About

Locals is a slang term used predominantly on Twitter to describe someone who is behind on social trends and engages in generic internet behavior that is also known to be from the same area as the poster. It is used synonymously with normie.

Origin

The most popular definition for "Locals" was added to Urban Dictionary on November 10th, 2017 by user Madisonblegh (shown below).^[1]

Prior to the definition being submitted, the term saw use on Twitter to describe social media users in the immediate area who were uncultured to current internet trends (example shown below).

Spread

Over the following several months, the phrase saw increasing use on Twitter. For example, Twitter user @touchnick used the phrase to describe people reacting to the news that noted Twitter meme-stealing accounts @Dory and @Girlposts had been suspended, echoing the example given in the Urban Dictionary definition of the term (shown below).

Additionally, the term has seen particular use in Stan culture. For example, on March 11th, Twitter user @samsgh_ uploaded an image from the Netflix series Jessica Jones asking about "wigs." Taken out of context, "Wig" is another Stan term meaning to do something extremely good. The tweet gained over 11,000 retweets (shown below, left). Twitter user @NathanTriska posted a tweet on March 13th that stated "attention all of stan twitter: since “wig!” is now mainstream we need a new words that the locals can’t de-code," gaining 60 retweets and 300 likes in less than 30 minutes (shown below right).

On March 12th, 2018, The Daily Dot^[2] covered the spread of the term.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References