doomer
/DOO-mer/noun
Meaning
An extremely pessimistic person, especially one who believes that society, the environment, technology, or the future is headed toward collapse and that attempts to improve the situation are pointless. Online, doomer can also refer to a gloomy Wojak-style meme archetype associated with isolation, nihilism, and giving up.[2][3][4]
- 1. A person who expects catastrophe, collapse, or ruin, particularly from threats such as climate change, resource depletion, or social breakdown.
- 2. A person who is broadly fatalistic and pessimistic, often believing that effort, relationships, work, or personal improvement will not lead anywhere.
- 3. An online meme archetype based on a scruffy, depressed-looking young man who represents nihilism, alienation, and a bleak outlook.
Examples
“Bro turned into a doomer after reading one climate thread.”
“The group chat is full of doomers today.”
“I'm not a doomer, I just don't trust that plan.”
“That black-beanie Wojak is peak doomer energy.”
Origin and spread
Doomer is formed from doom with the agent suffix -er. The word has older, unrelated senses for a person who pronounces a legal sentence or foretells doom; those senses are not the source of the modern internet identity. In the modern pessimistic sense, doomer was circulating in writing about catastrophe-focused communities by at least 2011, and a 2015 Guardian article used it for people who believed global catastrophe was imminent. The recognizable online meme archetype was documented on 4chan in September 2018. During 2019, the term appeared in a broader family of internet labels modeled partly on boomer and zoomer, including bloomer and gloomer. It later spread into climate and technology debates, where compounds such as climate doomer and AI doomer describe people viewed as excessively convinced that those problems will end disastrously.[3][4]
How to use it
Doomer is informal and often mildly or sharply negative: it usually describes someone as defeatist rather than merely realistic or worried. It can be used self-deprecatingly in memes, captions, and group chats, but calling someone a doomer may dismiss genuine concern about climate change, artificial intelligence, or other serious risks. The meme sense may also carry associations with 4chan-derived online subcultures, so context matters.
Sources
- 1. The Guardian — The news is terrible. Is the world really doomed?
- 2. The Guardian — I quit my job to set up a post-apocalyptic communeSupports: meaning, earliest documented use.
- 3. MEL Magazine — 4chan’s ‘Doomer’ Memes Are a Strange Frontier in Online ExtremismSupports: origin, meaning.
- 4. The Atlantic — The Misogynistic Joke That Became a Goth-Meme Fairy TaleSupports: origin, meaning.
