The abbreviation for Adorable

Amazeballs - A slightly obnoxious way to say amazing that I hope dies out soon.

Awk - The abbreviation for Awkward. 

Blate - A blogger date. Usually when 2 bloggers meet in real life for the first time.

Blogiversary - A blog's anniversary of its first post/founding. Also called the blog's birthday!

Bloglandia - A name for this wonderful and fabulous community of blogs and bloggers on the world wide web.

Blogosphere - See definition for "Bloglandia"

Blogroll - A list of blogs/bloggers than one blogger might recommend to others. Also referred to as "Daily Reads"

Buttons - Squares, circles, rectangles, octagons, etc. that could be a variety of pixel sizes (200x200, 300x250, 150x150, etc.) and are used to put on other blogs sidebars for exposure for your own blog. OR buttons could be used to acknowledge a link-up.

Captcha - Letters and/or numbers that you're sometimes required to enter before submitting a comment, designed to ensure the comment is created by a human and not a computer. Good in theory, bad in practice. Captcha is annoying, turn it off. Ask me how!

DIY - Acronym for Do It Yourself. Usually talking about craft or home decor projects. Usually involves glitter and mason jars.

GFC - Google Friend Connect. It's one of the many ways to "follow" a blogger.  If you follow a blogger in this way then their blog posts will show up in your "Reading List" on your main Google Blogger page. Mine looks like this..

GIF - Graphics Interchange Format. Basically a gif is an animated image. It's actually a lot more technical than that, but go with it. Also, it's pronounced similar to "Jif" like the peanut butter with a soft G sound.

Giveaway - Either an individual blogger or a group of bloggers get together and offer to give you free things if you complete certain entries. Usually following the blogger's blog and social media handles. So if you win, you get the prizes and in the process they've gained lots of followers on their various accounts. It's a you help me, I'll help you kind of thing. I've won a giveaway twice now and both times it was awesome. I'm just saying.

Google+ - The most pointless form of social media. It tries really hard to be like Facebook or Twitter, but Google needs to stop trying to make Google+ happen, it's not going to happen.

Guest Post - When one blogger posts on another blogger's page.

Hashtag - The pound sign (#) that you can put in front of a word or group of words to make the words searchable on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. However, sometimes I throw it into texts messages and blog posts and sometimes when I'm just talking. #imatool #ilovetohashtageverything #hashtag

ICYMI - Acronym for In Case You Missed It.

IRL - Acronym for In Real Life. Such as my IRL friends.

Link-Up - When 2 or more bloggers have an idea and create a post with a topic that other bloggers can also write about. Then the other bloggers can post their website URL to the original blogger(s) post. Then all the links on one topic are in one place. It's quite nice actually.

No-Reply Blogger - This is bad. This means that when you comment on my blog post, I can't email you back with a response. FIX THIS IMMEDIATELY. Here's a super great tutorial.

Obvi - Abbreviation for Obviously. I say this in real life an embarrassingly large amount.

OOTD - Acronym for Outfit Of The Day.

SMH - Acronym for Shaking My Head. I seriously didn't know this for the longest time and I refuse to tell you what I thought it meant, but it wasn't Shaking My Head.

Selfie - A picture taken of yourself by yourself. There's some debate on whether or not it can be a selfie if someone else is in the photo with you or not. It was also the 2013 word of the year.

TBT - Acronym for Throwback Thursday. A trend on Instagram where every single Thursday you are supposed to post a photo that from your past. Again, there's some debate whether or not "throwback" means 1996 or the Wednesday before the Thursday.

Totes - Abbreviation for Totally. Again, I say this so much in real life. Usually I combine two abbreviations and say "totes adorbs".

Trolls - A blog commenter who typically has nothing better to do than jump from blog to blog writing angry or mean comments. Totally unnecessary, usually. Whitney wrote a cute post about one that pretty much describes it perfectly.

Vlog - A video blog. Instead of writing a post a blogger will record themselves talking and post that video as their post. 

WIDN - Acronym for What I'm Doing Now.

YOLO - Acronym for You Only Live Once. This is technically "old" and "not cool" to say anymore, but I still love it. 



There you have it. Let me know if I missed something that needs clarified!
Also, sorry (sorta) that this isn't a professional dictionary.
Ps. Turn off your captcha.
Pss. YOLO.