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これは漕ぎに来てくれるフラグ?

I read that on twitter. This is the tweet, if it helps to make sense of it.

自信…なくないです( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ笑RT @yamadamic: あらマオにゃん!これは漕ぎに来てくれるフラグ?（笑） RT @mao_sid: 出勤時に聴いてましたよ（＾∇＾）RT @mizuuchitakeshi: 楽しかった(^O^)やまちゃんありがとう～汗だくだ…

All that I understand is that it says, "Is this ______?"

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Maybe yamadamic's previous tweet may prove useful. – Axioplase Jul 20 '11 at 1:48
7  
Should we really be treating this site as a translation service? – phirru Jul 20 '11 at 4:49
The problem is that the examples are so peculiar and the word in question does not have much wide usage. – sawa Jul 20 '11 at 5:20
2  
I doubt that this will ever be useful in the future. Probably one of the many other places you posted this question would be more suitable for this type of question. – rintaun Jul 20 '11 at 19:35
1  
I didn't post it in that first place. I don't know how that got there? – language hacker Jul 21 '11 at 1:15
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1 Answer

up vote 4 down vote accepted

フラグ started to be used recently as an internet slang. It means an 'advance hint', 'indication of something that will happen later', or 'some fact that will make much sense when some other fact is revealed later'. It is woven into the context intentionally (as in detective stories) or it happens non-intentionally. A normal way of saying it is 伏線.

It comes from the English 'flag', whose relevant usage is, according to my speculation, a global boolean variable used in computer programming to keep the state of something and is used later.

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