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Twenty years ago, video games were seen as a niche hobby dominated by hardcore enthusiasts, tucked away in obscure online forums and gaming meet-ups. Back then, the idea that governments would use footage from Call of Duty and gaming terms such as “killstreaks” as war propaganda would have been absurd. Then the 2010s happened: nerd culture popularised, previously online-only spaces began to meld with the real world, and gaming went mainstream.
Now, gaming references have entered common parlance – at the end of 2024, video game terms including “cheat code” and “cutscene” were even added to the Oxford English Dictionary – and they increasingly crop up in politics, too. Earlier this year, the official White House X account posted footage of military strikes on Iran interspersed with footage from the video game Grand Theft Auto. Six days later, another video was posted, this time interspersing military footage with clips from Nintendo’s 2006 game Wii Sports. Video game references aren’t reserved for the political right, either: in February 2026, Democrat representative of New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quipped, “Why does this guy always talk like a World of Warcraft npc [non-player character]?” in response to a post on X by Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff.
To help navigate this new world of gaming references and gaming-inspired “slopaganda”, we have compiled a guide to gaming terms, from phrases that are already widespread to those on the verge of cutting through.
A
Any% A method of beating a game by any means possible, including using glitches or other techniques to skip boss battles, cutscenes, and even entire levels. Any%ers often celebrate “breaking” the game through code exploits to gain a speed advantage. For a real world example, see Elon Musk’s approach to the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge).
B
Boosting Paying for someone else to do the hard work for you by, for example, levelling up your character, especially in online games. Generally viewed as cheating and against the ethos of gaming, it is also something that Elon Musk has admitted to doing for his characters in Path of Exile 2 and Diablo 4.
Buff An enhancement made to a character, item or ability that increases its power or effectiveness. The equivalent of having two pints at a bar to buff your confidence before speaking to someone you fancy.
Bullet sponge An enemy character that takes an absurd amount of damage before they are defeated. Also, derogatory military slang for a person whom nobody wants to be around because they always attract enemy fire. See also: “tanks”.
Button mashing Repeatedly pressing a random selection of buttons on a controller, usually as an act of sheer panic and desperation by inexperienced players trying to win difficult fights.
C
Camping A tactic, usually deployed in games involving shooting and combat, of staying in the same spot for long periods because of its strategic advantage. Often used to snipe other players from afar, which can quickly become very annoying and lead to accusations of trolling or “griefing” (see below).
Cheesing Using tactics that are not technically cheating, but are treading a fine line. Cheesing is effectively taking the easy way out and avoiding the intended challenge set by developers. Tactics include exploiting glitches and loopholes, spamming the same move again and again before an enemy can react, or making yourself overpowered (see “OP” below). One example of cheesing was in Crash Bandicoot: Warped (1998), where players could avoid taking any damage during a colosseum-themed boss fight by standing in a safe-spot corner. In the game’s 2017 remake, standing in that corner resulted in the player being pelted by blocks of cheese as a punishment.
Class A character’s role or occupation (such as warrior, samurai or bandit), often chosen early in the game. Most classes fall into the categories of offence, defence and support, and each class has its own strengths and weaknesses that requires players to adapt their playing style.
D
DLC “Downloadable content”, an extra part of a game that players can pay to download, often including new levels, outfits, items or weapons.
DPS “Damage per second”, a way of calculating how effective an in-game attack or weapon is by measuring how much it damages an enemy in one second.
E
Easter eggs One of the oldest video game terms, an Easter egg is a message, reference or feature hidden in a game. It originates from Steve Wright, a software developer at Atari in 1980, who compared a hidden room in the video game Adventure to an Easter egg hunt (the hidden room contained the signature of Warren Robinett, a coder who, in his own words, was “pissed” that he hadn’t received any credit for being the game’s creator).
Emotes Short gestures players can make their characters perform to show emotions, such as waving, laughing or crying. Popular in online games such as Fortnite and World of Warcraft, where emoting is often used to rile or mock other players.
F
Farming Performing an action in a game repeatedly to gather resources such as items or experience, much like going to work every day to accumulate money, but for fun and in your free time. See also: “grinding”.
G
Gank Similar to “jumping” someone in real life, this is a gaming strategy to ambush weaker players by sneaking up on them, usually in a group.
GG Short for “good game”, used during online games as a way to show sportsmanship at the end of a match. Can be extended to GG WP (“good game, well played”) or, if a player wants to brag about defeating a particularly weak opponent, GG ez (“good game, easy”).
Glitch A bug or malfunction in a game that causes unintended consequences. One of the most infamous is the “Corrupted Blood incident” in World of Warcraft, where a glitch meant that a blood curse spread rapidly between players, eventually spreading so widely that developers had to reset the game. The incident was later used by scientists to study the spread of infectious diseases.
God mode To be omnisciently powerful and invincible within the world of the game, sometimes achieved using hacks or code exploits. During Doge’s overhaul of US government agencies, one senior leader at USAID declared to the Atlantic: “Doge has achieved God mode.”
