Simp is an internet slang term describing someone who shows excessive sympathy and attention toward another person, typically someone who does not reciprocate the same feelings, in pursuit of affection or a sexual relationship. This behavior, known as simping, is carried out toward a variety of targets, including celebrities, politicians, e-girls, and e-boys. The term had sporadic usage until gaining traction on social media in 2019.
Origins
Originally a shortening of "simpleton," the New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English traces usage of the noun simp to 1903. An article in February 1917 edition of Motion Picture Magazine by Arthur Le Kaser has an animated drawing of a female director yelling at a male leading man through a megaphone 'Kiss Her You Simp, Hurry Up Camera!' The shortening has appeared for example in the New York Times as early as 1923, when the paper reported on a letter by one Lillian Henderson criticizing the members of two clubs in Atlantic City for unmarried men:
Those bachelor simps are afraid to take a chance and too tight to share their earnings with a wife.
Simp began to have the connotation of someone being "soft" and "overly sympathetic" in the 1980s, when it was used by West Coast rappers such a Hugh E.M.C., Too Short, and E-40. In 1999, the term was used in the Three 6 Mafia song "Sippin' on Some Syrup" as an antonym for pimp; Too Short has described a "simp" as equivalent to "a knockoff pimp". The term has been expressed as a backronym for Sucker/Sucka Idolizing Mediocre Pussy, which according to Gizmodo Australia is "telling of its 20th century origins".
A definition of simp appeared on Urban Dictionary in 2005, and the word continued to be used by rappers into the 2010s, when it was adopted by members of manosphere, incel, and MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) forums alongside similar derogatory terms such as cuck, beta, and white knight.The word became widely popular on TikTok in 2019, and soon also became popular on Twitch and Twitter. According to Google Trends, interest in the term doubled between late 2018 and late 2019.
The word has been used by some fan communities who call themselves "simps" for a celebrity figure. According to The Daily Dot, the term is often used ironically; similarly, Magdalene Taylor at MEL Magazine says the term is "used mostly as a joke". Nathan Grayson writes at Kotaku that it is "difficult to find breaks in the chain of the word's linguistic lineage".
Contemporary usage
In July 2020, the official Twitter account for Archie Comics said that it would permanently ban people from its YouTube channel for comments calling the comics' main character, Archie Andrews, a simp. The A.V. Club opined that, while it was "pretty safe to say that Archie Andrews is, quite simply, the simpiest of the simps," the Twitter post was likely an attempt at exploiting the Streisand effect for viral marketing. Contrary to the Twitter post, few, if any, comments on the Archie Comics YouTube channel accused the character of being a simp.
In August 2020, Australian politician Bill Shorten used the term on national television, saying on an ABC segment that Prime Minister Scott Morrison needed "to make sure he doesn't look like he's just a simp to Donald Trump".
In September 2020, users of Reddit created a pledge called "No Simp September", similar to No Nut November (a month-long abstention from masturbation). Participation in "No Simp September" required posters to abstain from upvoting women's photos, watching pornography, and "giving money to online sex workers", including "e-girls". In October, Mikael Thalen at The Daily Dot described Twitter users as "simping hard" over leaked photos of Hunter Biden.
A November 20 article in Vox about posting cringe on TikTok discussed the character of TikTok user Nate Varrone called "Mr. Simp Sexual", of the "biggest stars" of the genre. Varrone explained the character thus: He's from Michigan and he had a girlfriend named Melissa that he just wants back so fucking badly [...] He's just not in a good place right now, emotionally. I think he uses TikTok to fill the hole in his heart and find a new lover. The horniness this guy has, no human has ever felt that amount of horny in their entire life. It's like he has a curse. He thinks he has to hook up immediately or else he'll die.
In January 2021, Vogue reported on an "adoring" Instagram account of self-declared "simps" expressing affection toward then-Georgia Senate candidate Jon Ossoff. Ossoff won the election and was sworn in as a senator on January 20, 2021.