ligma

Ligma spread as a joke in May 2018. It’s based on other jokes that feature an unusual word that sets a person up for a silly, often vulgar punchline, e.g., updog or deez nuts.

In the case of ligma, when someone uses ligma, the goal is to get another person to ask “What’s ligma?” The response is something along the lines of “ligma balls,” with ligma meant to sound like “lick my.”

Two such ligma jokes were found on social media in late May, early June 2018, but ligma picked up steam in mid-July surrounding a hoax that spread on Instagram by user @ninja_hater about the death of Ninja. Ninja is the alias of Richard Tyler Blevins, a professional gamer and popular streamer of the online video game Fortnite.

On July 17, 2018, further fueling the hoax was that Ninja—who stopped streaming, apparently because he was on a flight—died of a rare disease called ligma. The joke spread online and various websites picked up the viral story about the prank.

While Ninja briefly threatened to get users banned for mentioning ligma in any chats on his streams, he eventually joined in on the joke after hit YouTuber PewDiePie uploaded a video covering ligma.

Shortly after ligma in late July, variations on the joke began popping up on social media, including sugma (“suck my balls”), Sugondese (“suck on deez nuts”), and grabahan (“Grab a handful of my nuts.”)