About

Corn Cobbed is slang term coined by Dril meaning to attract controversy online, usually through an unpopular hot take or a viral gaffe, then repeatedly insist on being unbothered by the controversy, thus proving the opposite to onlookers. It is used synonymously with owned. It gained notoriety in 2017 when centrist political pundits, accused of being "corn cobbed," decried the term, misunderstanding it as homophobic. It has also become a pejorative for political centrists for this reason.

Origin

On November 10th, 2011, Weird Twitter user Dril ^[1] posted a tweet that read "'i'm not owned! im not owned!!', i continue to insist as i slowly shrink and transform into a corn cob" (shown below). The tweet gained over 5,300 retweets and 10,000 likes.

Spread

Similar to Milkshake Duck, the tweet remained a popular reference in the following years before it became a slang term in its own right. "Corn cobbed" began becoming popular slang towards the end of June of 2017 as it caught the attention of political pundits who did not understand the meaning of the term. On June 26th, 2017, Twitter user @_Chilladelphia^[2] responded to a thread by centrist pundit Candice Aiston regarding health care with an image of her eyebrows replaced by corn cobs (shown below, left). Aiston responded by dismissing the poster as a Berniebro. User @ironghazi^[3] reposted her tweet with the label "CORNCOBBED ONLINE" written over it (shown below, right).

The following day, journalist John Stoehr brought further attention to the term when he tweeted "What is 'binch'? What is to be 'corn cobbed?'" (shown below, left). He later tweeted "Funny how socialists reach for homophobia imagery so easily" (shown below, right). Both tweets have since been deleted. While it's unclear why Stoehr thought the term was homophobic, it is possible he looked up the term on Urban Dictionary, where all the definitions for "corn cob"^[4] have to do with various sex acts.

Discourse around the term grew popular again in the beginning of August of 2017. On August 2nd, journalist Yashar Ali^[7] tweeted an image of Kamala Harris, a rumored democratic candidate for the 2020 Presidential Election, that called her the "Centrist Corncob" candidate. Ali noted how it was remarkable how the "Bernie Sanders Crew" had mobilized against Harris (shown below, left). Centrist pundit Al Giordano^[5] quoted the tweet stated that the term had homophobic and rape culture origins (shown below, right). The same day, Neera Tanden,^[6] a chief strategist on the Hillary Clinton campaign in the 2016 United States Presidential Election did the same. Both were mocked for misunderstanding the term.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References