Terminology

This article contains a list of terms and concepts commonly used by anons specifically within tournament threads. Official rules and terms such as the Elite Eight, Series Limit, etc will not be listed and can instead be found in the official tournament rules pastebins.

Asterisk (*)

An Asterisk (*) is a symbol unofficially given to a character denoting a win or deep run that is considered controversial. Any character run that can be called invalid either because of rigging, off-site brigading, or general strictly illicit methods are sometimes given an * by anon's. The most major example is Spinel's controversial Ms. /co/ 2019 win, who was revealed a year later to have been brigaded by a facebook group. Several members of the Elite Eight in Ms. /co/ 2022 were also controversially given asterisks by host NightShiftAnon !!9A2duD1C25+ who claimed them to be rigged, however most anons have since discredited these asterisks due to the dubious legitimacy of the rigging claims and the underhanded behavior of said host.

Campaigning

Campaigning is a major tournament concept, in which anons create posts to bolster a character's thread presence and convince others to vote for their character, often in the forms of Original Content (such as art, writing and music), discussion about their character, and roleplay. Campaigning is seen as a major factor in a character's success, with less traditionally popular characters being able to make it big due to strong campaigning. The Batter's and Wuya's tournament victories are seen as notable examples of the importance campaigning can offer a character.

/dbs/

/dbs/ (standing for Dragon Ball Super) denotes the posters of the series and characters of Dragon Ball, and their /a/ general of the same name. Despite being shitposters unrelated to any main tourney they have become a common and generally accepted, sometimes even welcome thread presence. /dbs/ tourney posting begain in Ms. /co/ 2021, and has been a presence of virtually every notable tourney since.

Memes and lingo pulled directly from the /dbs/ general are common, such as epic battles between Bejita and TARDku, and "five minute Frieza's" announcement five minutes before the end of a round. Despite their presence, /dbs/ posters have usually no serious professed bias in the tourney's themselves and remain aloof from matches and results. Some exceptions include direct participation in pertinent side-tourneys such as Heroes and Villains of /a/, occasional shitpost spats with DTVA, and Goku's simping for Brisby.

DTVA

Characters of animated series produced by Disney Television Animation. In /co/ tournaments, it most often refers to The Ghost and Molly McGee, Amphibia and The Owl House and their respective characters and posters. They are usually a main victim of spitevoting because of questionable shitposting and controversial albeit popular presence on the board, and general hatred against nu-Disney, which can all be seen also as emblematic of the wider attitudes and conflicts regarding "zoomer" era oriented animation on /co/. The term is also sometimes extended to any popular Disney animated show post-2015, especially the other big "loretoons" such Star vs. and Gravity Falls who've had a somewhat better board and tourney history but with still a degree of stigma attached.

Duck Match

The Duck Match was a oft-anticipated match-up between the two cartoon icons Daffy Duck from Looney Tunes and Donald Duck from Disney. The idea of it had been brought up for years, with it gaining particular steam in Mr. /co/lympus 2020 before it was quashed there by Tom defeating Donald in the fourth round. (Tom would later go on to defeat Daffy himself in the finals.) By chance, the match-up ended up happening immediately upon Daffy's return in 2022, coming as early as the second round due to the use of a randomized bracket that year. In the end, however, the match ended up being more lukewarm than anything to many anons despite all the hype around it happening. As such, it was looked upon as a disappointment overall in retrospect.

Since then, the term duck match has become short-hand for specific thematic match-ups that get hyped up as a possibility in anons, often with the expectation that they will likely not live up to the hype around them. Several other match-ups that have happened since the actual Duck Match could fit the term, with prominent examples including the "Jack-Off" finals in King of /v/ 2022 and Krabs vs. Plankton in Mr. /co/lympus 2024. After the match between Joker and Gordon during Mr. /co/ 2024, some anons began to directly use it as the prime example of a good duck match that actually lived up to the pre-built hype surrounding it.

Falseflagging

Falseflagging refers to the act of posing as a supporter of a contestant while creating posts that paint said character and/or its actual supporters in a negative light, either in an attempt to get the character to lose or simply for the sake of trolling. Usually most falseflagging attempts are extremely obvious, but more insidious falseflags have been attempted where there is a genuine intent at ruining the reputation of a character. Examples of common tactics used by falseflaggers include spamming fat fetish or otherwise unpleasant art, "campaigning" with AI generated images, attempting to frame the character as being trans, and generally being a nuisance in the threads in the name of their target. It can be synonymous with the common phrase psyops (psychological operations).

Flavor of the Month (FotM)

Flavor of the month means "the most popular person/thing at a particular period of time". This term is typically used for characters who are hyped up and receive much attention because of recent new releases, or in some cases, due to significant events outside the show like creator/actor deaths (sharing an overlap with "Pity voting"). Since recency bias is arguably an inherent part in elections, characters who benefit from FotM attention tend to perform well, but it may also paint a target on their back and leave them susceptible to being spite voted out of the tournament.

