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Comment by huangbong | Hacker News Reader

Everyone and their mother uses TFTI. This is satire right?

I've been on the internet for 6+ hours a day for the past 15 years and I have literally never seen it.

As a test, I did a search through 20 MB of logs I have for a locale-specific San Diego IRC channel. I found 111 uses of "tfti". The earliest I have on file dates back to February 2016.

Maybe it's not ubiquitous, but it's certainly not a unique feature of Liberal, Kansas.

First I've heard of it too. The article says "thanks for the invite" but I googled it and the top Google result says "thanks for the info", so it doesn't seem like people agree on what it means.

Are we sure people in Liberal aren't saying it ironically? Most people who pronounce Internet slang acronyms IRL are doing it ironically and the fad wears off quickly.

I'm from Liberal. I've never heard a person here (or anywhere) use the pronunciation "tifty" in any context, but I imagine you're right -- I'm sure plenty use the phrase ironically.

I've seen the initialism TFTI used in earnest, but I would consider the usage that the article refers to as uncommon at best.

yup, and 19 years here.

I can disprove your theory in two ways: I do not use this acronym. And, neither does my mother. That’s two people to discredit your hypothesis. And both myself, and my mother, belong to the group called “everyone“.

I've never heard or seen it until this moment.

I've not heard "tifty" but I've definitely heard the phrase, it's pretty widely used among people under 25 in the midwest.

The phrase 'thanks for the invite', of course. The acronym TFTI, no, and pronouncing it as 'tifty' or verbalizing the term at all, no.

Of course, all this means is that TFTI is an acronym, which are added to language all the time.

Welcome to the edge of your bubble.

Online, perhaps. Not so much in spoken language.

It's also a case of youth driving language changes. People in their 40s and older likely wouldn't use Internet-born acronyms as spoken words, but younger folks might (and frequently do in my experience).

Nope. While TFTI as a word may be common in your community, TFTI is not used by everyone.

I'll assume that you meant it sarcastically, though :) Kind of like when you don't get the invite and say TFTI.

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