About

Sweaty is a slang term used by gaming communities to describe players who are trying too hard or taking a game too seriously similar in fashion to the term “try-hard” that is frequently used by gamers. The term stems from the act of intensely focusing on a game or match to the extreme, resulting in a player sweating from the intensity and stress of trying to achieve victory beyond the basic enjoyment of playing for fun. It’s most commonly used as a derogatory term and hyperbole to describe members of any game’s player base who try too hard or are highly skilled and competitive, often coming from players who are upset by their lack of ability to compete.

History

One of the earliest uses of the term originated within the EA Sports FIFA community back in 2014. Here, the term “sweaty goal” was coined as a way to describe players who abused the game’s mechanics in order to score easy goals without needing much skill. On February 22nd, 2014, user That Real Madrid Bandwagon added the term to Urban Dictionary^[1] with the definition seen below.

Online Presence

On Reddit^[2], the term also surfaced within the FIFA sub, where Redditor miahrules posted a question asking about the definition of the term on December 1st, 2014. Several users commented on the post and proceeded to debate the definition, with one such example coming from Redditor JayJ_9 stating, “It's pretty much a term for people who are trying to win.”

In 2015, the term spread to other gaming communities, including the Destiny player base who quickly adopted “sweaty” to describe both players and certain competitive modes notorious for being filled with try-hard players. On the GameFAQs^[3] message boards for Destiny, user YoshimotoBanana asked “What are sweaties?” on December 22nd, 2015, and received over 50 comments from people explaining the term. Several users replied, explaining that “sweaties” relates to both competitive players and modes. One reply from user JP_Bmore provides a solid explanation, “Sweaties are people trying really hard to win and will throw the proverbial kitchen sink at you. In Trials, these guys aren’t just ‘doing bounties,’ they are booning it up with the sole purpose of going flawless and will stop at nothing. It’s an entire subculture of PVPers in Destiny.”

The term eventually became widespread in a majority of games, particularly those with competitive multiplayer modes and PVP elements, often used interchangeably with “try-hard” as a newer version of the terminology. Within the base of the Halo franchise, “sweaty” also became adopted and is seen in a thread from Halo Waypoint^[4] on November 26th, 2016. Here, a user is seen once again asking for the definition, as several people list various examples in the comments below.

The YouTube^[5] channel Chaos published a video (shown above) on October 27th, 2018, with the title “Are You a SWEATY Fortnite Player?” and discussed the term alongside a “test” that attempts to determine whether or not someone meets the qualifications of being dubbed “sweaty” within the Fortnite community. The video has been viewed over 111,000 times and liked over 3,000 times.

Within the Fortnite community, the term is commonly used and there are several examples of this around the internet, including a post from Redditor^[6] SwarlesBarkley3 uploaded to the r/FortniteCompetitive sub on July 2nd, 2018.

Related Memes

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External References