Ocherednyara: Papich's word for "just another random"

A pet word from Papich's streams

The cyber.sports.ru blog post "How did the old-timers talk?" (2021) calls ocherednyara a pet word of streamer Papich (Evil Arthas) and jokes that it "will infect half the Dota community." The slang dictionary vsekidki.ru also attributes the word to the streamer Arthas, the nickname Papich is known by.

The word's heyday is tied to the popularity of his Dota 2 streams around 2015, when, as the cyber.sports.ru blog post "5 types of Dota players from 2015" recalled, pubs were full of his fans. The first stream where the word was used and the exact date it appeared are unknown, so the year on the card is approximate. The catalog has a separate article on the streamer himself, "Papich."

This article is about the word, not the streamer's biography. Traces of its spread beyond the streams show up in sources from different years: a question on Otvety Mail.ru from around 2016–2017, a dota2.ru forum thread from 2019, and a vsekidki.ru dictionary entry from 2024.

"Just another random person from the internet"

In meaning it derives from ocherednoy, "another, the next one": "just another random person from the internet." In 2024 vsekidki.ru defined an ocherednyara as "a typical, unremarkable person who blends into the gray mass." Some people trace the word to ochered, "a queue," but sources don't support that version.

The core of the word is disdain and facelessness: an ocherednyara is one of many, an unremarkable person from the gray mass.

Ocherednyaras everywhere: creeps, Roshan, and towers

The "How did the old-timers talk?" post recalls that everyone got called an ocherednyara: bad teammates, weak opponents, creeps, Roshan, towers, anyone at all.

A question on Otvety Mail.ru titled "Someone in a game called me 'ocherednyara'," asked around 2016–2017 (the page does not show the exact date), shows how the word spread through in-game chats. The answers explained that it means "just another anybody, but the main thing is that it's an insulting form."

When the word's author becomes an ocherednyara

Over time the word was turned against its author. On January 15, 2019, a thread titled "Papich is just as much of an ocherednyara as everyone else" appeared on the dota2.ru forum, with participants discussing the streamer in his own words.

Accounts of how alive the word is differ. In 2021 a cyber.sports.ru blog included ocherednyara in its roundup "5 slang words Dota players no longer say," alongside rak, krysa ("rat"), izi katka, and kripitsya. Yet in December 2024 the vsekidki.ru dictionary gave the word its own entry and still links it to Arthas.

Wraith King and his skeletons in the picture

In the catalog the meme is illustrated with art of the hero Wraith King (formerly Skeleton King): a green ghostly king in a crown holding a sword in turquoise light, with skeletons behind him.

The choice of hero ties back to Papich: in the original Dota this hero was called Leoric, and esports blogs describe him as the streamer's signature hero; cyber.sports.ru, for example, recalled the streamer's "NYA!" shout whenever Leoric landed a critical strike. The skeletons behind the king echo the meaning of the word: a faceless mass in which no one stands out.

Example ocherednyara captions

These examples are made up for illustration: "Another tower, another ocherednyara," "When your teammate loses mid and types 'gank pls'," "Roshan thought he was a boss, but he turned out to be an ocherednyara," "The enemy carry has six slots filled and is still an ocherednyara."

Captions work by deflation: someone important or fearsome gets called an ocherednyara and instantly joins the gray mass.