Ken Jennings and Jeopardy!: Bluesky meme worked into ‘False Berlin’ and ‘Bizarre Little Men’ categories

• The shared categories include ‘False Berlin’ and ‘Bizarre Little Men’, which the article says nod to a 2023 post.
• The source portrays Jennings as unusually internet-savvy for a Jeopardy! host, but it’s unclear whether the board actually appeared on air.

What happened

Kotaku wrote on September 21, 2026 about Ken Jennings and a Jeopardy! joke that reaches back to a Bluesky meme. According to the article, Jennings shared a board featuring the categories ‘False Berlin’ and ‘Bizarre Little Men’, with the reference centered on the phrase “slut gnomes of False Berlin.” The publication links that wording to an internet joke that first appeared on Bluesky and was later resurfaced in the context of the quiz show.

The piece says Jennings usually does not tinker much with Jeopardy! copy, but made an exception for a special project with the writers. Kotaku presents this as a case where the host was not just the face of the show, but also directly involved in a playful textual reference. The article describes him as unusually well-versed in internet culture for a quiz show host, which strongly shapes its tone.

The explanation in the article ties the joke to a 2023 Bluesky post by user @lowbeetle. The included YouTube description repeats the same meme text, including the line “You’re still in control of the board.” That description supports the presence of the joke and the wordplay, but does not independently confirm how or where the board was used. Based on the information provided, it remains unclear whether these categories actually appeared in a Jeopardy! broadcast, or were only presented as shared imagery.

Background

Ken Jennings is the central name in this story, as the host of Jeopardy! and the subject of the Kotaku piece. The source also mentions ABC and Christopher Willard in connection with the show, while Alex Trebek appears as a historical reference in the meme text. That places the joke within a broader Jeopardy! tradition, but with a modern internet layer coming in via Bluesky.

The included YouTube description repeats the meme text and contains the line “You’re still in control of the board.” That detail matters because it shows the joke appears not only in Kotaku’s written explanation, but also in the accompanying video text supplied with the source. At the same time, the description is limited to context: it supports the category reference and the wordplay, but says nothing definitive about the production, recording, or broadcast of the board.

The source frames Jennings as someone who normally does not make many changes to Jeopardy! writing, but in this case did collaborate on a special project. That wording is important because it suggests the joke was not just a stray internet meme, but part of a deliberate collaboration according to the article. The supplied information, however, gives no exact details on how large Jennings’ role was beyond the claim that he made an exception and had a favorite in the writers’ room.

The name of Bluesky user @lowbeetle is also relevant to the background of the story. The 2023 post is cited in the article as the origin of the meme, but the original post itself is not included. Because of that, the joke’s provenance should be described carefully: the available sources show that Kotaku explicitly explains it this way, but they do not provide a full reconstruction of the original online context.