The Barrens Chat is a channel used by players in the video game World of Warcraft to communicate in a zone known as "The Barrens."

The Barrens are a popular location for relatively low-level Horde characters for several reasons:

It is located between the starting zones of three Horde races (the Tauren of Mulgore and the Orcs and Trolls of Durotar)

Until the release of the Burning Crusade expansion, Silverpine Forest was only other level-appropriate Horde territory after leaving the starting zones, and it was considered by many to be inferior for levelling.

The Barrens are a fairly large area to quest in, larger than any other zone in the game.

Due to this, low-level players from the Horde tend to converge there while levelling. For reasons unknown, this has caused the Barrens General channel to be among the more "wild" chat channels in the game. The channel is rife with Chuck Norris and "your mom" jokes, as well as inquiries to the location of the missing wife of an NPC named Mankrik, (Who is located just south of the bridge in the central barrens. She can be found by following the road north of Camp T.) and people looking for healers for Wailing Caverns.

Due to the number of people participating in the discussion, players can often spark up an extremely big conversation by saying something that may be considered derogatory by a particular class of character (e.g. Rogues take zero skill).

Since the release of World of Warcraft, the term "Barrens Chat" has become a popular internet meme[293]. Several internet vendors sell T-shirts with some variation of the phrase "I Survived the Barrens Chat" [294].

Barrens has been known for its constant Chuck Norris jokes. It has since moved on to the "Murloc" theme in which the word murloc is replaced in movie titles such as "Black Murloc Down, and The Chronicles of Murloc."

For optimal results of leveling, many experts recommend turning off Barrens General chat. Many find themselves caught up in petty arguments stemming from derrogatory comments such as "Romel is n00b, don't group with him" and modern heated debates like "Don Imus is my hero".