Zoinkies! You’ve found the home of the guy that first used the word zoinkies online. Yep, that’s me, Shaggs, inventor of the word “Zoinkies!” Learn more about the origins of the word and why I created it.
In January of 2003 I was in the midst of creating a network of 100 blogs and websites to help me earn advertising money. Many of the websites were based on practical products and services and the domain names were pretty straight forward. Some domain names were created solely for the keywords they contained. I would rank the website and make money when web surfers clicked on ads.
Every now and then I would create something fun and unique just to mix things up a bit. One of the websites I created was going to be a directory of other unique websites in very specific categories. This was before Google was the big and powerful Oz. Boutique type directories were pretty common for niche categories.
I thought it would be fun to name my directory after a word of exclamation. Something a person would say after finding an unexpected website they really enjoyed. The word that came to mind was “Zoinkies!” I remember from my 70s cartoon days that characters on Scooby Doo would say something like that when they made a discovery. I really liked Scooby and Shaggy so I thought it would be a perfect name.
I decided to see of the word was trademarked. After doing a little searching online I discovered the word zoinkies was not only not trademarked, it didn’t even exist! I could find no use of the word anywhere on the Internet. It didn’t even bring up a single result in Google!
I made a beeline to some Scooby Doo related websites and realized I had combined the words zoinks and jinkies to make my own word. Shaggy is the character that uses the word “Zoinks!” and Velma uses the word “Jinkies!” Needless to say, I was very excited that I had my own word that sounded like I had just come out of a 70s Saturday morning cartoon!
I quickly bought the domain name on January 22, 2003. I went on to build a fun directory full of links to websites I thought people would enjoy. I also purchased the domain zoinkees.com to cover a different spelling of the word but did not build a website.
The word “Zoinkies!” was an indication that someone was excited to have discovered something previously unknown to them. The official definition I have given the word is “to express delight or elation over something unexpected or incredible.”
At that time I was also looking for a word to use as a hashtag at the bottom of all of my websites so I could pull them all up in a search on Google without getting any other results. Using a variation of zoinkies I created zoinkology. For years, every website I created in my network would have the word zoinkology in small print at the bottom of the homepage.
Twenty years later the word and logo for “Zoinkies!” sits idol. My brain is constantly thinking of a useful purpose for the name. I plan to create a line of 70s style designs for my Shaggy Duck brand and I’ll include a design using the logo.
The word can now be found in some odd places online being used as a username, a playlist name or in a random sentence. Hopefully this blog post alone will elevate “Zoinkies!” to official word status!
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