Griefing To grief someone, or to be a “griefer”, is to wind other players up deliberately by being annoying, disruptive and generally infuriating. Often achieved through killing other players without reason, stealing items, or refusing to engage in team activities. See also: “trolls”.
Grinding Similar to “farming”: a repeated action or task undertaken to gather a resource or level up.
H
HP “Hit points” or “health points”, used to measure the health of a character or how much damage an attack does. Increasingly used in meme culture to joke about real-life damage or embarrassment, such as seeing someone fall over and quipping: “minus 10 HP”.
I
In Minecraft A phrase adopted by far-right sites such as 4chan, often added semi-ironically to the end of threats in an attempt to avoid legal repercussions (for example: “I’m going to punch him … in Minecraft”). It backfired in 2023 when a man was arrested for making death threats against a Florida sheriff on 4chan’s politics board, despite ending his threats with “in Minecraft”.
K
KDR “Kill/death ratio”, a measure used to compare the number of kills a player achieves with the number of times they die, usually to determine skill and competence in online multiplayer games.
Killstreak A continuous series of kills made by a player without being killed themselves (literally a “streak” of kills). This year, the White House was criticised for using a killstreak animation from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in a video featuring real footage from the war in Iran.
Kiting The tactic of hitting an enemy from range while keeping enough distance to avoid harm, often leading them around like a kite on a string.
L
Loot Items players collect as a reward for killing enemies or completing tasks. In recent years, controversial “loot boxes” have gained popularity in games including Genshin Impact and League of Legends, allowing players to exchange real money for randomised virtual items (sometimes also known as “gacha games”, named after Japanese Gashapon, vending machines that dispense capsule toys).
M
-maxxing Prioritising one skill or attribute over all others. Originates from “min-maxing”, a technique of creating the best possible character by maximising desirable traits and minimising undesirable ones. It has now entered mainstream vocabulary with the advent of looksmaxxing and Chinamaxxing.
MMORPG “Massively multiplayer online role playing game”, a game in which players interact with an enormous number of other players in an online fantasy world. A notable example is EVE Online, a sci-fi MMORPG, which, in 2014, saw a battle with 7,548 participants.
Modding Fan-created modifications that change elements of a game’s appearance or add new features. A personal favourite is a Skyrim mod that turns the game’s dragons into Thomas the Tank Engine characters.
N
Nerf To weaken or water down a weapon, character or ability (“I don’t want to play as Riven any more, she’s been nerfed!”), originating from the Nerf brand of toy guns that fire harmless soft foam weapons.
Noob Gaming slang that took hold in the 00s, short for “newbie” and sometimes spelt “n00b”, it is a derogatory word for a clueless and hopeless beginner.
NPC “Non-player character”, a video game character not controlled by the player. Increasingly used as slang for people who are predictable, robotic or lacking interiority, and sometimes tied to the philosophical idea that we live in a simulation.
O
OP “Overpowered”, referring to a character, item or ability that is ridiculously strong and makes winning easy. The spiritual opposite of “nerfed”.
P
Pwned A misspelling of the word “owned”, meaning a humiliating defeat (for example, “You died so easily! Pwned!”). It emerged in the early 00s as part of “leetspeak”, an online slang dialect heavily associated with hackers and coders. A notable example of the word escaping video games is the website “Have I Been Pwned”, established by a Microsoft developer to check whether your email has been compromised in security breaches.
R
Ragequit To suddenly stop playing a game out of anger and frustration, usually because you are repeatedly losing. In 2017, Vanity Fair accused Steve Bannon of threatening to ragequit the White House.
RPG “Role playing game”, typically a game with a heavy storytelling element in which players assume the roles of characters, make decisions for them and follow a narrative path.
S
Side quest A mission or activity that isn’t part of the game’s main story and is usually optional to complete. Sometimes used in more general slang to refer to the whimsical activities and adventures of day-to-day life, such as taking a sewing class or getting a tarot reading.
Skins Different designs and outfits that can be applied to characters to customise their appearance, such as “Peely”, a Fortnite skin that gives characters a banana costume.
Smurfing When a highly skilled player in an online game creates a new account to disguise their skill level and play against lower-ranked players. Originating from top Warcraft 2 players Geoff “Shlonglor” Frazier and Greg “Warp” Boyko, who disguised themselves under the usernames PapaSmurf and Smurfette to play against novice players.
Speedrunning A popular spectator sport that involves completing a game as fast as possible, sometimes using loopholes or glitches (see “Any%”). The term has recently broken into common parlance through “Scientology speedruns”, a 2026 social media trend in which participants film themselves running as far into Scientology buildings as possible before being stopped. One video racked up 90m views.
T
Tanks Also known as a meat shield or bullet sponge, a tank is a class of character designed to withstand large amounts of damage, akin to military tanks. See also: “bullet sponge”.
Trolls
Turtling A strategy where players build heavy defensive fortifications and force their opponents to make risky moves to break through, akin to building a defensive turtle shell.
X
XP “Experience points”, similar to HP, are a unit of measurement used to quantify a player’s skills and progress. Typically, the more XP one has, the stronger they are. Can also be used in real life, such as when video game streamer Sykkuno said: “My XP bar is low” in reference to dating inexperience.
