Dickovers, baggravation, botiquette: the new words we need to describe daily life with tech
A tech writer just gave a name to those infuriating pop-ups blocking the page you wanted to read. Naming the annoyance turns out to be only the beginning.
Key points - John Gruber, a tech writer, coined the term "dickover" in May 2026 to describe pop-ups that deliberately block website content. - A dickover covers cookie consent boxes, notification prompts, sign-in curtains and autoplay video overlays. - The Guardian identified 18 new words needed to describe modern technology frustrations. - None of these irritants are new, but most people had no shared language to complain about them precisely.
You land on a news article. Before you can read a single sentence, three boxes stack up: one asking you to accept cookies (small text files websites use to track your browsing), one begging for notification rights, one nudging you to sign in with Google. You click them away. An autoplay video slides in from the corner.
That whole experience now has a name.
What is a "dickover"?
Tech writer John Gruber coined it in May 2026. His definition: a pop-up panel or screen overlay that a website or app puts in front of its own content on purpose, purely to frustrate the user into doing something. Cookie banners, notification prompts, "create an account" curtains. All of it.
The word is blunt because the behaviour is blunt. These aren't accidents of web design. They exist because companies discovered that blocking content until users click "agree" is a reliable way to collect data or email addresses.
Why does naming this stuff actually matter?
Shared vocabulary turns a vague gripe into a specific complaint. Once you can say "that site hit me with three dickovers before I could read anything," you can compare notes, write a clearer review, or file a more pointed complaint to a support team.
We covered the frustrations around cookie consent in an earlier story on 18 August that found the same tension: friction is designed in, not stumbled into. The exercise here is partly comic, but that underlying point is serious.
What can ordinary people actually do?
Not much, short-term. Cookie banners exist largely because privacy laws in Europe require sites to ask permission before tracking you. Those laws meant well; the implementation produced one of the most universally hated user experiences on the web.
Browser extensions that auto-dismiss cookie pop-ups exist and work reasonably well. Beyond that, the most direct pressure comes from users publicly naming bad behaviour, which is exactly what a shared vocabulary makes easier.
The websites that attract the loudest complaints are the big ones with legal and marketing teams that've decided the friction is worth it. Smaller sites, run by individual writers or shop owners, rarely pile on dickovers. The design sins of the web are concentrated, not universal.
One honest judgement: naming a bad design pattern is not nothing. "Dickover" is blunt, specific and mockable, the kind of word that sticks to a company once reviewers start using it. Companies do notice. If a site buries its content under a stack of overlays, you've now got the right word. Use it.
