13

The word dooblidoo is used by several different youtube channels as a different word for the youtube description bar. I've seen it used by the vlogbrothers and by PBS Idea Cahnnel.

Who was first to use and invent the term?

Improve this question
4
  • I suspect the term doobly doo is an onomatopoeia for "Down Below" which is the location of the YouTube description box relative to the video window. A common phrase on youtube is "I've put a link down below" down below, said often enough and fast enough sounds like doobly doo, which is I guess a little bit funny and easily emulated and it took off.
    – Mitch
    Commented Oct 19, 2016 at 1:36
  • Frank Sinatra: play.google.com/music/preview/…
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Apr 8, 2017 at 23:12
  • (It's "scat". )
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Apr 8, 2017 at 23:14
  • @HotLicks: that's "Doo-bee-doo-bee-doo"... that's different (though this new thing could, indeed, have derived from it, I don't know.)
    – lindes
    Commented Dec 11, 2018 at 10:57

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
10

Also spelt "doobly doo". There's a related page here tracing usage of the term back to a guy called Craig Benzine (a Youtube user).

But to my ear, "doobly doo" sounds like a familiar idiom that's much older than that, used to name something you don't know the name of.

"You know, the doobly doo ... the doobly doo for flipping eggs."

Improve this answer
3
  • 5
    AKA Wheezy Waiter.
    – Matt E. Эллен
    Commented Jan 23, 2014 at 15:04
  • It does "sound familiar", because you've heard scat singing in many old 40s-50s era songs.
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Apr 9, 2017 at 21:34
  • Is that US English? The equivalents in British English are "doo-dah", "doo-dad", "wotsit" and "thingummy". I've never heard "doobly doo"
    – BoldBen
    Commented Aug 23, 2020 at 0:05
4

This first appears on WheezyWaiter and was popularized in part by vlogbrothers. Quoted from Urban Dictionary:

This term refers to the video description box on YouTube.

This box, which contains information about the video, links, and tags, used to be universally referred to as the "sidebar," since it often appeared beside videos, but Craig Benzine (Wheezy Waiter) started referring to it as the "doobly-doo."

Other YouTubers, such as John Green (part of the Vlogbrothers) and Dan Brown, started to also call the sidebar the "doobly-doo," using Wheezy Waiter's terminology (and crediting him in various comments and tweets). The term is now widely used on YouTube.

Improve this answer
2

I noticed that the term is used in the song “Funky Monks” (1991) by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, though obviously not with the same meaning:

Virtue slipped into my shoe
No I will not misconstrue
More rockin’ more rockin’ now doobley do
Dancin’ down your avenue

The nonsensical nature of the verse makes me think it might just be a placeholder word, perhaps with a longer history as @badroit suggests.

The English Project’s "Kitchen Table Lingo" (2008) lists “doobly” as an informal term for TV remote control, so its use as a technology-related placeholder is not unprecedented, at least in the UK.

Of course, Craig Benzine’s coinage might be completely independent.

Improve this answer
2
  • 1
    That's just standard "scat", as used in jazz singing.
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Apr 9, 2017 at 13:29
  • @HotLicks, that was my thinking too, and we know the Chilis were into some "old-timey" music (take their "They're Red Hot" cover). Chilis being Chilis, I half expect it to be a sex and/or drugs reference. :)
    – screwtop
    Commented Apr 9, 2017 at 21:06

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .