alt title(s): NSFW
A
stock Internet phrase, usually denoting a picture or video that you wouldn't want to show up when you are surfing the web at work. It's one thing to just look up the latest news or check your email. It's another to be looking at porn. Anything with nudity in it at all will usually often get labeled thus, on the off chance that a third observer simply
thinks you might be looking at porn.
So called because if you are caught reading a page that is
Not Safe For Work at work, you can get fired. For the more graphic NSFW pages, even having them in the hard drive or cache of a work computer can get you fired.
NSFW can be applied to vulgar or violent, as well as pornographic, content. It may also be applied if the link requires sound, as not a lot of people have headphones at work (or should be wearing headphones, depending on the job).
Just in case you are still not clear on what this means, go to
this page when you have privacy. Then ask yourself, do you really want your boss in the room when you're looking at that stuff?
Also known as
PROMOTIONS through
Memetic Mutation: Posting non-worksafe material on
image boards designated to be viewable "in restricted viewing environments" is known to elicit complaints from people who claim to have been fired for being caught on the spot, while others jokingly spun this off into posting about how they had just been promoted as a direct consequence of this. Still others claim it stands for "Now Show Friends and Workmates." It usually doesn't.
It's well-known but rarely mentioned fact that if you're a guy, then almost anything that
Tastes Like Diabetes will be not safe for work for you! Just try and browse through
Kirby or Locoroco fanart at work and see the reactions of coworkers!
Incidentally, get back to work before your boss notices you slacking off by browsing this site.
This phrase can take many forms:
- NWS (Not Work Safe)
- NBS (Not Brain Safe)
- NSS (Not Sanity Safe)
- Either of these can be said of something that's technically work-safe but completely insane.
- NSFH (Not Safe For Humanity)
- NSFWSOAYCGIT (Not Safe for Work, School, or Anywhere You Can Get in Trouble)
- NSFP (Not Safe For Parents)
- NSFBBKM (Not Safe For Black Black Kittys Mother) i.e anything she dislikes the sound of or is unfamiliar.
- NSFK/NSFM Not Safe for Kids, or Not Safe for Minors
- NSFBS/NFBSK (Not Safe For British Schoolchildren/Not For British School Kids)
- Bikini pics are often flagged as "Mildly NSFW", since they aren't outright porn, but it would still look like you are slacking off if the boss sees them.
- Another mild variant is NFYOSS, Not Fourteen-Year-Old Sister Safe (for anything you wouldn't want the hypothetical sister to see. Mostly used on the User Friendly Message Board, but sometimes seen elsewhere.)
- Puh. This Troper IS the fourteen-year-old sister in her family, and she know things just by the conversations in the girl's bathroom at school her mom would be SHOCKED to hear.
- NSFW (Not Safe For Wife, as many married men know.)
- NSFS (Not Safe For School)
- NSFA (Not Safe For Anyone)
- NSFL (Not Safe For Life)
- NSF56K (Not Safe For 56K, though this is a different matter regarding content that will take forever on a slow connection.)
- 56K Warning and similar messages mean the same thing.
- Is the page (or website) known for containing a lot of images? Assume it's a 56K Warning.
- NSFW (Now Show Friends and Workmates)
- "Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)."
- Does your URL include "4chan"? Then it qualifies.
- Well, some of 4chan is technically worksafe (or supposed to be, anyway)...
- Not quite on topic, but George Mac Donald Fraser's novel "The Pyrates" mentions a three-tier rating system upper class British girls had (have?) for upper class British boys (apparently referencing danger to one's virginity) that included NSILC (Not Safe in Lawn Chairs) and NSA (Not Safe Anywhere). I do not remember the least dangerous category.
- That would be, in ascending order of peril, Not Safe At Vauxhall, Not Safe In Sedan Chairs and Not Safe Anywhere. There is still a tiered rating system in this era.
- The least dangerous category would almost certainly be VVSITPQ — Very, Very Safe In Taxis, Probably Queer.
