Milkshake Duck

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About

Milkshake Duck is an internet slang term referring to a representation of a viral internet star who is briefly adored by the public prior to the discovery of their distasteful or offensive past.

Origin

On June 12th, 2016, Twitter user @pixelatedboat^[1] posted a tweet about the internet's love for "Milkshake Duck," followed by the revelation "we regret to inform you the duck is racist" (shown below). Within one year, the tweet gained over 22,700 likes and 9,600 retweets.

Spread

On January 9th, 2017, Tumblr user Pleated Jeans^[3] highlighted @pixelatedboat's tweet in a listicle titled "15 Twitter Jokes Everyone Should Read."

On June 11th, Urban Dictionary user Disnaem created an entry for "Milkshake Duck," defining it as a person who rapidly becomes famous for something wholesome before they are "revealed as a deeply flawed character with terrible opinions and/or a shady past" (shown below).

The Last Night E3 2017 Reveal

At the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) on June 11th, 2017, the upcoming cyberpunk neo-noir game The Last Night was unveiled (shown below).

That evening, Twitter user @ponettplus tweeted that their excitement for the game had dissipated after discovering that the lead developer was previously a GamerGate supporter who noted he was working on a game that "takes place in a future where 'progressivism' has spiraled out of control" (shown below).

Meanwhile, Twitter user @Xythar tweeted a screenshot of user @9_volt88 reacting to the news about the game, noting "This is the fastest Milkshake Duck I've ever seen take place IRL" (shown below). Additionally, a post titled "'The Last Night'" (Milkshake Duck incarnate)" was created on NeoGAF.^[4] Also that evening, GaintBomb senior editor Alex Navarro tweeted "we are now milkshake ducking at speeds heretofore unseen by man."^[5]

Meanwhile, @pixelatedboat^[6] thanked The Last Night developer for celebrating the tweet's one-year anniversary "in style" (shown below, left) followed by game developer Zoe Quinn tweeting that she was "100% for never letting it go when a developer participated in GamerGate" (shown below, right).^[7]

In response, Soret tweeted that the game is not "against feminism or any form of equality" but that it did "challenge techno-social progress as a whole" (shown below).^[8]

Word of the Year

On January 15th, 2018, the Australian dictionary Macquarie Dictionary announced that their Committee's Choice "Word of the Year" is Milkshake Duck. In a blog post,^[9] they wrote:

"The Committee's Choice for the 2017 Word of the Year is milkshake duck. This is an absolute winner! Even if you don’t know the word, you know the phenomenon. Milkshake duck stood out as being a much needed term to describe something we are seeing more and more of, not just on the internet but now across all types of media. It plays to the simultaneous desire to bring someone down and the hope that they won’t be brought down. In many ways it captures what 2017 has been about. There is a hint of tall poppy syndrome in there, which we always thought was a uniquely Australian trait, but has been amplified through the internet and become universalised."

Several media outlets reported on the announcement, including Mashable,^[11] BBC,^[12] The Guardian,^[13] The AV Club^[14] and more.

In response to the announcement, @pixelatedboat tweeted, "I'm so sorry." The tweet^[10] (shown below) received more than 1,500 retweets and 11,000 likes.