Virtuals are a slippery term to describe “online letterboxes.” Historically, it required an online hunt through websites in order to solve a puzzle, but they eventually grew into one-word answers that could often be solved without any research at all. As standards went down, they were eventually moved into their own category. Eventually, people largely stopped using them and support was finally dropped at the end of 2014. You’ll still find a few virtual boxes listed on private websites, however. To learn more about virtuals, join the Virtuals Group.

Cooties are one thing. Virtual cooties are created spontaneously when someone (person A) lightly tugs the back of someone else’s jacket or shirt (person B) to make them think a cootie was planted on them. There was never a real cootie involved, but person B starts to feel around on their back for the non-existent cootie, ask others to remove the cootie, or even take off their jacket to search it themselves—much to the delight and hilarity of person A (and cohorts).