Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Does The Cast Of ‘Jersey Shore’ Think Seth Rogen Made Up The Term ‘DTF’?

In honor of the 10th anniversary of “Superbad,” the teen sex comedy that you could only appreciate prior to taking Gender And Women’s Studies 101 in college, Seth Rogen dropped a whole bunch of trivia facts about the film on Twitter.

As a beautiful, young woman with a vibrant social life, I usually exit stage left when a man brings up movie trivia. But there is something about this particular fact fest that stood out to me.

Could it be true? Does the cast of “Jersey Shore” really think two Jewish boys from Canada (Seth Rogen and cowriter Evan Goldberg) invented the most popular way to say “hello” on Tinder?

And further, did Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg come up with the term?

In fact, research (that I just conducted over the past 10 minutes using Google) reveals that the first documented definition of “DTF” can be dated back to 2002, a full five years before “Superbad” popularized the term among East Coast Italian-American teenagers, a full seven years before those teenagers would grow up to use the phrase repeatedly up and down the coast of New Jersey, and a full 10 years before Tinder would ruin it for everybody.

In 2002, Seth Rogan would have been 20 years old, roughly about the age you would expect someone to come up with a quick and easy way to inquire about a potential partner’s sexual availability. Although we can’t confirm that Rogen invented the term, we also can’t confirm that he did not.

This, however, is something we feel pretty confident is true:

Becky Scott is the editor of The Schmooze. Follow her on Twitter, @arr_scott

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version