How crew members communicate!
In an Among Us game, there is a lot going on within the game. There are lots of tasks for crewmates to get done, crew members to kill if you’re the imposter, sabotages to fix, dead bodies and emergency meetings to report, and voting to carry out in order to save the game. So with all that territory, how do the players communicate with each other? What is the lingo or codewords that you need to know in order to understand the game and to understand the conversations that are happening within this community? They are pretty simple to understand, but some of these words can have double meanings or be completely new to someone who doesn’t know gaming language. At first I had no idea what some of these words meant either but nothing some research can’t fix!
How does language work within my community?
Within the Among Us game and the reddit community, there are a few specific “lingo/slang or codewords-as someone may say, that you would need to learn about in order to understand what these players are saying in the game and how the community uses it in their conversations within the forum. There is obvious and popular internet slang that the community uses while playing or conversating like “lol” or “lmao”, but there are more abbreviations and slang that must be known to understand these conversations better. One word that is a MUST as I will confidently say is the word “sus”. “Sus” is shortcut for “suspicious” or “suspect”. But why is it important to know? Well, typically in an Among Us game, you will usually see at least one player shout out the word “sus” during a meeting to show that they have their suspicions and trust issues with a certain player because they believe they are possibly an imposter. For example, if I was playing a game of Among Us and I see that a particular player is very weird and odd with their movements and where they claimed to be, I would say “(insert color) is very sus” during a meeting, but I would not say the word suspicious or suspect. Sus is quick, short, and easy to use and understand once you learn what it means and when to use it. At first, I wasn’t 100% sure what sus meant when I played the game, but using some context clues and asking my sister (who is a bigger “gamer” than I), I learned and understood. Just as McCulloch explained in chapter 3 under Full Internet people in her book, “Because Internet”, she says: “They [full internet people] picked up most of their internet slang from context and their peers, and associate it with tone of voice”. (pg 83) She was completely right! Full internet people are people who may or may not have remembered a time without internet, but when they do not have to deal with a time of using the internet that wasn’t using any internet slang or abbreviations. Kind of like “lol” or “idk”, sus is something that you pick up from context and peers while playing Among Us if you did not already know that “sus” is short for suspicious.
Other Among Us lingo that is helpful to know and understand would be the terms “afk” and “gg”. “AFK” is not a new term to the gaming community, but it sure was to me when I first started playing! “AFK” means “away from keyboard” in the gaming community, and in particular the Among Us community LOOOOVES to use this during games for different reasons. From a website I visited called Film Daily, they wrote an article titled: “Learn all the new ‘Among Us’ lingo so you won’t look sus”. They described how people in the Among Us community use “afk” during a game and I will incorporate that quote because it explains it perfectly!! This article, written by Brynley Louis in Oct. 26, 2020, says: AFK is a popular gaming initialism, but is also widely used during games of Among Us. AFK stands for ‘away from keyboard’, so if you’ve walked away from your computer during a game for some reason then you’re AFK. Sometimes people lie about being AFK as a defense in Among Us or pretend to be AFK for a round in order to seem less sus.” This explanation of “afk” and how it is used within the community hits the nail on the head. When you end a round of a game in Among Us, usually you might see that people in chat are spamming “gg”. Like “afk”, “gg” is also not a new term to the gaming community-AT ALL. But once again, I had no idea what it meant before I played and joined this community (Don’t judge me okay, I have gotten a lot better at knowing gamer slang now-I am also learning)! “GG” is a simple term to learn and use, it simply means the phrase “good game”. Players use this whether or not they win or lose the game, and it is a way to show friendliness and good sportsmanship regardless of the outcome! While there are many more terms to go over, these are some of the popular terms that are important to know if you are new to Among Us if you are new to the game, or even new to the gaming community like I was!
Now, how does this community use this language to maintain itself?
Well, as you can tell from what was read so far, I would not say that knowledge of this language affects membersship of the community. If you are lost at first, you can ask someone who has more experience in this community what certain terms mean, and usually members of the community and players will explain it in a simple way like “sus=suspicious” in a conversation. I found from personal experience that this community, in general, is very nice and welcoming to inexperienced players and if you ask questions like what does “sus” or “afk” mean they will share the terminology pretty openly and without hesitation. Especially with how big the community got and the number of players in Among Us, it is in everyone’s best interest to share as much knowledge of language to even strategies people use to make the game enjoyable and simple for everyone to play and understand. I think that the amount of inclusivity this game and community exceeds is a big part of why this game got so big and popular in the past year, and it helps sustain this community majorly by making it possible for just about anyone to learn the language used and how to use it when they play this game or communicate within their community outlets. If I can learn the language this community uses (without any prior knowledge of gaming language, may I add) during a game or while looking at a website on what Among Us terminology to understand, I would argue that this community has no problems with sharing their language so this game is playable for anyone without experience.
