My friend, a fellow mom to an 11-year-old, sent me this helpful vocabulary update:
In return, I told her about how I had recently learned that “you sold” is something you say to someone who did a bad job—because one of my kids tearfully told me his brother had said it to him.
My older son also sometimes starts sentences with “POV:”. I knew “POV” from Instagram reels and Tiktoks (in addition to the ancient phrase “point of view”), but now it’s in actual dialogue. I think it’s a version of how we used to say, “This is you:” or “I was like…” but also? I don’t care. I know it’s not for me. Yet it’s funny to hear.
In this vein, my friend Christina told me about her son hearing the Tiktok-famous phrase “Fax, no printer” (in lieu of the term “facts”) and trying to use it but saying “Copier, no printer” instead. And he adorably thought “ikr” stands for “I can’t relate.”
I’ll add all these to my youth lexicon. What cool slang are the kids in your life using these days, accurately or not? When we learn what they’re saying, we can confuse them over the weekend when we casually drop terms they thought we didn’t know. 😈
PS If you have a little one and they’ve made up their own slang, tell us. Theirs is probably better than the older kids’.
My 6yo picks up slang at aftercare. (It’s always aftercare.) He came home and asked, “Mom, are you Gucci? Am I Gucci?” I assured him we were both Gucci.
My kid also advised me to use the term "bet" here as in "You know it" but I disappointed him by letting him know we were saying "bet" in my day as well.
I wonder if they still say "psych!" (sike?) or if there's a replacement for that.
I know about as much Gen Z slang as Martin Scorsese, which I know because of this incredible video his daughter made: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8rRNaTV/
But also in my actual life: my 7 year old has become fixated on the term “sus” to the point that he and his friend make fake money called Sus Bucks (???)
Sus I know!!! My son is really into Among Us so we are all sus. Tangentially related, since he likes Among Us we played the board game Secret Hitler at Christmas which ended up my then 7 year old yelling at his grandmother, "you're sus! you're the fascist!" (I got ahead of that train wreck and prepped the teacher when we returned from break).
Secret Hitler is great. I have four teens and it’s been a hit for the whole fam. They call it My Little Hitler, which sounds real bad, but it also makes me laugh. 😬
Secret Hitler is a lot of fun. It was extra hilarious when we had my daughters first bday party and my husband put tons of games out on the tables for people to play and my aunt explains “what the heck is secret Hitler!?” Spoiler alert: I am Jewish. My husband is not 😂
In the game you’re a liberal or a fascist and you have to sus out who is who and you have to figure out who Hitler is. Idk with younger kids if you’d want to explain the historical significance there. You have to have a good poker face for this game. It’s fun and I am very bad at it 😂
Everything is sus in our house and also "slay" to the 8 year old, as picked up from and used with the twenty-something sibling. 8 yo: I got Subway! (Holds up bag.) 20-something: ~Slay~!
These are all so good! My 12yo texted my husband & I a bunch of pictures of the giant organs (!!!) they were dissecting in Science class and my husband responded "Unsubscribe" (A+ adult slang) and he responded "What do you mean." We still got it!
not really slang, but my son (4) will start his independent play time by saying "welcome to my channel! so, today we're...... (fill in whatever he's doing)" and i'd heard other parents say how their kids mimic youtube/tiktok/vine slang, but it still makes me giggle whenever he does it. and if i say anything that acknowledges i just heard him talking to his make believe "viewers" he gets so embarrassed.
So glad my kid isn't the only one who does this! I've caught him saying "don't forget to like and subscribe" at the end of whatever he's doing as well...
Oh man, my 3.5 year old does this! He's not quite as clear about it, but he'll narrate whatever he's doing like he's explaining to his audience. To be fair, I have this weirdly vivid memory of walking my dog on my dead-end gravel road as a kid and describing it all like an instructional video. It was WELL before the youtubes.
