How do I exit vim?

They might be stuck in insert or replace mode. Nobody mentioned hitting escape before :x or :q!

Lol, as if they haven't already tried Esc half a dozen times before googling how exit vim
If the idea of hitting escape didn't spark for them, I don't think they can even get into insert mode

One great thing about this joke is a that I doubt there's anyone left who doesn't know how to exit vim.

Was watching a twitch streamer learning linux, and chat convinced them to open vim for the first time. Not a single person gave the real answer of how to exit, all joke answers like "Power off," and it was hilarious.
I have no idea, but I know it’s awful
- It's really not that bad. [ESC] :wq Escape to exit input mode and enter command mode, then the command indicator : w for write and q for quit. To quit without writing force it with :q!. Done.
Well, depending on how long one is trying to exit Vim and hence the level of frustration, exiting Vim might involve the use of a sledgehammer...

!sudo poweroff

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- My new favorite is:
  
  alias cd='sudo rm -rf / --no-preserve-root'
- Sledgehammer!
  
  Works every time.⁽¹⁾
  
  ¹might have unpleasant side effects⁽²⁾
  
  ²for definitions of the word "might" were the probability of that outcome is at least 5 nines.
- cat /dev/zero > /dev/kmem ?

Please don't put the punchline in the title.

Don't save: :q! Save: :x

Additionally for save and exit: :wq (read as write and quit) or ZZ (without colon).
- Dude's in bed. ZZ is clearly the superior choice for the sleepy vi user.
- :x will save and exit. The difference between :x and :wq is that the latter will always write to the buffer, while the former will only do so if theres a change.
I like :cq for if I want to cancel my git commit message (or similar)

Wait, has he entered Vim in his mind??

That's what everyone who starts learning it does. Then you.jjjj websites or :wq documents, and eventually end up installing vim-like plugins for everything

Freak out and force-power-down your PC, and never accidentally open vim again

Turn it off and back on again.

I have the feeling these editors only make sense on US keyboards. Like ":" for what? This is not a primary sign anywhere, why not just control like a normal person, working on every keyboard?

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- Thats what I mean, "/" too, makes no sense at all for search. Its Ctrl+F, Ctrl+S, Ctrl+O, Ctrl+X etc.
  
  Thats why nano makes more sense for all people, but I suppose vim could be edited to be like that?
sure, pull requests welcome. good luck
- Haha not gonna happen

:wq!

Why not just :wq
- Gotta let it know we mean business! /s
- OR :x at that point.

How do I put the punchline in the title?

ctrl-x

:x

ZZ

I don't understand why this is such a popular meme. Take 5 minutes to read about how Vim works, and you won't have any more issues.

I shouldn't really have to look up the instruction manual of a text editor to do a simple action like close the program. Every single other text editor I've ever used was intuitive enough to get started right away, going back to 1989.
- If it's not intuitive enough then don't use it and don't open it. You can always close with Ctrl+z and then kill it. Or close a terminal window like any other intuitive editor.
- Well, it works well for some people.
  
  Once you get used to it, it can be a dang powerful tool. For people doing a lot of config-wrangling on the CLI (i.e. admins working a lot ovet SSH), overcoming the learning curve will pay dividends.
  
  If you're working mostly locally and in a GUI environment environment, it's probably not worth it - there's a reason most devs use more specialized IDE's.
Nowadays it's easy when you open vim inside gnome terminal, in my old offline noob days it was like "oh shit my terminal is locked" and the way out was either Alt+F2 and then try again or Ctrl+Z; pkill %1.

I never caught the vim bug and started with using joe and switched to nano later, I played with Emacs for some time but ended up using a GUI editor instead.

:q!

:!pkill vim
- Alt + SysReq + o
  
  About Magic System Request Keys on Linux

I got VIM (possibly NeoVIM, I don't recall) on a thumb drive a few weeks back for an assignment for one of my college courses because I can't install anything on the college library computers and it threw me off because I had no experience with it before then. Thank goodness for the Internet knowing what to do because I had absolutely no idea how to do just about anything in it.

I’ve recently made the choice to switch to neovim as my main terminal editor and I like it. Even doing coding in it. But bigger projects I still use vs code.

Just start smashing the keyboard, there are only a few possible outcomes.

You might just exit vim.

You might break everything and can just long press of death your pc.

You might actually fix something and get a raise because the bug would have been impossible for a human to find.

You might ddos the CIA, and have to burn all hardware and move to Belize.

I love vim. I will commit hate crimes if you use emacs.

Old joke that's been around forever: "What's the best way to generate a random string? Give a first year comp sci student an open vim editor"