Over the last 30 years, we’ve seen the term GOAT turn into an acronym and gain meaning. This term is given as a top-tier complement, primarily to athletes, but over time has been passed to musicians and other public figures.
Where it Began
In 1992, “Lonnie Ali, Muhammad Ali’s wife, incorporated Greatest of All Time, Inc. (G.O.A.T. Inc.) to consolidate and license her husband’s intellectual properties for commercial purposes.” Seeing as how he was already a beloved boxer, the term caught on and has since spiked in usage in the last twenty years.
When Did it Catch On?
In 2000, LL Cool J came out with his album, “G.O.A.T.”, which is the first known use of GOAT as an acronym. He gives his credit for the term to Muhammad Ali saying in an interview with Rolling Stone in 2016, “Without Muhammad Ali, there would be no ‘Mama Said Knock You Out, and the term G.O.A.T. would have never been coined.”
How to Use GOAT
Say that someone is, in your opinion, a top-level competitor that couldn’t be topped by anyone else. You’d consider them the GOAT or, the Greatest Of All Time. A highly used term is, “Tom Brady is the GOAT,” but we can then see someone else using the term to describe a famous actor that they deeply connect with. This term should not be given out lightly, as it would then lose its importance.
How it’s Seen Today
As the popularity of this term has picked up, we now see it all over the internet, as well as in our everyday lives. From social media to online gaming, we now see an increase in the usage in blogs and websites with articles specifying who the companies believe are the “GOAT”.
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