If you spend any time surfing the Interweb you’ve probably seen how ubiquitous the phrases “fail” and “epic fail” have become in recent years. If so, maybe you too have wondered about the origins of this web-based exercise of schadenfreude (taking pleasure in someone else’s misfortune).
Wonder no more.
Slate.com has an article that traces the popular shortening of the word failure back to an awkwardly translated 1998 Neo Geo arcade game. The article also gives some insight into how ‘fail’ has become a big winner in terms of its everyday usage in our modern day lexicon.
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