Git gud is a deliberate misspelling of “get good”: gamer slang that tells a struggling player to improve instead of complaining. Dictionary.com defines it as “getting better at a task or skill, used especially among video gamers online.” It can be a taunt, a piece of blunt advice, or a joke players make about themselves.
Origin
The phrase predates the game it is most linked to. According to Know Your Meme:
| Date | Step |
|---|---|
| Jul 10, 2008 | Urban Dictionary user PaperCupp submits the earliest known definition, glossing it as another way of saying “get better” |
| 2009 | A GameFAQs thread is cited for the claim that the term was coined in the PlayStation 3 Metal Gear Online community; Dictionary.com likewise says it “notably appeared in 2009 in online video-game forums” |
| Feb 2012 | The phrase “started to gain significant momentum on 4chan’s /v/” |
| Sep 1, 2013 | A parody, “Git Gud or Die Tryin’,” is posted to 4chan’s /vg/ Dark Souls General |
Know Your Meme says the phrase gained traction “particularly within the Dark Souls and Call of Duty communities.” Dark Souls, developed by FromSoftware, was first released in Japan in September 2011, and Wikipedia notes that responses to its high level of difficulty were divided. See #DarkSouls and #Soulslike.
How It’s Used
- As a taunt: Know Your Meme describes it as “an expression used to heckle inexperienced players or newbies in online video games.”
- As self-talk: Dictionary.com quotes a June 2017 tweet: “im gonna go home and practice sight reading…gotta git gud.”
- As a call to practise: the same page quotes an April 2018 post inviting players to “#playki on #XboxOne and #Steam this week and git gud!”
The Sekiro Difficulty Debate
The split over difficulty that the phrase stands for resurfaced with FromSoftware’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice was released on March 22, 2019, and, per Wikipedia, “the game’s high difficulty level polarised players and journalists”; modders released mods to make it easier within days of launch. A Daily Cardinal column (April 2019) argued that “The difficulty is not the only factor in accessibility,” noting that “Not everybody has bodies that allow them to button mash,” and called the discourse “muddled and toxic.” See #SekiroDifficultyDebate.
Sources
- https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/git-gud
- https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/git-gud/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Souls_(video_game)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sekiro:_Shadows_Die_Twice
- https://www.dailycardinal.com/article/2019/04/sekiro-shadows-die-twice-faces-debate-over-accessibility-difficulty