Fanum tax
noun
| FAN-um-TAKS
Taking someone else’s food; an Internet gibberish term
What does Fanum tax mean?
Fanum tax is a humorous Internet slang term for stealing someone’s food (or other item) or being entitled to some of it. It is widely used as a nonsensical expression and meme online.
Examples of Fanum tax
…all the parking got fanum taxed at my apartment
—@SmvWillis, X (formerly Twitter), 21 Aug. 2024
Skibidy toilet rizz, my sigma. Fanum tax my gyat, because you look sus af. Don’t make me flex on you with my drip, down in Ohio.
—Colin's friend Layne ate dinner with us tonight and I hit him with the Fanum Tax.
—
Where does Fanum tax come from?
Fanum tax began in 2022 as a comedic bit performed by popular Internet gaming streamer Roberto Escanio, who goes by the name Fanum online. During videos, Fanum would charge friends who were eating a joke “tax” in the form of a bite or portion of the food they were otherwise enjoying for themselves. They called this behavior the Fanum tax. The phrase and gag spread massively in 2023 on gaming platforms and social media, especially after Fanum “taxed” friends who were also popular streamers, including Kai Cenat, known for popularizing the slang term rizz, meaning “charm, attractiveness.”
In October 2023, Fanum tax went viral—and into mainstream attention—after TikToker @ovp.9 featured the phrase in the lyrics of a song and video, called Sticking Out Your Gyatt for the Rizzler (Fanum Tax): “Sticking out your gyatt for the Rizzler / You're so Skibidi, you're so Fanum Tax / I just want to be your Sigma.” The lyrics are intentionally unintelligible, meant to parody memetic Internet slang terms, like gyatt and skibidi, seen as overused by young people to the point of meaninglessness.
How is Fanum tax used?
Fanum tax is still used in its original sense of stealing a portion of someone’s food, although this usage remains closely associated with the content and personality of the streamer Fanum. This usage is also subject to puns and other wordplay, such as Fanum tax evasion or a 10% Fanum tax. It is sometimes extended metaphorically to refer to anything felt to be taken unfairly or aggressively diminished in some way. In these senses, the phrase is often used as a verb, as in “My wife’s french fries looked so good that I just I had to Fantum tax her” or “The quarterback totally got Fantum taxed when the wide receiver batted down his pass.” Occasionally, drawing from its use in the lyric “you’re so Fanum tax,” the term can mean “attractive” or “excellent.”
More commonly, due to its sudden and extensive popularity online in 2023, Fanum tax is used ironically—and with a kind of performative randomness, absurdity, and impulsivity—as a complete nonsense expression. The intent of this use is varied: it can signal in-group identity, mock Internet culture, or sometimes be a way to joke around and baffle people not in the know. In this way, the term frequently appears with other Internet slang terms, again such as gyatt and skibidi as well as rizz and Ohio, that have evolved into a form of gibberish sometimes referred to as “brain rot” and stereotyped as part of Generation Alpha’s unhealthy digital lifestyles. That’s so skibidi fanum tax sigma of those Ohio rizzlers!
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