My 4 y.o. does this even today. She’s a big reader and a big feeler. Her voice is very much an omniscient narrator, sympathetic to her as the hero in a world of nefarious idiots. And honestly? I get it.
My 7yo is just starting to learn/notice slang at her school (functionally only child as bro is 25) and she is fascinated with “Ayo” which she doesn’t use herself but talks about how everyone else uses it (which seems to be like “hey” or “yo” from back in my day). It is pretty funny.
But her best personal slang ever was the three months when she pronounced chimpanzee as something that for all the world sounded like Joe Pesci. We had a little toy joe pesci and we visited the joe pescis at lincoln park zoo and were joe pescis better or were gorillas better? Literally the best. She was 2.
I did not realize Ayo was a current slang. Kid came home from school or daycare with that last year (we assumed it was slurred something...I thought his best friend at school was named Feel for uh...too long before we realized kid is actually Theo. good times)
I want to know if "Ayo" sounds the same as the "Hey-o!!" they say in "Always Sunny" or if it's a modification. Side note; I knew a guy named Ayo in my 20's so this makes me think of him. I wonder what he makes of his name being slang.
It is like hey yo but with less h at the top and a little more glide together (if you listen to the tyler the creator version of you’re a mean one mr grinch, there’s an example there)
The kids were taking forever to get ready to start getting ready for bed and saying “POV: this” and “POV: that” until I shouted “POV: you’re taking a shower.” And it backfired because they wouldn’t stop laughing and talking about it.
My 6 year old recently started saying “hell yeah” when she is interested in something. It’s not just “hell yeah” it’s the way she says it. All hulk hogan hell-yeah-brother-esque. I died laughing. Obviously we’ve had the don’t say that at school talk but I can’t be mad when she says it. It literally makes my insides tingle with glee 😂 not that that’s necessarily slang.
But I get the occasional “bruh” and she does say “bussin’” too. both of which make me cringe 🫣
Also we have family slang which I now force onto the entire world- my kid never wanted his food hot or cold, just "medium" and for some reason now that means whenever something happens that's not bad but not great I will describe it as "medium" "pretty medium" "very medium" It's so useful as a phrase! (Maybe I also picked it up from somewhere I'm not that creative with language lol)
Bussin’. Apparently it means cool, great, delicious. Used most often with food I think? That’s from my niece and nephew. My 10 year old introduced me to “ate” as in “She ATE that” which means she killed it, owned it, slayed it. 🤷🏽♀️
Was just thinking of Paris is Burning as I read through these! I confess I'm not sure how to tell "tribute to drag balls" from "appropriated from minority community," but I feel like the kids at least get a pass.
My 13 year old has recently informed me that 'riz' means cool, like 'lit.' She called me 'bruh' sometime shortly after that. I really didn't anticipate being called bruh so much as a mother.
NPC (non player character) is big with my teen boys, used to describe a person who just kind of exists in the periphery/background of their lives. One of my guys is much more talkative than the other, so he sometimes says his brother is a total NPC at school. (Sick burn!)
Also ‘main character’ as in She thinks she’s the main character. Not a charitable description… also HIM as in “I’m HIM” like I’m the man, or ALPHA that’s another one
AAAAAH low key. My sister is 11 years younger (early 30s) than I am and when she comes to dinner my husband and I count how often she says it and compare totals after.
Paul was advising me on this issue and said "I have another one. 'Drip.'" I said "OK, say it to me in a sentence." He said "I don't know... 'that's drippy?'"
We use a babysitting service and our most recent college age sitter described our evening plans as “awesome sauce.” I have a feeling this was a one off weird kid, but we were both amused by the possibility that “awesome sauce” was making a resurgence.
Yeah, at this point “awesome sauce” is from like 2005 internet discourse. I think it first showed up on Homestar Runner. It’s rad that the youths are still using it.
Homestar runner is early internet. I loved that place. There’s a song from there I still sing in my head (no lyrics to it) that’s absolutely ridiculous. Just such silly/weird early internet times.
