thanks for the tip
The first viral campaign written by AI
for the first next word created by AI.
It means unplugging it and plugging it back in.
The "why didn't I think of that" idea
that ruins the next 15 minutes of your day.
/ˌʌnriːˈplʌɡ/ verb
"The Wi-Fi's down again." — "Just unreplug the router."
"I unreplugged for two weeks. Deleted all my apps. Read a book. Now I'm back and somehow worse at everything."
"Unplug it and plug it back in"
7 words · 35 characters · exhausting"Unreplug it"
2 words · 11 characters · doneThat's a 71% reduction in characters. You're welcome.
of IT support calls are resolved by unreplugging something. We made that number up, but you believed it because you know it's basically true.
The year someone first said "have you tried turning it off and on again?" Probably. Nobody wrote it down because the word for it didn't exist yet.
The number of people who have ever explained why unreplugging works. You just do it. It just works. Don't ask questions.
The number of devices that have been saved by unreplugging. Routers. TVs. Printers. That one monitor at work. Your aunt's "broken" iPad.
A word isn't real until it conjugates. This one does it beautifully.
Works as a noun too: "Give it an unreplug." Try doing that with seven words.
"Have you tried unreplugging it?"
— Every IT department, worldwide, forever
"I unreplugged the router and the whole house cheered."
— Modern heroism
"The printer was possessed. One unreplug. Done."
— Digital exorcism
"My marriage counselor suggested we try unreplugging."
— Surprisingly effective
"Unreplug first, ask questions never."
— The IT Hippocratic Oath
"In this house, we unreplug before we panic."
— A cross-stitch, probably
When you unreplug a device, you're doing something called a power cycle. It clears the device's volatile memory (RAM), resets its internal state, and forces all the software to restart from scratch.
In human terms: the device forgot what it was confused about.
It's the technological equivalent of taking a nap when you're overwhelmed. The problem hasn't changed, but somehow you're ready to deal with it now. Nobody fully understands why this works as often as it does. Engineers have theories. The rest of us have faith.
The point is: it works. And now it has a name.
Share unreplug. Use it in conversation. Confuse your coworkers.
Help it get in the dictionary.
Think this should be a real word?
Submit to Merriam-WebsterHey Kevin & Casey — long-time Platformer subscriber, loyal NYT reader, not suing Anthropic, not schtupping any of its employees. Just a guy who got high and made a word with AI. You gonna have me on or what?
— Steve, discoverer of the first AI-generated word
A guy dealing with some health stuff took a little weed to relax and asked ChatGPT a simple question. It gave him "unreplug" — the first word created by AI. Weeks later, high again, he told a different AI to build a campaign around it. Now he's trying to make $10,000. It's a whole thing.
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