What is ‘HMU’ on Facebook?

Facebook is the biggest and most popular social networking site in the world. With its popularity, various urban lingoes and Internet slang have been born along the way.  One such urban lingo is called ‘HMU’ which can be used as a status update or as a filler for comments on various topics.  In fact, ‘HMU’ is considered wildly popular, especially among the youth of America as it is considered the most popular status update on the social networking site back in 2010.  Its popularity, though, has alienated quite a lot of people who don’t understand what ‘HMU’ means.  Many people assume that this particular term is just an acronym for various other things while others simply ignore it and move on.

‘HMU’ actually means ‘hit me up,’ and it’s an Internet slang phrase that simply means ‘call me up,’ ‘contact me,’ or ‘get in touch with me.’  When seeing ‘HMU’ as a status update or shoutout, for example, one is simply being told that the person who posted it wants to be contacted in some way like by the ever-reliable mobile phone.  Many young people in the U.S. and the rest of the world frequently use Facebook as a means of communicating with friends and colleagues, and one way to send out the message that one needs to be contacted by other friends for a night out, for example, he/she may do so by posting ‘HMU’ in his/her status updates.

Like in the case of summertime where various young people are stuck in their homes without anything to do, some of them may want to get in contact with friends by updating their status on Facebook with ‘HMU.’  And when the other people see this kind of status, it serves as a reminder that the one who posted the message wants to get in touch with someone about something like a movie date with friends or a party at somebody else’s place.