When my neurodiverse kid was 3, his vocabulary was a bunch of useless words (octopus, volcano) learned from alphabet songs and one useful word “abasi.” It seemed to mean something to the extent of “I would like that (thing, activity, etc.) please facilitate it for me, mother.”
We have NO IDEA what abasi came from or was supposed to be. It could be Farsi, or Thai or Malay. It could be several words jammed together.
A little late to the game so maybe this got said already, but my decades younger sisters (cuz we have different moms and dudes can fertilize for life) recently responded to a story I told them about someone being unpleasant to me with, “Tomato tomato!” Tomato was repeated twice BTW and pronounced the same way both times so I was very confused. I’ve been told it means BOOOO THUMBS DOWN, like you are throwing tomatoes. So that was their response to the mean person in my story. Tomato tomato!
Sussy Baka is real???? I thought that was some bizarre derivative of "sus" that my kids came up with. Just googled it and fell down a knowyourmeme rabbit hole! Wow I am even more unhip that I realized.
“Bruzzen” is one my oldest son and his friends say. Pretty sure they made it up. It’s a combo of brother-cousin - what you’d call your ride or die absolute best friends.
My kids are older now and it's a lot of let's goooo and sus etc. BUT one thing from when they were young that we still use is heat seaters for seat heaters. It just sounds so much better! Also moustachioes for pistachios 😂
"Drip" -- my 19-year-old, who just went off to college a couple months ago, dropped this one in a conversation recently and it floored me.... that I have to Google this stuff now 😥 When did this happen?! 🤣
(Also, I was really late to the party on "tea" -- though I heard that at work from some co-workers in their twenties 😃)
A urologist in Austin is ran an unforgivable billboard campaign to "quit the drip" with prostate...something... and I will never, ever be able to use that word out loud.
My 5 year old does not press the doorbell, he rings the dingdong. I will never correct him. My 7 year old picked up Bruh and Bro at before and aftercare and I am forever correcting him that I go by mommy these days.
Perhaps amusing only to me, but my 17yr old daughter and I call each other bro all. day. long. and it cracks us up. (The dog is the only male in the household, which I think makes it funnier?) Meanwhile, a male friend absolutely loses his mind when his 11 yr old son calls him bro.
I work in a middle school and the things I hear! Rizz is big right now. Rizz equals charisma/your reputation. As in, “How’s your rizz?” with an answer of “Not good, bro” or “On fire man, you see who I was with after class?”
My teens say this one too. They also say “cash money” - as in “oh that’s cash money” when someone is cool or good. I was trying to say it recently but instead it came out, “Oh that’s cash fire,” I guess inadvertently combining the two, and my kids cracked up so hard. So now that’s what we say all the time. When something is just the absolute best, it’s cash fire.
Thank you, all, for this—I needed a good reason to laugh out loud this morning! My 10-year-old, AKA my source of all slang, and total devotee of "sick" (everything good is always sick) is battling COVID ... but her spirits are good and her symptoms are better, so all looking up. Thanks too for the Martin Scorsese link—it was totally sick!
Courtesy of Mr. A-Game on YouTube (highly recommended if your kids like Zelda and/or Mario, Mr. A is funny and completely kid-friendly) -- my 7-year-old sprinkles little meme sounds into his soccer trash talking. He'll sing Josh Groban's "you raise me up" when he's made a good play, or shout "parkour! parkour!" from The Office when dribbling. Also heard at practice, "let him cook!"
My daughter uses “mid” a great deal . I think it means less than good ,as in bad, but not the worst.
Speaking of Joe Pesce …When she was a toddler and I’d use the quasi-Italian expression “capisce” to punctuate explaining things to her like “Upstairs is off limits, ka-peesh?” And she started responding in her own invention of the affirmative by saying “ka-posh”. It continues to this day.
