An escalating, hostile back-and-forth argument in a comments section, forum thread, or chat — the internet's oldest and most enduring form of public conflict, predating nearly every other piece of internet-culture vocabulary.
REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
"The comment section turned into a full flamewar within ten minutes."
LORE & ORIGIN
Coined on Usenet in the early-to-mid 1980s to describe threads that devolved into pure hostility rather than substantive discussion, borrowing "flame" (already established slang for a hostile message) and appending "war" for the escalating, multi-party version. It remains the single most durable piece of internet-argument vocabulary, cited unchanged in essentially every online community from Usenet to Discord.
EQUIVALENT CONCEPTS IN OTHER LANGUAGES
MENTIONS OVER TIME
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