About
Internet Grawlix is a posting style used to display anger or annoyance in text-based posts and comments on the internet based on grawlix, a combination of symbols and drawings used in comic books to represent an obscenity or swearword. These text posts commonly make use of the home row for the left hand on a keyboard, which are the letters “asdf”.
Origin
Although the first usage of grawlix-styled text posts is impossible to trace back, the reason of the common letters can be explained. The most common keyboard style used by modern day technology follows the QWERTY-style[3] key layout (shown below, left). On QWERTY keyboards, the home row consist of the letters “asdf” and “jkl;” for the left and right hand (shown below, right). With standard browsing, people commonly use their right hand for the mouse. Because of this, quick replies typed in the style of grawlix commonly make use of only the left hand to prioritize browsing and replying speed.
Grawlix
Grawlix[1] is a text style making use of a combination of symbols and violence-related images, most commonly used in comics to indicate anger or swear words. The term was first coined by American comic artist Mort Walker in 1964 in a satirical article written by Walker called “Let’s Get Down to Grawlixes” for the National Cartoonists Society.[2]
Spread
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Variations
Although most grawlix-styled text posts are based on just using “asdf”, certain combinations have gained a more common usage within internet communities, such as asfasdf, fghds and fghfgsdfs. Other styles are based on other differences, such as qsdf and similar variations being caused by an AZERTY[4] keyboard, and lkjh and similar variations being caused by people using their right hand.