Recently, it has become more apparent that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are in a slang war, and Gen Z’s social media presence is starting to decline. This has been a long time coming. Since Gen Z first got their hands on social media, they have poked fun at the slang of older generations and their futile attempt to “keep up with the youth.” Now, it is this generation’s time to step down and await the roasts.
Is it still cool to say slay? Are our vintage tees and baggy jeans the next “relic” of back in those days? Is it time for the Disney channel to step aside and make way for Skibidi toilet? In 3 years, its creator reached over 40 million subscribers on YouTube from its million subscriber milestone in November 2021. This animated channel skyrocketed in popularity and, with it, new slang.
Some of these words, such as “Ohio,” can be comparable to Timbuktu, its older sibling. Both words mean in the middle of nowhere, but they are more than that: they carry the voice of the next generation. While millennials can keep “swag” and take a W for killing “slay,” they defined a generation where the word’s meaning is still attached. Gen Z took a further approach by shortening words such as charisma into “rizz” and suspicious into “sus.” Gen Alpha’s approach is detached from the slang of the past.
Whether their parents are millennials or they grew up with advanced technology at their fingertips, their slang is even less attached to the traditional English language. Older generations also comment on the pace at which slang is evolving. Richard Cadra (S), an English teacher at YLHS, reflects that “words we used in late elementary school were still ‘cool’ in high school.” Today, social media pinpoints new slang by the minute, even the second. What is “trendy” versus “that was so 2023” is more apparent than ever. There is a constant search for new sounds to make that will confuse millennials with their new cadence and rhythm.
Generation Alpha will continue to populate the slang world like Gen Z has done for the past few years, making a new word for every new emotion and replacing old ones with ones they deem more worthy. Madelynn Lee (8), a student at Heritage Oak, comments that “slang is inevitable and should be encouraged. However, I have seen that slang is being created at a rate that is sometimes impossible to keep up with and is taking the place of basic words.”
In 2024, the Oxford Dictionary named “brain rot” its word of the year, raising eyebrows after the 2023 word “rizz.” This created a Frindle effect for myself and others around me. These words were considered silly sayings that rolled off the teenage tongue, and in a year, they were featured in the highest English authority. Their pervasiveness worries YLHS student Naomi Cheng (10), who thinks that “brain rot has become a vision of the entire English dictionary.”
In 40 years, when Gen Z and Gen Alpha enter their boomer stage, they too can look down and laugh at Gen Gamma’s silly slang while sipping the Hailey Bieber smoothie with a $95 pizza from Erwon. These slang words will mark the age of a once glorious generation loaded on ChatGPT and dystopian consumerism.