o7 (Slang)

About

o7, sometimes incorrectly formatted as 07, is an emoticon that later became a Twitch Emote. Online, the symbol is meant to represent a person saluting, with the "o" being a person's head and the "7" representing a hand being outstretched and then pointed toward the head in a military salute stance. In various gaming communities, livestreams and in internet slang, o7 is often used as a way to pay respects depending on the context given, though it's also used to show approval, appreciation or as a greeting.

Origin

Online, o7 had been used colloquially for many years before emojis were widely supported and people used emoticons in their place. It's unknown when exactly the first instance of "o7" being used to represent saluting appeared online, but it dates back to at least the mid-2000s. On April 30th, 2007, an Urban Dictionary definition for the emoticon o7 was created by user Amarr Titan,^[1] which simply stated that it is meant to resemble the act of saluting a person, receiving over 3,000 upvotes in 14 years (shown below).

Spread

In many different video game communities, o7 has been commonly used by players as a sign of respect, particularly in space-related games, likely due to the association with saluting a captain of a ship or member of the military. For example, the emoticon has been used among Elite Dangerous players for many years, with posts inquiring about the meaning of o7 dating back to the mid-2010s.^[4][5]

The emoticon has also been used by the community of Star Citizen for many years. For example, on December 14th, 2022, Redditor Nosttromo posted a screenshot of the game's chat to /r/starcitizen^[6] showing numerous players using o7, receiving over 1,500 upvotes in two years (shown below).

On August 23rd, 2023, when Cheems passed away, Redditor Substantial-Pear-437^[2] uploaded a compilation of saluting memes to the subreddit /r/meme, captioning the image as "You will be missed o7" with many comments replying "o7" in response (shown below).

With the advent of Twitch and livestreaming culture, o7 began to take on a new form in the late 2010s and 2020s, with emotes being used to represent the salute gesture among various streamer communities. In a livestream chat, typing in "o7" would often automatically replace the phrase with an emote of a salute, leading people to represent the combination with the act of saluting and respect, similar to Fs In The Chat.

On Twitch, where each channel is able to have its own set of emotes, some streamers create their own versions of saluting emotes, typically referencing the "o7" format. Twitch streamer PayMoneyWubby, as well as others, have custom versions of o7, with Wubby's being known as "Wubby7." This version became popularized on the site within his community, as well as others, thanks to community member and musician Willro creating a song called "Wubby7" that was uploaded to YouTube^[3] on November 21st, 2021, which asks for the chat to spam the emote (shown below).

Search Interest

External References