Oomf is a Twitter acronym for 'one of my followers' (or 'one of my friends'), used in subtweets so readers cannot identify who the post is about.

Where did Oomf come from?

The earliest recorded use of the acronym is a January 27, 2011 tweet by @Meme_Hayess, and the #oomf hashtag spread on Twitter that spring.

Oomf stands for 'one of my followers' or 'one of my friends,' and the Oomfie variant is used as an admiring or ironically degrading nickname for a specific follower.

Post a tweet aimed at a specific person and tag it #oomf so their identity stays hidden, typically for anonymous complaints or crush confessions.

Is Oomf still popular?

By July 2013 the hashtag had passed 25 million uses on Twitter, and it stayed a go-to piece of subtweet slang after that peak.

Oomf

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Published September 20, 2026

Oomf, also known as Oomfie, is a Twitter acronym for 'one of my followers' or 'one of my friends,' first tweeted in January 2011 and quickly adopted as a hashtag for subtweets. Users tag posts with #oomf to comment on a specific person without naming them, and by July 2013 the tag had racked up more than 25 million uses on Twitter.

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Overview

Oomf usually sits at the front of a tweet or fills in where a real handle would go, letting the poster address someone their followers cannot identify3. The tone flips between affectionate ('oomf sent me a birthday card') and pointed complaints, while the Oomfie variant is used admiringly or sometimes ironically to degrade3.

The hashtag form powers the classic Twitter subtweet: instead of naming the person the poster is annoyed with or attracted to, they tag the tweet #oomf so nobody reading it figures out who is being talked about4. That built-in anonymity fed two dominant use cases, covert crush confessions and public grievances, and both piled up on the platform through the mid-2010s2.

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Origin & Background

Platform

Twitter

Date

2011

The earliest recorded use of the acronym came from Twitter user @Meme_Hayess on January 27, 20111. The hashtag form #oomf spread a few weeks later, with a February 21, 2011 tweet by @MissShantae_ venting about a follower who did not text her back being one of the first documented instances of the tag itself5.

How It Spread

Slang trackers picked up the term fast. Urban Dictionary added an entry on March 7, 2011 defining it as 'one of my friends' with a secondary sense for someone extremely attractive3. A March 27 Yahoo Answers thread asked what the tag meant, and the top-voted reply explained that users hid names so readers could not tell who was being addressed4. Twittonary had already logged the term on February 27 as Twitter shorthand for 'one of my followers'5.

International Business Times listed #oomf in a September 2011 rundown of Twitter acronyms confusing new users on the platform2. Coverage kept building through 2012, with Buzzfeed running a November 21, 2012 piece titled 'Introducing #Oomf, Twitter's Best Ever Hashtag,' the fan account @OhDearOOMf posting anonymous open-letter tweets to nearly 295,000 followers by July 2013, and Topsy Analytics counting the hashtag at more than 25 million uses by that same month5.

Timeline

2011-01-27

@Meme_Hayess posts the earliest recorded use of the acronym 'Oomf' on Twitter.

2011-02-21

@MissShantae_ posts one of the earliest known tweets using the #oomf hashtag.

2011-02-27

Twittonary adds Oomf, defining it as Twitter shorthand for 'one of my followers.'

2011-03-07

Urban Dictionary logs Oomf with an alternate 'one of my friends' reading.

2011-09

International Business Times lists #oomf in a guide to trending Twitter acronyms.

2012-11-21

Buzzfeed publishes 'Introducing #Oomf, Twitter's Best Ever Hashtag.'

2013-07

Topsy Analytics counts over 25 million uses of #oomf; @OhDearOOMf nears 295,000 followers.

How to Use This Meme

Post a tweet about a specific person without naming them, then tag it #oomf so their identity stays hidden. Common conventions include anonymous crush confessions ('oomf is so cute'), passive-aggressive callouts ('oomf really needs to text me back'), and admiring shout-outs to a favorite follower using the Oomfie form as a noun.