Netflix and Chill

2014

Date: 20 January 2014 (Twitter coinage); 2015 peak · Place: Twitter; Black Twitter; Tumblr · Figures: @kayswisha (Cory Levy), Twitter user credited · Netflix, brand · Black Twitter, propagator · Tags: BlackTwitter, Vocabulary, Brand 01. Innocent to Euphemism The phrase Netflix and chill appears on Twitter as early as 2009 in the literal sense. By 20 January 2014, when @kayswisha tweets Netflix and chill?, the phrase has accreted its euphemistic second meaning on Black Twitter. By summer 2015 the phrase is a national punchline. Netflix itself stays silent for two years, then acknowledges the meme with carefully neutral marketing copy in 2016. The euphemism is added to OxfordDictionaries.com on 1 April 2016. 02. Lexicographic Catch-up Netflix and Chill is the cleanest case of a phrase moving from Black Twitter to dictionary in eighteen months without the originators being named or paid. The pattern repeats with on fleek, tea, and slay across the same window. By 2018 the phrase is dated. The euphemism is folded into the standard register; the originating cohort moves on. Sources • @kayswisha, Twitter post, 20 January 2014 • Andrew Hampp, Billboard, 'A Brief History of Netflix and Chill', 25 August 2015 • Oxford Dictionaries online, addition, 1 April 2016