“Fs in the chat” refers to the action of paying your respects by typing Fs into a chat channel, similar to how RIP is used. On gaming livestreams, it’s often used jokingly when a player is killed in a humorous way. But you can also use the phrase sincerely to show sympathy when something bad happens.
In this article, we’ll take a quick look at how this phrase originated, and how you might use variations of the phrase in different situations.
When did “Fs in the chat” first appear in general usage?
In 2014, Activision released a version of the game Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare in which you play a character whose friend dies on a mission. You’re shown a cutscene of your friend’s funeral. While cutscenes are usually non-interactive, in this one you are prompted with a “Press F to Pay Respects” notification if you’re playing on a PC (or “Press X” if you’re using a controller).
The feature received a wave of criticism and backlash as if the gesture of pressing F was so trivial that it undermined the solemnity of the cutscene altogether. Parodies, memes, and commentaries quickly emerged to ridicule the feature and grew in popularity to such a degree that eventually the phrase crossed over into common usage as internet slang.
How is the phrase used in context?
A typical use of the phrase often takes the form of a call and response. Let’s say you’re live streaming, and you recognize you’ve just died in the game because of your own mistake. You or your teammate might call out, “Can I get some Fs in the chat” as a way to humorously acknowledge your mistake.
This is such a common usage that chats are sometimes filled with Fs whether someone asks for that response or not. The F key in this case has picked up the additional connotation of “fail” which was likely not intended by the game designers who implemented the original “Press F to Pay Respects” feature.
You can also use “F in the chat” to acknowledge something sad or difficult that you’ve learned. It could be something minor, like your friend getting a bad grade, or it could be more serious, like your friend losing a job. In these cases, you could use “F in the chat” to pay your respect and show sympathy to your friend.
