SNOVID-19
The chat's fifth name and the first to last more than a few weeks. Set by [[Evan Bbbender]] on **2020-10-15** during a brief autumn snowstorm and held for **35 days** through **2020-11-19**, after which it was succeeded by *Weekend at HRMies*. Roughly **4,127 chat messages** were sent under this name.
SNOVID-19
The chat's fifth name and the first to last more than a few weeks. Set by Evan Bbbender on 2020-10-15 during a brief autumn snowstorm and held for 35 days through 2020-11-19, after which it was succeeded by Weekend at HRMies. Roughly 4,127 chat messages were sent under this name.
SNOVID-19 is the name Evan Bbbender gave the chat on 2020-10-15 at 21:25 UTC. The portmanteau combines snow and COVID-19, and was set against the backdrop of an October 2020 Pacific Northwest cold snap that the chat treated as essentially a third epidemic. The name held for 35 days and ~4,127 messages before being replaced.
Etymology
The chat's October 2020 traffic includes 31 messages mentioning covid and 15 mentioning snow, the conjunction of which is the explicit basis for the name. Evan deployed the new noun on 2020-10-31 in the only attested in-message use during the era:
"You're the first snovid to earn that title!" — Evan Bbbender, 2020-10-31
A month later, in the immediate run-up to the rename, Evan elevated snovid-19 from a noun to an operation:
"Who's ready to begin preparations for operation snovid-19?" — Evan Bbbender, 2020-11-26
"How're y'all feeling about operation snovid-19?" — Evan Bbbender, 2020-11-26
"Operation snovid-19 is in full swing" — Evan Bbbender, 2020-11-27
The "operation" is, in context, an attempt to convene the chat for the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend despite both pandemics. The chat traffic during the SNOVID-19 era is dominated by Bruce's pre-natal countdown (see Bruce for the eventual Halloween birth) and the 2020 election, with Daniel Miller reporting election-day shids ("Anyone else got the Election Day shids? I'm at 4.5 right now" — Kyle, 2020-11-03) as the era's most-quoted single message.
Era statistics
- Duration: 35 days
- Total messages: ~4,127
- Major events covered: Bruce's birth (2020-10-31); the 2020 U.S. presidential election; Daniel Miller's adoption of space shidding as a metaphysical extension of shid (see Shidding).
- Successor name: Weekend at HRMies (also Evan, 2020-11-19), the chat's first long-running name (~20 months).