Nope

About

“Nope” is an informal variant of the negative response “no.” Online, the expression is used to indicate fear, disgust or general distaste and is typically associated with spiders and arachnophobia.

Origin

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary,^[2] the word “nope” as an emphatic form of “no” was used as early as 1888. It is unclear when the word was first used in association with fear and disgust online. On October 19th, 2010, the /r/nope^[1] subreddit was launched featuring photographs of spiders, accumulating more than 5,400 subscribers in the first four years.

Spread

On November 11th, 2011, Redditor oddfuture445 submitted a photograph of a person holding a black widow spider titled “Nope Nope Nope D:” to the /r/WTF^[9] subreddit, receiving upwards of 1,700 up votes and 200 comments before being archived (shown below).

On April 21st, 2012, Redditor jeth submitted a photograph of an engorged tick titled “Just pulled this off my dog. NOPENOPENOPENOPENOPE” to the /r/pics^[4] subreddit. In the comments section, Redditor KaptainKarmel replied with an original animated GIF of a man sitting at a computer who hits a red “Nope” button and is disintegrated by a laser shot from space (shown below, left). On April 23rd, Redditor raisin_bran_submitted KaptainKarmel’s GIF in a post titled “So I found out there’s such a thing as /r/spiders” to the /r/funny subreddit, where it gained over 21,300 up votes and 700 comments prior to being archived. On June 13th, Redditor wendus Zuckerberg submitted an animated GIF of an octopus walking across an ocean floor with the caption “nope nope nope nope” to the /r/funny subreddit, garnering upwards of 3,100 up votes and 40 comments (shown below, right)

On August 9th, FunnyJunk^[6] user wotyoulewkinat submitted a photograph of a gun pointed at a spider with the caption “nope,” receiving more than 21,300 views and 600 up votes in the following two years. On April 26th, 2013, Imgur^[7] user redwytnblak uploaded an album of notable nope GIFs. On June 18th, BuzzFeed highlighted several images and animated GIFs of spiders and other insects titled “15 Things That Will Make You Say Nope.”

Notable Examples

Animated GIFs containing the caption “nope” often feature a person or animal fleeing a scene in a similar vein to “abandon thread” GIFs.

Nope.avi

Nope.avi is a short video clip featuring a BLU Engineer character from Team Fortress 2 saying “nope.” Because of its abrupt nature, the video is most often used humorously as a negative response or a curt dismissal in discussion forums and comment threads.

Nope! Chuck Testa

“Nope! Chuck Testa” is a catchphrase associated with taxidermist Chuck Testa from Ojai Valley, California. The expression became popular after an advertisement for his services, produced by filmmakers Rhett McLaughlin and Charles “Link” Neal, was posted to Reddit in September of 2011.