Don’t be a dick.

I didn’t write it. It would probably shock the fragile folk in Tirol for starters, and of course, it might not translate well (they do love a good nickname here – can you imagine if the person on the other end was a Richard who called himself “Dick”? – and of course, there are lots of issues around gendered insults, yadda, yadda. But I thought it. And then I thought, “Where did THAT come from?”

Frankly, it’s probably been around for centuries in some form, but it reached Internet meme status in August 2007 when Richard William Wheaton III (to me, he will always be Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation.) It turns out that Wil, as he likes to be called, delivered keynote speech at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) and in it, he talked about sportsmanship in gaming. His simple takeaway? “Don’t be a dick.”

Known as Wheaton’s Law, the term is used widely outside of gaming to refer to how we behave in everyday life.

Now I know. So do you. You’re welcome!

Watch Wil in action here:

Source: Know your meme