About

Gem and Coal are slang terms that originated on 4chan's /qa/ board and Soyjak.party to appraise the quality of posts. "Gem" referred to the rare post that was considered high-quality and humorous by users. Users were encouraged to bump posts that were considered gems. "Coal" described posts that were deemed low-quality and unoriginal, and thus dismissed or mocked by the community. First used on 4chan's /qa/ board, the slang terms have since inspired thematic Soyjaks that are used by members of the Soyjak community on Twitter / X and other sites.

Origin

While the use of phrases like "bumping this gem" was commonplace on /qa/^[1] as early as March 2018, gem and coal-centric Soyjaks did not gain notable traction on 4chan's /qa/ board until 2020.

Shown below is an early example of the phrase "bumping this gem" being used alongside Soyjaks on 4chan's /qa/^[2] board on July 15th, 2020.

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An early example of the word "coal" being used to describe a bad post on 4chan's /qa/ board can be seen in the following December 7th, 2020, post.

By 2021, Soyjaks depicting gems and coal had also become commonplace on /qa/,^[3] as seen in the following May 24th, 2021, post showing a gem being buried under a mound of coal.

Spread

On May 30th, 2021, Soyjak.party users^[4] mocked another user for writing, "As someone who has a fair number of certified gem threads under their belt, I feel somewhat insulted by the idea that this thread passes for a gem, and I challenge your assertion that it belongs in the gem folder. Yes the thread is okay, good even, but hardly gem-worthy."

On August 31st, 2021, an anonymous /qa/^[5] user posted a gem Soyjak in response to another user posting a 3D rendered Soyjak.

Several notable gem and coal Soyjak variants are archived on SoyBooru^[6] archives after the decline of Soyjak.party, including the GIF^[8] of a stubble Soyjak pulling a coal alarm, and the GIF^[7] of a Soyjak excitedly pressing a "bump" button upon seeing a gem.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References