About

"(You)" is a string of text displayed on 4chan comments to indicate a user has replied to the reader's post. Since many users interpret the term as a synonym for "reply," it is often used in response to posts perceived as bait with the expression "Here's Your (You)".

Origin

On 4chan, and various other imageboards, replies to a user's own posts are indicated with the word "(You)," which subsequently led to many 4chan users adopting "(You)" as a synonym for "reply" (shown below, left). One of the earliest archived uses of the phrase "Here's your (You)" was posted on the /vg/ (video games) board on October 26th, 2014 (shown below, right).^[1]

Spread

Over the following months, the expression spread to other boards, but remained relatively dormant until early 2015, when "here's your (you)" began widely propagating on the /vg/ (video games) board.^[2][4][5] On February 16th, 2016, an image macro featuring a character from Kantai Collection captioned with "(you)" was submitted to the /co/ (comics and cartoons) board.^[6]

On June 24th, a 4chan user was accused of baiting viewers with the phrase "Here's your (You)" in a thread on the /trash/ (Off-Topic) board (shown below, left). The same day, another 4chan user replied "Here's your (You), faggot" to a post about the European Union on the /pol/ (politics) board (shown below, right).^[6]

Removal from 4chan

On December 28th, 2016, the (You) feature used to highlight the posts made by the user was removed from 4chan, and replaced by dotted lines below the post number. The change, made after several threads requesting the removal of the feature,^[8] was heavily criticised by the users of the site, who made several threads in protest on the question and answer board /qa/ (shown below).^[9][10]

Various Examples

External References