My 4 y.o. recently revealed that some things in the world are “hanks.” She tried to explain it by telling us which things are hanks and which things are NOT hanks. Maybe AI would figure out the pattern, but I’ve got nothing for a definition. All I know is there’s a fat file folder in her mind called “hanks” and we’re always asking her “Is ____ a hank?” She answers with that teenage “duh mom obviously” tone and it’s hilarious
One that really amazes me is ‘You tryin’ As in ‘You tryin to go to Starbucks?’ It really means ‘Do you want to’ but I find it fascinating that the phrase turns it around as if the ‘asker’ is now the ‘one being asked’ and makes an assumption. Making the ask more oblique, putting some space there. I feel like Gen Z have these interesting ways to put emotional distance between themselves even though they are constantly communicating/being seen. See next two items..
Also how they approach (or not) dating/romantic interests like there is the ‘talking’ stage which is not really talking but almost always texting (to be clear). The there may be ‘hanging out’ - spending time together in some way. Then maybe ‘dating’ which actually might mean they are seeing each other as if they are together, but still not. And then actually ‘together’ - actually in a relationship. AND there is the ‘situationship’ which is being in a relationship/emotionally invested but not being able to name/commit to it, even thought you are actually doing it.
Like using the words, ‘thirsty’ and ‘simp’. You cannot be seen to be desperate - thirsty or like someone so much that it seems like you’d do anything for them - simp (this is more gendered in that it’s bad for boys to be a simp.
My high school students say "slay." In response to something cool: "That's slay." Or it can also mean doing something cool. The other day, one of them asked, "So, let's say we don't exactly slay on this test. Can we do retakes?"
I am in my mid 30s and just moved to a college town, so this one is a little PG-13- “dead ass”. This gen z guy was walking down some bleachers and stumbled and said to his friends, “I almost fell dead ass.” It made me laugh out loud in the moment and then at myself later when I realized how not cool I was and how I had misinterpreted it! I thought it was like a style of getting hurt? Or idk just that he almost fell on his ass. No-I told the story to my husband and he (who works with college kids) said it means “truth” or like “true story”.
It’s weird to relive an event and realize you actually missed the meaning, or you thought someone was funny and made up an interesting way of saying something, but they really didn’t. It honestly weirdly messed with me.
Slay - verb, adj, noun. You were awesome, that is awesome, etc. but said it a chill way. ‘You slayed’ or just a positive response to something like let’s get ice cream - slay. Girls use this, boys don’t really
My favorite example of this was when we had a 10 year old girl over here and my son captured and released scary bug in the basement and she was so excited about his bravery she said “slay!” Even though that’s the opposite of what he did.
My friend used Slay! to annoy her college age daughter (the fun never stops), who accused of her ‘cultural appropriation’ 😂 The whole thing was so funny to me that I ended up getting them each a Slay mug for Xmas
My 13 yo uses “slay” ALL the time. She’ll be reading or watching tv and if ppl are doing things she thinks are good she is muttering to herself “ohhhh slay slay slay slay SLAAAYYY…” It is hilarious. And my 11yo has decided his favorite slang word of the moment is “vibin’”😂😂
my nearly 13 yo and her theater friends use "slay" for everything, to the point where their theater teacher tried to get them to stop (sus!), which only made them double-down on using it.
My husband heard 2nd hand that Gen Z frat boys use the phrase “Let’s goooooo”, but in a very chill, stoned sort of way, to encourage one another. Note: I have not seen this out in the wild.
Our toddler has created a whole slate of almost-there words that I hope he never gives up: “pump man” for pumpkin; “mazagine” for magazine; and “lew-room” for living room. I’m disappointed that he no longer says “gonu” when he wants a remote control. And recently, he pulled down my shirt and said “tatas” when he saw the upper half of my boobs.
i work with a lot of sales bros in the corporate world and they're always saying "let's gooooooo" or "let's fuckin' go!" or simply "LFG" (in slack) and so, it's got legs!
