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 consensual, and is enjoyed by people of all genders. It is generally not objected to, though any respectful person should respect ones wishes to not do it if they say not to (which is often a con rule).

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.[1] 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.^[2]. 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 in Ranma ½ fandom. While never mentioned in the series itself, it was reputedly coined by fanfiction authors to describe the way in which the character Shampoo commonly attached herself to the main character Ranma Saotome.^[3]

Glomping is said to be more fun with a running start. 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.

[edit] Internet usage

During online chat sessions or in forums, "cyberglomping" (ie, typing <glomp> or the like) has become a sense of common behavior, oftentimes enhanced with "personalized versions", such as "Über Glomp", "Glompzilla", Turboglomp", "flopglomp", "deathglomp" and the like.[2] While most anime-oriented online forums allow this, many consider it a form of messaging spam.