What does '(something) goes brrr' mean and how to use it?

Question

It's a slang phrase, I believe. However, wanting to know something new won't hurt, right? I've seen many people use this phrase, but I still don't get how to use it.

I, first, saw this phrase on Facebook. It was a maths meme. The meme was about a difficult problem that's unlikely to be solved by hand. Someone commented Wolfram Alpha goes brrr (I hope I remember the comment correctly). By the way, Wolfram Alpha is an advanced engine to compute something related to maths and preferable to use rather than solving by hand.

So, that's the context. I've done searching for a topic related to this phrase, here. From what I've understood so far, this phrase is used when someone introduces a more effective way to solve a problem. Is that correct?

Suppose, my friend has difficulty peeling an orange by his hands, can I say:

Haha a knife goes brrr

I mean, is this phrase even used in spoken English (very informally)?

Answer 1

"Goes" in this context means "says" or "makes the sound". "Brr" is often used to indicate the sound of a machine working. Like we'll describe a car engine as "going brr". So "something goes brrr" means "something makes a working-machine noise". ("Brr" is also used to describe the sound people make when they are very cold and shivering, but that doesn't fit in this context.)

I'm not aware of this being any sort of stock phrase or idiom. Maybe it's a common phrase in some group or sub-culture, but not in common English usage.

So if I was in a conversation and someone described a better way of doing a job, and someone else said, "I go brr" or some such, I'd take that to mean, "I am working on the problem with this new solution". But it would be a very whimsical and informal way of saying that. Maybe even a bit cryptic: I'd wonder, is that what he means, or does he mean ... something else?

I would definitely not use this in a general conversation. It's a cute turn of phrase, but it's not commonly used or understood, and it is very informal.

Answer 2

It is not generally used in Spoken or written English.

This is a reference to a meme: "Money printer go brrr" Which is about printing money to solve problems (with the implied satire on the idea that just printing more money ever solves anything) If the other person doesn't know the meme, then "... goes brrr" is completely meaningless.

The meme is about taking a shortcut that is ultimately damaging.

This is a difficult maths problem.

Ha Ha WolframAlpha goes brrr

(Wolfram Alpha will solve the problem in the short term, but you won't gain the algebra skills that you would if you worked out the problem by hand.)

It is vaguely appropriate to say "Wolfram Alpha goes brrr" since it is a complex computer server, that you could imagine making a "brrr" noise as it works. A knife is very simple, and there is no satirical point about "using a knife is a simple solution but using it would cause problems in the future".

So, no, It makes no sense to say "knife goes brrr", even assuming that the other person knows the meme.

Answer 3

I think there's two aspects to this.

First, there's the concept of a machine which can virtually instantaneously produce near-infinite quantities of the item in question. And said machine goes "brrr" when working.

But within the context of the joke, the entire point is that this machine is either impossible, or that using it will actually have a negative impact.

E.g. in the original "money printer go brrr" meme, the joke is around the fact that an economist is upset about the fact that the Federal Reserve is just printing money in an effort to boost the economy. Because it's a generally accepted fact that printing money tends to drive up inflation, which then has a negative impact on the economy. (https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/634/economics/the-problem-with-printing-money/)

Another variant I've seen is based on Voyager, and has Captain Janeway gloating about how their "torpedo printer go brrr". The joke here is perhaps a bit more abstract, since it's about how the entire show was centered around a lost ship with limited resources. So the way that the writers kept pulling torpedos and space-shuttles out of a hat completely destroyed much of the implicit tension within the show.

Either way, it's a fairly niche meme!

Answer 4

This phrase is used in a context where [someone or something] solves a problem in an exaggeratedly quick and brutal way.

This first refers to the A-10 Thunderbolt II (AKA "Warthog") attack aircraft which has an extremely fast and powerful cannon that literally makes the sound "brrrrrrrrt" when fired, quickly solving a problem (here, an armored vehicle for example).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVQvH4qc5cg

This meme was then taken up much later to designate the noise of a money printer, as if we could then solve a financial problem by printing a lot of money very quickly. (We then sometimes notice the disappearance of the "t" in the meme, so we get "[X] goes brrr".)

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/money-printer-go-brrr

If you want to use this meme correctly, then you can designate something that could provide a drastic and quick solution for an often parodic or deliberately exaggerated purpose.

Example:

"Oh no, my trowel is broken!"

"AHAH BULLDOZER GOES BRRRRT"

Or:

"ono I don't have enough money for that"

"MONEY PRINTER GOES BRRR"

Answer 5

The only sense I know for brrr is this one:
Lexico brrr
Used to express someone's reaction to feeling cold.
‘Brrr! It's a freezing cold day’

It's intended to indicate shivering, or teeth chattering.

Someone may have used this to represent the sound of a machine solving a problem efficiently, but it's not a typical use. Whether that meaning was intended depends on whether the user meant that Wolfram Alpha solved the problem, or couldn't solve it.

I don't recommend using the phrase except according to the dictionary definition.