I also think this one got big with Hamilton around our house, when Washington appoints Hamilton Secy of the Treasury and he replies “let’s go” in that deadpan voice 😂 (nerd alert?)
The Grade approximately 4-8s I teach say "Let's goooo" quite a lot, with varying energy levels for different occasions. (I get so much slang intel from my students! None I can think of ATM that I haven't yet seen here, though. Plus I'm on mat leave now so I'll have a lot of catching up to do when I go back next Sept.)
I wonder what the etymology is of "Let's go" being a regular phrase we'd all say like at a sports game to being a hot slang phrase--how that got set off.
My husband and I still haven't let go of "mement sitzer" for "cement mixer" even though the kid in question no longer remembers saying it that way at all
In our household we started using Caroni to describe shitty drivers instead of calling them other names or using adjectives the kid would be prone to repeat “What a Caroni!” -in Bugs Bunny voice
I had to come back & add that this weekend my nearly 13yo taught me that if someone looks great or is on point, they "eat". Olivia Rodrigo eats in "get him back."
Additionally, the kids today call each other the see you next tuesday word as a term of affection, like seeing a friend in a cute outfit you may say "you look c*nty!" or "Hi, c*nt!"
My 6yo picks up slang at aftercare. (It’s always aftercare.) He came home and asked, “Mom, are you Gucci? Am I Gucci?” I assured him we were both Gucci.
you are SO gucci!
My kid also advised me to use the term "bet" here as in "You know it" but I disappointed him by letting him know we were saying "bet" in my day as well.
I wonder if they still say "psych!" (sike?) or if there's a replacement for that.
my 9yo just like two days ago held up her hand for a high five then slicked her hand back behind her ear saying "psych!!" :D :D :D
fonzie vibes
I know about as much Gen Z slang as Martin Scorsese, which I know because of this incredible video his daughter made: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8rRNaTV/
But also in my actual life: my 7 year old has become fixated on the term “sus” to the point that he and his friend make fake money called Sus Bucks (???)
Sus I know!!! My son is really into Among Us so we are all sus. Tangentially related, since he likes Among Us we played the board game Secret Hitler at Christmas which ended up my then 7 year old yelling at his grandmother, "you're sus! you're the fascist!" (I got ahead of that train wreck and prepped the teacher when we returned from break).
Sounds like Secret Hitler is going on the Christmas list!
Secret hitler is both fun and an existential crisis waiting to happen because it is so hard to fight the fascists.
Secret Hitler is great. I have four teens and it’s been a hit for the whole fam. They call it My Little Hitler, which sounds real bad, but it also makes me laugh. 😬
Secret..... Hitler? That IS sus! How old does one have to be to play it?
Secret Hitler is a lot of fun. It was extra hilarious when we had my daughters first bday party and my husband put tons of games out on the tables for people to play and my aunt explains “what the heck is secret Hitler!?” Spoiler alert: I am Jewish. My husband is not 😂
In the game you’re a liberal or a fascist and you have to sus out who is who and you have to figure out who Hitler is. Idk with younger kids if you’d want to explain the historical significance there. You have to have a good poker face for this game. It’s fun and I am very bad at it 😂
*EXCLAIMS! Not explains.
My 6yo is also very into “sus.” He asked recently, “Are any presidents ‘sus’?” and my husband and I cackled.
all of them basically!
Exactly!
literally are there any non-sus presidents!
ahahhaha
lol! Sus Bucks! What can you buy with it??
I think nothing, because they’re sus!!
Everything is sus in our house and also "slay" to the 8 year old, as picked up from and used with the twenty-something sibling. 8 yo: I got Subway! (Holds up bag.) 20-something: ~Slay~!
