Burnerverse

Submission 865

Part of a series on Zynternet. [View Related Entries]

About

Burnerverse is a slang term and portmanteau derived from the phrase "burner account" or "burner phone" combined with "universe." The term refers to a loosely bound community of anonymous Twitter / X accounts that discuss American college, frat and D1 sports culture. The anonymous nature of the community lends itself to propagating generally politically incorrect or controversial ideas, as well as engaging in contentious actions, such as the burnerverse playing a large role in an online harassment campaign against a college freshman in June 2024 that garnered widespread attention.

Origin

Early mentions of the word "burnerverse" can be traced back as early as June 2020, with X^[1] user @DirtyRafer making a post about being an "OG" burnerverse user (seen below). While the post did not gain notable engagement, it is one of the earliest discoverable examples of the term being used on Twitter / X.

Spread

The slang term and community continued to grow and become more prominent online in the 2020s. On October 15th, 2022, X^[2] user @RizNasty2point0 posted about the burnerverse while wearing a parody Major League Baseball hat (shown below).

On December 22nd, X^[3] user @LouSass8008 posted about the burnerverse as well, describing it as "the Twitter account that I spend most my time on and interact with these other guys I’ve never met before, but we’re all really funny" (seen below).

On August 2nd, 2023, bloggers BurnAfterPod^[4] posted a podcast episode talking about their introduction to the burnerverse (seen below).

The burnerverse is also typically understood to be associated with Southern colleges, sports teams and communities, as implied by an April 23rd, 2024, post^[5] by X user @mikevick166 that reads, "Anyone else ever wonder if there’s a northerner burnerverse that just absolutely hates everyone from the south?" The post (shown below) received over 13,600 views and 130 likes in roughly two months.

On June 9th, 2024, X^[6] user @pigshitsonballs posted a Bro Explaining meme about the burnerverse, writing, "'Yeah it’s called a burner twitter and it’s basically a twitter where I repost sports and bully people online with an anonymous account. And there is this thing called the burnerverse and I have almost 200 followers. Like I’m almost an influencer and I had a viral tweet I pinned,'" and gathering over 2,000 likes in a month (seen below).

Lily Lang SEC Burnerverse Trolling refers to an informal harassment and trolling campaign targetting a university student named Lily Lang that was initiated by various anonymous fraternity members in Southeastern Conference (SEC) schools. In a disparate Twitter / X community they call the "burnerverse," various anonymous Twitter accounts associated with SEC fraternities shared memes about Lily Lang in June 2024, alleging that she cheated on her boyfriend with pledges from different frats and colleges or was notoriously promiscuous prior to dating him. Rumors of a "video" involving Lang also spread online at the time.