About

Vidya is a shortened form of Vidya Gaem, an intentionally misspelled slang term for video game. The term is commonly used on online image boards and discussion forums in which video games are the topic, most notably 4chan's /v/ (video games) board.

Origin

The term is derived from a mispronunciation of "video" that was uttered in the March 1st, 1998 episode of adult animated sitcom King of the Hill.^[1] Throughout the series (shown below), the protagonist Hank Hill continues to pronounces the word "video" as "vidya" reflecting his Texan accent.^[6]

Spread

Online, the term became frequently used on 4chan some time after /v/’s launch on October 9th, 2004, with its earliest known mention dating back to April 2007 in a thread on the Penny Arcade forums discussing 4chan-made parodies of the Why I Am So Bald comic series.^[7] After the forum member DuskTwilight suggested that the comics being posted were dated, Sandshrew noted that all of the posts were less than three days old, with the exception of the term “vidya gaems.”

First of all, these aren't "old as hell". Except for Vidya Gaems, all of these are no less than 3 days old.
Secondly, the reason you've seen them on 4Chan before is because I was the one making them and then putting them there.
Thirdly, about 5 of these are original contents made just for this thread, you won't find them in /v/

On June 18th, 2007, a Yahoo! Answers^[8] question inquiring about vidya games was asked. The earliest archived 4chan thread using the term was posted in a discussion about the Touhou Project on the /tg/ (Traditional Games) board on July 21st, 2007.^[9]

Throughout 2007, the term could be found on LiveJournal blogs^[10], the Kirby's Rainbow Resort forum^[11], the 4chan discussion boards^[12] and the music statistics site Last.fm^[13], which has offered a group titled Vidya Gaem Enthusiasts since October 29th, 2007. In December 2008, the first definition of vidya was submitted to Urban Dictionary.^[14]

Throughout the next several years, the term has been used on a number of message boards including eBaum's World^[15], Destructoid^[16], Gamespot^[17] and Overclock^[18] as well as humor sites including FunnyJunk^[19] and 9gag.^[20] On Facebook, an interest page for Vidya Games^[21] has amassed nearly 2,800 likes as of April 2013. Additionally, fan works and commentary about vidya can be found on deviantART^[22], YouTube^[23], Tumblr^[24] and Reddit.^[25]

Vidya Gaem Awards

The Vidya Gaem Awards^[3][4] began in response to the poorly-received Spike Video Game Awards^[5], known for focusing on the awards rather than the gaming community. The first awards team were initially organized through 4chan threads^[26] with the idea that the awards were selected by /v/, for /v/. The team went so far as to remove votes confirmed to have come from Reddit from of the pool.^[28] The first award show was held via online stream on February 11th, 2012^[27] to more than 10,000 viewers.^[30] The 2012 awards (shown below) were held on March 2nd, 2013^[29]

Search Interest

External References