About

Bamboozle is a word which means "to deceive by underhanded methods" and "to confuse, frustrate, or throw off thoroughly or completely."^[1] It became popular slang on Reddit's /r/me_irl in late 2016 in posts that asked for upvotes, as users made posts that said if the post gets a certain amount of upvotes, they will perform an action. In such posts, posters include "no bamboozle" to make it known their promise is sincere.

Origin

According to Merriam-Webster, the first known use of "bamboozle" was in 1703. According to Wikitionary,^[2] it's an extension of the 17th century vernacular word "bam," which means to trick or con. In 1710, famous author Jonathan Swift wrote an article on "the continual Corruption of our English Tongue" in which he complained about the word "bamboozle." In internet history, the word first appeared on Urban Dictionary ^[3] on October 23rd, 2003 and gave a similar definition to the Merriam-Webster dictionary (shown below).

Spread

In Pop Culture

Before gaining traction online, the word had some notable uses in popular culture. For example, in the Friends episode "The One With the Baby Shower," the character Joey prepares to audition for a new game show called "Bamboozled." Ross and Chandler help him by pretending to be contestants and though the game's rules seem needlessly complex, they all get very into the game (shown below).

There was also an alternative rock music festival named "The Bamboozle"^[6] that went on annually from 2003-2012 in New Jersey. Both a board game^[4] and a trivia-question app^[5] have the name "Bamboozle."

Doggo Usage

The word also grew popular as a slang word used in Doggo and Stop It Son You Are Doing Me a Frighten images as a word for "confuse."

me_irl Usage

"Bamboozle" became a popular word on me_irl in posts asking for upvotes following a December 15th, 2016 post by user lordtuts^[7] that claimed if his post got over 10,000 upvotes, he would get the next day's top post on me_irl tattooed on his butt. The post gained over 72,000 upvotes. However, lordtuts did not follow through with his promise. On December 17th, he made another post calling the subreddit fools for thinking he'd get a tattoo on his butt for "fake internet points." He then called the subreddit "easily bamboozled" (shown below).

This started a wave of using the word "bamboozle" on the subreddit in posts promising actions in exchange for upvotes, as posters assured subreddit users that they would not "bamboozle" them as lordtuts did. This also inspired the creation of /r/NoMoreBamboozles, a subreddit devoted to monitoring such upvotes-for-action posts.^[8] On March 22nd, user WhyNotFerret^[9] posted a contract to me_irl to ensure a reduction in bamboozles.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References