greentext

English

Etymology

From green +‎ text. So named for the fact that on 4chan, a line of text is rendered green when preceded with the > character.

Pronunciation

• enPR: grēnʹtĕkst, IPA^(key): /ˈɡɹiːn.tɛkst/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

greentext (plural greentexts)

1. (Internet slang, 4chan) A short anecdotal story written on the website 4chan, often written in the present tense and an imperative mood, without an explicit subject. Each line tends to be concise and starts with >.

   >be me
   >19
   >Writing a greentext for a usage example on Wiktionary
   >
   >Slowly going insane

   • 2019 August 12, William Aspray, James W. Cortada, From Urban Legends to Political Fact-Checking: Online Scrutiny in America, 1990-2015, Springer, →ISBN, page 78:

     Thus, we have not covered patterns that were just emerging as we finished our manuscript, such as the discussion of urban legends and misinformation in the Ask Reddit section of reddit^[sic], the greentext stories on 4chan, or the numerous references to urban legends on Bustle.

   • 2021 January 14, Lawrence May, Digital Zombies, Undead Stories: Narrative Emergence and Videogames, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, →ISBN, page 208:

     These are anecdotes written in short, concise sentences that use the 4chan platform's 'greentext' formatting code, which is a function built into the site's forum software that renders any text preceded by an angled, right-facing bracket green in colour.

   • 2022 September 23, Donna M. Goldstein, Kristen Drybread, Corruption and Illiberal Politics in the Trump Era, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN:

     Voicing contempt for the human lives that may have been lost, six responses on the thread react to this tweet in a similar fashion: with images of laughing, or with 4chan greentext that uses the > character to express sarcasm and contempt in the form of mock sympathy for those lost or displaced in the shipwreck.