What does mog mean?
Mog is a humorous Internet slang term meaning “to outclass,” used especially to describe one person as appearing far more attractive than another. It was originally used to praise one man as being taller, more muscular, or more stereotypically handsome in direct comparison to another man. Related forms included mogger, moggee.
Examples of mog
… this was a historical event the way he [Korean musical artist Choi Seung-hyun] showed up and mogged everyone so effortlessly
—@choiseunghuyns, X (formerly Twitter), 19 Jan. 2025With the rise of social media, where everyone is constantly sizing up everyone else, the desire to mog (or not be mogged) has seeped into daily life.
—Tara Price, Neon Music, 15 Apr. 2024Mogging Noel Deyzel, the IFBB Pro Heavyweight bodybuilder standing 6’2 and weighing 287 pounds, will definitely require a person with a better and more massive physique. But no one would have expected that the fitness influencer’s mother would be the one ‘mogging’ him.
—Karan Yadav, EssentiallySports, 5 Apr. 2024just got mogged by an emo girl with a larger and more vampiric coat than me.
—@codyosk, Threads, 5 Feb. 2024
Where does mog come from?
Mog is apparently based on AMOG, an abbreviation of Alpha Male of Group, referring to the pseudoscientific archetype of the “dominant male” popular in the so-called manosphere, an Internet subculture associated with misogynist beliefs and extremist ideologies. AMOG emerged by the early 2000s, and mog by 2016, when the latter term is found in male Internet forums describing taller, more muscular men—judged superior—appearing alongside shorter, less built, and thus supposedly inferior counterparts.
In the early 2020s, mogging was associated with looksmaxxing (practices, sometimes extreme, younger men take to enhance their physical appearance). Looksmaxxers, as they are called, have been known to engage in online rituals where they rate their fellow appearances. Such rituals include calling out when one man mogs or is mogged by another man, sometimes based on an aspect of his physique so named as a particular act of mogging, e.g., hairmogging (when one man’s head of hair is considered fuller) or jawmogging (when one man’s jawline is perceived to be more chiseled).
During the early 2020s, as the term spread on social media, it also expanded as a more general, humorous term for various displays of dominance or superiority.
How is mog used?
While the judgments associated with mogging have been criticized as harmful, the word is generally used playfully or ironically. And though it can be applied to various skills and traits, mog is most commonly used for comparisons concerning physical appearances. It is especially used online to comment on pictures and videos when one person—or less frequently, thing—is regarded as superior in some way as juxtaposed with another.
Mog can be a transitive verb (“He mogged his friends in Scrabble when he won by 100 points”) or, less often, an intransitive one (“Whenever she shows up to the club, she absolutely mogs”). In its intransitive use, mog can convey a more general sense of “to dominate, excel, stand out.”
It is also frequently used in passive constructions, especially to get mogged, be mogged, or feel mogged. People often use mog in this way in response to pictures and videos of people they self-deprecatingly admire, as in, “I opened up Instagram, saw your new profile pic, and immediately got mogged.”
A person who mogs another is sometimes humorously called a mogger; the person so mogged, a moggee.