Simp (/sɪmp/ ⓘ) is an internet slang term describing someone who shows excessive sympathy and attention toward another person, typically to someone who does not reciprocate the same feelings, in pursuit of affection or a sexual relationship.
[8] An article in the 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,[1] 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.
A definition of simp appeared on Urban Dictionary in 2003,[13] and the word continued to be used by rappers into the 2010s, when it was adopted by members of the manosphere,[1] incel,[3] and MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) forums[10] alongside similar derogatory terms such as cuck, beta, and white knight.
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.
[14] 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".
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".
[6] In October, Mikael Thalen at The Daily Dot described Twitter users as "simping hard" over leaked photos of Hunter Biden.
[22][23][25] Reception to the announcement and proposed policy changes was largely negative; Bryan Rolli at The Daily Dot wrote that Twitch would "probably have a hell of a time enforcing the 'simp' ban",[12] and Gizmodo said sarcastically that "actual simps and virgins [were] still welcome" on the streaming site.
[21] Screen Rant said that a blanket ban on "simp", "incel" and "virgin" contrasted unfavorably with a "context is needed" policy on the much more offensive racial slur "nigger".