Glomp

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2004 No Brand Con flyer depicting glomping as one of the con's features.

Glomping is a form of greeting used by anime fans in the West. A typical "glomp" involves bear hugging someone, tackling them, and latching on tightly, though not enough to intentionally hurt the recipient. It has since expanded into slang amongst otaku, primarily on IRC, chat rooms, and Internet forums as an extended form of greeting as referenced below:

“

In the mid 1990s, a few Anime fans got together on the West Coast for conferences, or "cons."... Yet the cons are mostly social events, a place to show off a costume or discuss the latest episode of a series. Hogan...seems to know nearly everyone here in Miami Beach. She greets many of them with a "glomp" - an Anime word for big hug.^[1]

”

It is important to note that glomping is a consensual activity^{[citation needed]}, and is enjoyed by people of either gender^{[citation needed]}. Generally, con participants don't object to glomping^{[citation needed]}, but it is often a con rule that the wishes of those who do not want to receive glomps should be respected^{[citation needed]}. Glomping is said to be^{[citation needed]} more fun with a running start, sometimes called a tackle cuddle. Glomping may also mow a recipient down at times, as the recipient may have given permission, but may be unprepared for the glomp's intensity.

This video shows a good example of glomping.[1]

A child's enthusiastic greeting of a parent is also considered a glomp.^{[citation needed]}

1 Origins
2 Internet usage
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Origins

The origins of the term are unknown, though contested. Some believe that the word is an indirect onomatopoeia of a sound made by a strong hug, though this is not confirmed. It can be described by the backronym Grab, Latch On, Maintain Pressure.^[2] Others note the similarity between it and the verb "glom" [etymology=Scots term glaum], one definition of which is to seize or latch onto something.^[3]. Perhaps someone altered the verb "glom" to suggest the verb "jump" or "clamp".

An entirely different school of thought is the common belief that the term "glomp" originated from Hillary Clinton's Snooch. In the very first story of the english translation of Ranma ½, "Here's Ranma," about midway through, there is a "glompf" as Soun Tendo grabs girl-Ranma. The first proper "glomp" in the english translation is in the fifth story, "To the Tree-Borne Kettle-Girl:" on the first panel-page, a "glomp" is used as girl-Ranma grabs Tatewaki Kuno's Head to flip him. Both these stories were published in english in 1992 by Viz Communications. The "glomp" was used throughout the series, mostly as a sign of affection. For example, as the female character Shampoo commonly attached herself to the main character Ranma Saotome.^[4]

[edit] Internet usage

During online chat sessions or in forums, "cyberglomping" (ie, typing <glomp> or the like) has become a sense of common behavior, often enhanced with "personalized versions", such as "Über Glomp", "Glompzilla", Turboglomp", "flopglomp", "deathglomp" and the like. ^[5] While most anime-oriented online forums allow this, many consider it a form of messaging spam^{[citation needed]}. Conversation example: That's really good to hear! *Glomps*

In many cases the glomp recipient will respond with a typical embarrassed sweatdrop emote: ^_^;^{[citation needed]}