scrunkly

English

Alternative forms

skrunkly, scrungly, skrungly

Etymology

Popularized by images shared across social media in late 2020 and early 2021, captioned: "awww the scrunkly 🥰🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 double tap now if you'd scrunkly the when😆".^[1] Perhaps a blend of scrunched +‎ crinkly.

Pronunciation

(General American) IPA^(key): /skɹʌŋkli/

Adjective

scrunkly (comparative scrunklier, superlative scrunkliest)

(Internet slang) Cute in a quirky, scruffy, or dishevelled way.
Synonym: scrungly

he is so scrunkly; i love him
- [2011 April 23, @IWantAPoem, Twitter‎^[1], archived from the original on 23 August 2023:
  LOL It's ok, even gurus have to sleep once in a while!! Stops the skin going scrunkly, not to be confused with crunkly :-p xx]
- 2022 May 16, @pouistired, Twitter‎^[2], archived from the original on 11 August 2023:
  2 year difference, i just got scrunklier
- 2022 September 9, @playtostay1, Twitter‎^[3], archived from the original on 11 August 2023:
  The Cuphead Rolling Dice Game got the scrunkliest artstyle ever, strange how this came out in 2021 yet no one scanned the art (?) well here's a 🧵over these 4 and boss cards:
- 2022 October 12, Dominic Tarason, “Cultic might be the year's grungiest retro FPS”, in PC Gamer‎^[4], archived from the original on 2023-07-04:
  My only halfway serious critique is that elements of Cultic's positively scrunkly low-fi style don't quite do it for me. Now, the environments, the sprites, the chunky voxel decorations? They're all great. The textures evoke the DOS era perfectly. It feels authentic, while pushing a bit beyond '90s limitations in physics and scope. It's the post-processing that goes too far.
- 2023 February 8, @horrible_bug, Twitter‎^[5], archived from the original on 11 August 2023:
  Birders will be like ouhhh the scrunkly blorbo 😭 and then show you a dude who looks like this
- 2023 February 23, @keerywife, Twitter‎^[6], archived from the original on 11 August 2023:
  Have u ever seen a skrunklier person in ur entire life???
- 2023 May 9, @poorlycatdraw, Twitter‎^[7], archived from the original on 11 August 2023:
  feeling a little skrunkly lately
- 2022 July 9, Madeline Carpou, “Tumblr Continues to Be the Best Social Media Site in a Sea of Internet Chaos”, in The Mary Sue‎^[8], archived from the original on 2023-07-25:
  Listen. I've written about Tumblr before. I won't hide that I unapologetically grift for this website, despite its storied history. Tumblr is a mess of broken social norms and skrunkly mcturgl humor. It has gone through multiple poor UI changes and has cost its investors thousands, if not millions, of dollars. Yet it's exactly this nature of chaos, anarchy, and piss-n-grit sensibilities that make it the website I love to call home.

Noun

scrunkly (plural scrunklies)

(Internet slang, especially fandom slang) A scrunkly person, animal, or thing.
Synonym: scrungly
- 2021 November 10, Ian Walker, “Animal Crossing’s Ugliest Gyroid Is Getting The Most Love From Fans”, in Kotaku‎^[9], archived from the original on 2023-03-30:
  Immediate reactions to Animal Crossing: New Horizons’; Crumploid were naturally varied. Some expressed worry about the robot's well-being, while others were upset to see him at the end of their shovels at all. One player even described their Crumploid as "the one true skrunkly," a nonsensical phrase that Urban Dictionary tells me means they love him.
- 2022 January 27, @J4YJON, Twitter‎^[10], archived from the original on 13 August 2023:
  if my mutual loves a character I'll love them too idc!!! that's my skrunkly in law fr!
- 2022 April 12, @ShitpostSwsh, Twitter‎^[11], archived from the original on 13 August 2023:
  The scrunklies. The boys. The absolute unit of round lads. You may not know this but Falinks is peak character design.
- 2023 August 9, Madeline Carpou, “The Best Companions in 'Baldur's Gate 3' Have One Thing in Common”, in The Mary Sue‎^[12], archived from the original on 2023-08-10:
  Most of all: is most of this based on my own personal opinion? Yes, obvi. So if your skrunkly didn't make the top of the list, I guarantee you, it's not because they're the worst skrunkly out there.

References

^ “Awww The Scrunkly”, in Know Your Meme, launched 2007