Ligma Joke

The ligma joke first gained popularity online in July 2018. "Ligma" sounds similar to the words "lick my", and became a sophomoric Internet meme to set up a crude joke. When someone unfamiliar with the term is prompted to ask "What's ligma?", the punchline is to respond with "ligma balls", "ligma nuts", "ligma butt" or something similar.

Derivation and ''bofa'' meme

''The Verge'' reported in July 2018 that ligma "is the new ''bofa''", a pun on "both of". In a conversation, the speaker might set up the joke by saying, "I went to this great Italian restaurant last week, and they make great ''bofa''", to prompt the question, "What's ''bofa''?" to which the response is, "''Bofa'' deez nuts!". According to Dictionary.com, "It's seen as a sign of good humor if the person who has been ''bofa''d laughs, shrugs it off, or ''bofas'' someone themselves."

Josh Kastowitz of ''The Daily Dot'' connected both ligma and ''bofa'' jokes to older crude humor with "deez nuts" (these nuts) as its punchline. Brady Olson, who made a satirical 2016 presidential run under the pseudonym " Deez Nuts", confirmed to ''Rolling Stone'' that he chose it based on the ''bofa'' meme.

Notable instances

Twitch death hoax

"Ligma" was the fictional disease jokingly rumored to have killed the popular video game streamer Ninja in July 2018.

Ligma–Johnson hoax

In October 2022, two amateur improvisational actors played a media prank, pretending to be newly fired Twitter employees " Rahul Ligma" and "Daniel Johnson" on the day of Elon Musk's takeover of the company, and multiple major media outlets reported the incident as actual news. ''The Times of India'' called the Ligma–Johnson hoax "perfectly-timed" and "one of the greatest pranks on the Internet."

In a December 2022 article for ''TechCrunch'' reflecting on the absurd nature of tech industry news over the past year, Amanda Silberling commented that because "a herd of reporters did not get the joke" about Rahul Ligma, she had to explain the "ligma" meme on four different podcasts.

Other instances

In August 2018, Microsoft began receiving complaints about the Xbox gamertags "Ligma" and "MrsLigma" and renamed them. The owner of the "Ligma" tag told ''Eurogamer'', "I just made the word up, anyone else can/could too! But, it's pretty uncool when Xbox/Microsoft can use any new meme to destroy a gamertag that's 12+ years old." After there was a groundswell of support on Reddit for the disaffected gamer, his "Ligma" tag was reinstated.

In October 2018, fact-checking website Snopes debunked false reports that rapper Machine Gun Kelly had died from a "Ligma overdose".

In July 2021, the ''Lead Stories'' fact-checking website confirmed that "Ligma" was not a new variant of the COVID-19 virus, but it was the latest version of "an old dirty joke".

After the 2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, a Taliban spokesman fell for the joke, in an image that was widely circulated online.

Other variants

* "Sugondese" (pronounced similarly to "suck on these", often in combination with "balls" or "nuts").
* "Grabahan" (pronounced similarly to "grab a hand", with the punchline "full of deez nuts").
* "Sugma" (pronounced similarly to "suck my", most commonly in combination with "balls").

References

{{Generation Z slang

2018 in Internet culture
Internet hoaxes
Internet humor
Internet memes introduced in 2018
Fictional diseases and disorders