What it means
Short for in real life. People use it to mean offline, face to face, or out in the actual world instead of on a screen. If you know someone irl, you've met them properly. If something hits different irl, that's the flesh-and-bones version, not the internet one.
Usage examples
"We have texted for months but never met irl."
"He is hilarious online but really shy irl."
"You seem proper loud on the group chat, but irl you're quiet as anything."
"We only knew each other through TikTok, then we linked up irl and it was actually calm."
Where it comes from
IRL comes straight from in real life. It took off in early internet chatrooms, forums, and instant messaging in the 1990s, where people needed a quick way to separate online stuff from offline life. From there it stuck and now it lives everywhere from DMs to memes.
This expression also appears in
