A keysmash is a written form of internet slang that has been steadily gaining popularity since 2018. It is often used to convey intense and/or indescribable emotions and can also be used as an expression of laughter.
History and usage
The word keysmash appears as both a noun and a verb in its Dictionary.com entry, which dates the term's origin to sometime between 1995 and 2000. Keysmashing is a term that is often associated with Stan Twitter users, VSCO culture, and members of the LGBTQ+ community, but its usage is not restricted to these groups. On occasion keysmashing has been referred to as the 'gay keysmash' by internet users who strongly associate keysmashing with the LGBTQ+ community due to the large number of members who keysmash.
Variations
Keysmashes of any kind can usually be seen in either all lower case, or all upper case letters. Despite how random many keysmashes may appear to be, there are societal patterns and norms to what a keysmash is supposed to look like. Keysmashes that fail to visually appeal to the ones typing them have a chance of being completely rewritten or having a few minor adjustments made. The overall format of a keysmash is one that is usually dependant on the type of device or keyboard that is being used and therefore makes different keyboard layouts more acceptable for keysmashing than others.
Keysmashes typed on QWERTY keyboards are not as randomized as the action of keysmashing tends to imply. QWERTY keysmashes consistently begin with the letter 'a', which are often followed by the letters 'sdf' which can combine to form a strand of letters commonly associated with keysmashing. The letters 'asdf' appear as their own slang term in several online dictionaries such as dictionary.com. The typical keysmash tends to be much longer than 'asdf', because of this it rarely appears as a keysmash on its own. QWERTY keysmashes tend to be made up of letters and characters from what is referred to as the keyboard's 'home row' which includes the letters a,s,d,f,g,h,j,k,l as well as two special characters, the semicolon and apostrophe. When keysmashing, these letters do not usually appear in this exact order and are more often be seen alternating and repeating to form a randomized pattern. Keysmashes can include letters and characters from both the top and bottom row as the keyboard as well, though more commonly from the top row than the bottom, but rarely includes numbers.
Smartphone keyboards
While a majority of smartphone keyboards continue to use a type of QWERTY layout, the positioning of users fingers over a phone screen vary from that of a mechanical keyboard. Because of this the increase in smartphone technology has led to new combinations of keysmashes that look different from their mechanical QWERTY predecessors. Examples of these new patterns can include 'gbgdgdhfbhfchd', 'akskskdkfjansnf' or 'hdhfhdjs', all of which are the effects of users' fingers hovering over the center of smartphone keyboards rather than QWERTY's home row. Keysmashes made using this method rarely include numbers or special characters.
Dvorak
The home row of Dvorak keyboards varies greatly from that of QWERTY keyboards, beginning with the vowels 'aeoi' instead of 'asdf'. In a study by Gretchen McCulloch, she talked with several Dvorak keyboard users who had given up keysmashing because the layout of their keyboards made patterns which they created "socially ineligible".
VSCO culture
In VSCO culture there is a variant of the standard keysmash that uses a repetitive pattern of 'sksksk' that replaces the stereotypical smashing of random keys from which keysmashing earned its name. Generally the usage of 'sksksk' is similar to that of the usual QWERTY keysmash in that it is often used to express a form of laughter or other unidentifiable emotion. In 2019 the usage of 'sksksk' became most commonly associated with what the internet refers to as VSCO girls, but there is evidence on Twitter which dates its usage back to 2009 among Portuguese speakers located in Brazil. From 2010 on it could be found used by a growing variety of people on social media including people from the Black, LGBTQ+, and UK communities.
