# PROTIP PROTIP is an internet slang term used sarcastically to preface advice that is either genuinely helpful or absurdly obvious[2]. The joke traces to a March 2004 Doom parody image by Andrew Stine featuring the Cyberdemon and the caption 'To defeat the Cyberdemon, shoot at it until it dies'[3]. That image passed as a real GamePro scan for over a decade before Stine outed it as a photoshop, and the gag ended up referenced in Doom's 2016 reboot as a hidden achievement. ## Origin The word 'protip' first appeared in mainstream print as the name of a recurring GamePro magazine sidebar in the mid-to-late 1990s, where staff writers slotted short strategy tips into their reviews[3]. On March 7, 2004, Andrew Stine, co-founder and former webmaster of the Doom fan site Doomworld, uploaded a fake GamePro screenshot to the Doomworld forum showing the Cyberdemon from Doom's E2M8: Tower of Babel level under the caption 'PROTIP: To defeat the Cyberdemon, shoot at it until it dies'[3]. Stine built the image as satire of the redundant, obvious advice gaming journalists routinely included in walkthroughs. Doomworld regulars and other fans quickly circulated it as if it were a real magazine scan. Stine only confirmed the image was a photoshop on June 27, 2016, updating an old Doomworld thread to admit he had faked it himself[3]. - **Platform:** GamePro magazine (source term) / Doomworld forum (viral spread) - **Creator:** Andrew Stine - **Date:** 2004 ## Overview The PROTIP format wraps a piece of advice in an all-caps 'PROTIP:' label and then delivers something either useless, self-evident, or flatly wrong. The humor sits in the gap between the confident insider-tip framing and the triviality of the actual tip, with the Doom original ('shoot at it until it dies') setting the template[3]. Outside gaming forums, protip drifted into a general-purpose ironic advice tag used across Something Awful, Reddit and blog comment sections in the mid-2000s[3]. Urban Dictionary's user-written definitions split the word two ways, treating it as both 'obvious advice sarcastically presented as sage wisdom' and 'a tip intended to convert a novice to an expert'[2]. The double meaning is load-bearing: readers cannot always tell whether a protip is earnest, joking, or both. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is PROTIP? PROTIP is an internet slang term used to preface a piece of advice, often sarcastically, framing something obvious or useless as expert insider knowledge[2]. ### Where did PROTIP come from? The word came from GamePro magazine's strategy sidebars in the 1990s, and the meme version started with Andrew Stine's March 7, 2004 Doom Cyberdemon parody image posted to the Doomworld forum[3]. ### What does PROTIP mean? It is short for 'pro tip,' meaning an expert-level tip, but online it is usually deployed ironically to flag advice that is trivial, obvious, or intentionally unhelpful[2]. ### How do you use PROTIP? The typical format prefixes a short piece of advice with 'PROTIP:' in all caps, then follows with something either self-evident or absurd, mirroring the Cyberdemon line 'shoot at it until it dies'[3]. ### Is PROTIP still popular? PROTIP is a classic 2000s-era slang term still recognized in gaming circles, and id Software cemented its legacy with the 'Shoot It Until It Dies' Cyberdemon achievement in Doom's 2016 reboot[3]. ## References 1. [https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/09/21]() 2. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Protip]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/protip]() 4. [https://protipoftheday.com/]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/protip Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library