Slang dictionary

feels

[feelz]

黑料网 does feels mean?

Cute puppy dogs, a bad break-up, some really good pizza: These things give us all the听feels.听The slang term describes an overwhelming emotional reaction, often with a humorous tone in the phrase听all the feels.

Related words:

Where does feels come from?

feels
sinsip.com

Taking off in the 2010s, the slang听feels is a shortened plural of feeling, as in “emotion.” It’s said to come听from what’s called the I Know That Feel Bro听meme, showing two hairless human figures embracing.

 

Meme origins get hairy though (unlike those guys above), so strap yourself in.听In July, 2009, users on听a Polish humor website, Demotywatory, created funny motivational posters. The posters used the Polish phrase听to uczucie, “that feeling (when),” to comment on some small but relatable accomplishment, like听beating a boss in Super Mario Bros.

Know your meme

To uczucie was听picked up by the Polish imageboard Vichan, which made ironic versions of these motivational posters. One user, identified as Wojak or Voyack, posted on a German imageboard, Krautchan, in 2010 an image of a bald man (since called听Wojak) complaining that he did not have a girlfriend.

In response, an anonymous apparently user mixed together the then-popular听to uczucie听with the emerging Wojak to create the I Know That Feel Bro meme, posted to 4chan in January, 2011 and expressing a mocking empathy.听To听uczucie, it seems,听was translated as the humorously ungrammatical “that feel,” pluralized and spread in subsequent memes.

While feels originated with a bro-ish irony, so true of many internet memes, it shed those connotations as it spread in the mainstream. By 2012, feels听had caught on as a playful way to express any powerful emotion, from heartbreak to happiness.

Examples of feels

Finally got to watch @blackmirror episode #SanJunipero. I've never had ALL the feels and ALL the heebeegeebies ALL at once before. Very powerful indeed. #BlackMirror
@Chrysta_Bell, January, 2018
鈥e often distance ourselves from showing our true feelings online, keeping our emotional life easy-breasy. In fact, we don't even have emotions鈥攚e have feels. But maybe not all the feels.
Pamela Pavliscak, Quartz, January, 2018
Barack Obama said he hoped to promote "greater empathy and understanding between peoples, and help them share their stories with the entire world"...So that means expect whatever they create to have all the feels.
Alle McMahon, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, May, 2018
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Who uses feels?

All the feels, right in the feels, gives me feels:听Feels听is used in a variety of expressions as a playful form of feeling, sometimes imagining feels as a physical part of the body.

In online writing,听feels gets used in a wide variety of contexts for moving, touching, excited, or overjoyed feelings.

Feels has become so widespread people use it听in everyday speech. The phrase all the feels has also apparently inspired another common construction used to express hyperbolic excitement,听all the X’s. For instance, Let’s go out to eat. We’ll have tacos. We have all the tacos!

Just Added

recession brunette, cutty, brainrot, Midwest nice, brat

Note

This is not meant to be a formal definition of feels like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of feels that will help our users expand their word mastery.

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