Meaning
A dismissive instruction telling someone to go offline and reconnect with reality, aimed at people whose views seem warped by spending too much time on the internet. Usually directed at, or said about, chronically online users. Very informal internet slang; dismissive and mildly insulting, not for formal contexts. Regional use: General English; almost exclusively online.
Origin
According to the Know Your Meme entry, the exact origin is unknown, but the earliest documented examples are Twitter posts from at least 2015, and the phrase grew slowly on Twitter and 4chan. Use rose significantly from 2019, including a widely circulated May 2019 tweet that used it as an insult, and it spread broadly across social media through 2020, peaking on Twitter in 2021 and taking hold on TikTok that spring. Its full form is the imperative 'go touch grass', often aimed at someone mid-argument online. Wikipedia likewise notes it is believed to have originated in 2015 with a resurgence around 2020-2021, so any earlier, exact coinage is unrecorded.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- go touch grass
- grasstype
- touch some grass
- touching grass
Usage Examples
- You have replied to every comment in this thread for six hours - please go touch grass.
- After the argument turned to fictional shipping wars, she told him to touch grass and logged off.
- Touching grass, literally a walk in the park, fixed his mood faster than any feed refresh.