The standout example of a FotM character winning the tournament is Ms. /co/ 2019 champion Spinel, who first appeared in Steven Universe: The Movie on 2019 September 02 — just eleven days before the tournament began.

Jobber

A term originating from the professional wrestling scene, a jobber in a popularity tournament context is a character who typically loses in the first round. Most jobbers lose simply because they're not popular or recognizable enough. However, several characters have gained reputations for frequently suffering early losses in spite of high seeds and/or strong thread presence, which is often because of the polarizing reception of the character, their series, or other circumstances. One of the most famous jobbers in 4chan tournaments is Battler Ushiromiya from Umineko.

Metagaming

Metagaming, also known as Strategic Voting, refers to the act of consciously voting with the aim of manipulating the bracket, rather than just voting for whom one actually prefers, typically in the hopes of eliminating perceived strong characters in the bracket in favor of weaker picks for a better chance of another character's success. This can also be done in order to try and force a "fitting" match-up. A commonly referred to example of metagaming is Ms. /co/ 2021, in which many anons found the Elite Eight of that tournament to be underwhelming due to their favorites having been strategically voted out by rampant metagaming.

Midcarder

A midcarder refers to a character who has a particular reception for consistently losing out in earlier rounds of a tournament, typically around the second or, truer to the name, third round. Often, this moniker is used more frequently for characters that seed high, possess a lot of general popularity past the tournament's board, or easily qualify for every tournament outing. The original term originates from professional wrestling, referring to wrestlers who are typically inserted into midcard time slots for bigger events. It's at least some acknowledgement to their skill, but also a sign that they fall below headlining stars. As the tournaments have gone on for longer, some former Elite Eight members have sometimes been considered midcarders at present. A good example of this would be Mr. Incredible in Mr. /co/lympus, who has had a rough time going further in brackets following his current record run in 2020 and the backlash following in its wake.

Pityvoting

Pityvoting is the scenario in which a character receives votes from anons specifically due to an unfortunate and recent meta event related to him or her, usually the cancelation of a series or the death of a voice actor. This is often a point of contention for these characters, as arguments break out over whether or not their success is founded primarily on sympathy for the character's series/VA rather than the character's actual merit. The major example of this arguably is Dr. Mrs. The Monarch in Ms. /co/ 2020, who through the cancellation of her show got a handful of votes in her favor that contributed to her victory.

Silent Majority

Under its general usage, the Silent Majority is an unspecified large group of people in a country or group who do not express their opinions publicly, a term popularized by U.S. presidents Calvin Coolidge and Richard Nixon during their political campaigns. In the context of 4chan character tournaments, the term is commonly used for the large majority of anons from Brazil who vote without participating or directly interacting with the tournament threads, where all the discussion and campaigning takes place. Silent Majority picks are defined by having massive success despite often having no thread presence to speak of; while this is an indication of a character's innate popularity among the board, the Silent Majority is viewed unfavorably by some and its association with it to be the sign of an uninteresting pick undeserving of its tournament success. With sometimes more than a thousand votes going into the round polls, debates between silent and meta/campaigner approaches to the tourney' often arise. In 2023 official measures by the hosts were implemented to discourage Silent Majority voting, with the voting forms moved to the OC anchor rather than the top of the thread to encourage anons to interact with the thread rather than simply voting from the catalogue and never visiting the thread itself, though this has since been rescinded.

Spitevoting

Spitevoting refers to voting for a character for no other reason than to vote against the other character in the matchup. Reasons for spitevoting tend to either be a case of metagaming, hatred for a specific character/series, or simply an anon seething over his main losing to the character in question during a previous round.

Tribute

A Tribute is a real-world offering to a character from an anon (assumingly) in their support. This typically takes the form of printing or drawing out the character on paper and then either offering something to the image or using the image as the tribute itself. Tributes have ranged from food, coins, fire, to various bodily fluids. Tributes of a seedier nature tend to cause wild and mixed reactions.

Team F.A.R.T.S.

"FARTS" is an acronym used in Ms. /co/ to refer to the characters Frankie Foster, Azula, Raven, Toph, and Shego, grouping them together under the reasoning of these characters being the most prevalent heavy hitters that consistently seed and perform well due to their high popularity, and having all returned in the year 2021 when the term first gained widespread use. The term is frequently used within the Ms. /co/ tournaments, with some criticizing the acronym as ruining the chances of these characters of actually winning due to creating a stigma of being seen as boring silent majority picks. The term has also been used in comparison to refer to characters other than the girls named in F.A.R.T.S who share the same qualities of being perceived heavy hitters, usually other characters from the 2000s.

With the victory of Frankie Foster in Ms. /co/ 2024, a just for fun vote was held to determine what the "FARTS" acronym should change to in Frankie's permanent absence; it was voted to be renamed to "ARTS", with the second most common preference being "RATS".

See Also

Tournament Phenomena