About
Slide Into Your DMs (permutations are common and may include: Slide Into Her DMs, Slide Into Yo DMs, Slide Into the DMs, often with the word “like” after the phrase) is a catchphrase which refers to the act of direct messaging another person on a social media platform, usually for romantic reasons, in a smooth or cool way. While the phrase can be used literally, it is often parodied by being attached to videos or photographs of people engaging in awkward behavior.
Origin
It’s currently unknown where the term originated. The first online examples, including some GIFS with the tag and a Yahoo answers post, seem to appear in November 2013.[1] At that point, the only social media platforms that allowed direct messaging were Twitter and Facebook; Instagram introduced direct messaging in December of 2013,[2] and Vine premiered the feature in April of 2014.[3]
One of the first popular examples of the term was this hip hop single by M-Boy titled “Slide Into Your DMs,” which was released on January 8th, 2014. The video has over 23,000 views as of July 2015.
Spread
In January of 2014, the term skyrocketed in popularity; however, due to the phrase’s common permutations, exact numbers are difficult to gather. On January 24th 2014, a Meme Generator was created of a boy going down a slide.[4] The phrase was first defined by Urban Dictionary on March 24rd, 2014, as “When you send a Direct message to someone on twitter confidently and smoothly.”[5] A reddit /r/outoftheloop post was created on April 27th, 2014; a user responded that Sliding into the DMs meant, “… basically like, being slick and starting a DM conversation with someone (of the opposite sex), and be smooth at the same time.”[6]
Searches for the phrase on Vine return over 8,000 results as of July 29th, 2015, and the hashtag #SlideIntoYourDMsLike is used on over 500 posts.[7][8] Collected searches for various permutations of the phrase, used as hashtags, return over 5,000 results on Instagram as of July 29th, 2015.[9] In addition, the phrase was tweeted over 78,000 times in the 30 days prior to July 29th, 2015, with and without parody.[10][11]
Various Examples
Because social media platforms focus on different means of communication, the act of direct messaging someone is different on each. On Twitter, the message can only be text; therefore, sliding into the DMs on Twitter consists of a text conversation which can be screenshot. On Instagram, sliding into the DMs is a photo message with a caption, often expressed as an image macro or a GIF. On Vine, the direct message is a video message; however, the hashtag #SlideIntoYourDMsLike is consistently trending, and therefore these examples refer to that.
Vine
Twitter Conversations
Image Macros and GIFs
Search Interest
External References
[1]Yahoo Answers – What does “Slide into DMS” mean?
[2]Tech Hive – Take that, Snapchat: Instagram Direct’s private messages stick around
[3]The Next Web – Vine releases a direct messaging feature
[4]Meme Generator – Slide Into My DMs
[5]Urban Dictionary – slide into the dms
[6]/r/outoftheloop – Sliding into DMs Meaning Twitter
[7]Vine – Search: Slide Into Your DMs
[8]Vine – Hashtag: #SlideIntoYourDMsLike
[9]Instagram – Hashtag: #SlideIntoMyDMs
[10]Twitter – Search: Slide Into DMs
[11]Topsy – Search: Slide Into DMs