Grid collage of forty anime character portraits used as examples of the 'trap' archetype

Trap

2004slang / catchphrasedeclining

Published October 3, 2026

Trap is an internet slang term popularized by 4chan anime fans in the early 2000s for fictional androgynous or femininely-dressed male characters whose appearance doesn't match their stated gender. The word spread through YTMND parodies of the Admiral Ackbar 'It's a Trap!' line and anime message boards, eventually spawning the long-running 'Are Traps Gay?' debate across otaku forums and alt-right YouTube.

slang memes otaku culture memes 4chan memes gender discourse memes anime manga

Overview

The term grew out of two overlapping sources: Admiral Ackbar's 'IT'S A TRAP!' line from Return of the Jedi, which became a stock reaction image, and a much older anime and manga device of crossdressing or androgynous male characters3. 4chan users fused the two, labeling images of femininely-drawn boys as 'traps' and running an internet theme day called Trap Thursday on the site's anime boards3.

The word carries a derogatory implication, that a viewer is being 'tricked' into attraction, and it has been widely criticized as transphobic because it collapses crossdressing fictional characters, drag, and real trans women into the same slur1. Urban Dictionary definitions written by fans themselves note that transgender people are explicitly not what the archetype refers to and that applying the label to them reads as erasure5. Within otaku spaces the term stayed tied to fictional characters, while outside those spaces it moved as a general insult.

The recurring 'Are Traps Gay?' bit is where the slang got most of its wider recognition, a mock-serious debate about whether attraction to an androgynous male anime character counts as homosexuality2. The argument became a copypasta-tier gag on /r/anime, 4chan, and YouTube commentary channels throughout the mid-2010s4.

Origin & Background

Platform
YTMND / 4chan (viral spread)
Date
2004

The 'IT'S A TRAP!' reaction image spread from Something Awful and 4chan in the early 2000s, and starting in 2004 the Admiral Ackbar soundbite seeded hundreds of parody pages on YTMND, with a notable MultiKoopa upload on June 2nd, 2005 passing 313,000 views by 20163. Around the same time, 4chan's anime boards started using the word 'trap' as a label for images of androgynous or crossdressing male characters, a tradition long present in anime and manga going back to Osamu Tezuka's 1949 Metropolis3.

An Urban Dictionary entry by user Michaels V on September 8th, 2007 formalized the slang definition, framing a trap as a usually cisgender male character with the appearance of an attractive woman and warning against applying the term to real trans people5. The subreddit /r/traps opened on February 28th, 20103.

How It Spread

Through the mid-2010s the slang moved from 4chan's /a/ board into mainstream YouTube anime commentary. On February 21st, 2015, Redditor NyaaFlame posted 'Why Liking Traps Isn't Gay' to /r/anime, and on July 31st, 2015, YouTube channel king rad uploaded a clip of alt-right figure Milo Yiannopoulos being asked whether liking traps is gay, apparently hearing the term for the first time2. Yiannopoulos followed with his own video, 'Judge Milo Decides: Are Traps Gay?' on August 10th, 2015, which passed 74,900 views3.

Anime YouTuber Lost Pause's 'Is That An Anime Boy or Girl?' on January 16th, 2016 cleared 455,700 views and kicked off a running series guessing character genders4. YouTuber 4TRASH XTREME's 'Are Traps Gay [an analysis] ((with graphs))' on September 30th, 2016 ran the joke as a mock research paper, and on February 10th, 2017, YouTuber dvri re-posted Instagram creator @garebearonline's 'Traps are gay' clip for 28,200 views3.

The slang hit a bizarre mainstream moment on December 16th, 2016, when Malik Obama, half-brother of former President Barack Obama, started tweeting about anime, demanding definitions of 'hentai,' 'loli,' and 'traps,' and warning followers to 'protect our children' from the medium1. The Mary Sue described the trap concept in that coverage as the idea that a viewer is 'tricked' into being attracted to gender-variant characters, flagging it as a transphobic framing1. By the late 2010s, GLAAD and major platforms treated the word as a slur, and anime communities including Crunchyroll's forums and most subreddits moved to restrict its use.

Timeline

2004

Admiral Ackbar 'IT'S A TRAP!' soundbite starts spawning YTMND parody pages.

2005-06-02

YTMND user MultiKoopa uploads a notable Admiral Ackbar page, later passing 313,000 views.

2007-09-08

Urban Dictionary user Michaels V posts an entry defining 'trap' as an anime archetype.

2010-02-28

The /r/traps subreddit is created.

2017-02-10

YouTuber dvri re-posts @garebearonline's 'Traps are gay' clip (28,200+ views).

How to Use This Meme

In anime fandom, the word typically describes a specific fictional character design: an androgynous or crossdressing male whose look reads feminine. The common convention is to pair a screenshot of such a character with the Admiral Ackbar 'IT'S A TRAP!' caption, or to drop the word in reply threads debating a character's gender3. Because the term is widely treated as a slur against trans people, many anime communities have moved away from it in favor of 'femboy' or character-specific descriptions5.

Frequently Asked Questions