Subway is never a slay but go off sandwich queen
These are all so good! My 12yo texted my husband & I a bunch of pictures of the giant organs (!!!) they were dissecting in Science class and my husband responded "Unsubscribe" (A+ adult slang) and he responded "What do you mean." We still got it!
lol Why is this so precious to me
brb just adding that to my vocab.
not really slang, but my son (4) will start his independent play time by saying "welcome to my channel! so, today we're...... (fill in whatever he's doing)" and i'd heard other parents say how their kids mimic youtube/tiktok/vine slang, but it still makes me giggle whenever he does it. and if i say anything that acknowledges i just heard him talking to his make believe "viewers" he gets so embarrassed.
So glad my kid isn't the only one who does this! I've caught him saying "don't forget to like and subscribe" at the end of whatever he's doing as well...
YESSSSSS when my daughter was younger and more into doll play, she would say, “Subscribe for more videos.” 😂😂😂
I’m liking and subscribing!
Smash that like button!
I just got the most vivid memory of playing “commercials” with my neighbors - acting out our own fake ads.
Oh man, my 3.5 year old does this! He's not quite as clear about it, but he'll narrate whatever he's doing like he's explaining to his audience. To be fair, I have this weirdly vivid memory of walking my dog on my dead-end gravel road as a kid and describing it all like an instructional video. It was WELL before the youtubes.
I definitely used to narrate my own life in my head but in novel form. i bet children of old did this in cuneiform.
My 4 y.o. does this even today. She’s a big reader and a big feeler. Her voice is very much an omniscient narrator, sympathetic to her as the hero in a world of nefarious idiots. And honestly? I get it.
you're a great mom <3
My 7yo is just starting to learn/notice slang at her school (functionally only child as bro is 25) and she is fascinated with “Ayo” which she doesn’t use herself but talks about how everyone else uses it (which seems to be like “hey” or “yo” from back in my day). It is pretty funny.
But her best personal slang ever was the three months when she pronounced chimpanzee as something that for all the world sounded like Joe Pesci. We had a little toy joe pesci and we visited the joe pescis at lincoln park zoo and were joe pescis better or were gorillas better? Literally the best. She was 2.
I am dead at this 🙈
I literally had to like hold my breath to not laugh at this every single time and ruin it.
I did not realize Ayo was a current slang. Kid came home from school or daycare with that last year (we assumed it was slurred something...I thought his best friend at school was named Feel for uh...too long before we realized kid is actually Theo. good times)
I want to know if "Ayo" sounds the same as the "Hey-o!!" they say in "Always Sunny" or if it's a modification. Side note; I knew a guy named Ayo in my 20's so this makes me think of him. I wonder what he makes of his name being slang.
It is like hey yo but with less h at the top and a little more glide together (if you listen to the tyler the creator version of you’re a mean one mr grinch, there’s an example there)
The kids were taking forever to get ready to start getting ready for bed and saying “POV: this” and “POV: that” until I shouted “POV: you’re taking a shower.” And it backfired because they wouldn’t stop laughing and talking about it.
Family slang from my three-year-old: airpods, especially because I use them almost exclusively for podcasts, are eartalks!
that is adorable!!!! Once I was whispering to my husband and my son, a toddler, said angrily, 'I want ear talk!!"
Haha!! Omg I love that
I love this one!
My 6 year old recently started saying “hell yeah” when she is interested in something. It’s not just “hell yeah” it’s the way she says it. All hulk hogan hell-yeah-brother-esque. I died laughing. Obviously we’ve had the don’t say that at school talk but I can’t be mad when she says it. It literally makes my insides tingle with glee 😂 not that that’s necessarily slang.
But I get the occasional “bruh” and she does say “bussin’” too. both of which make me cringe 🫣
Hell yeah brotha! (Said Hulk Hogan style)
: (
Rizz - to have charisma but really it’s to get someone to like you, used as both a verb and a noun. He has a lot of Rizz but also he rizzed her up.
The guy on the golden bachelor said his granddaughter told him he has rizz. And he does!
That man is the Rizztator of the Drip Kingdom.
lol
Thank you for this explanation (charisma) of why rizz is.
Yeah I meant to look it up after golden bachelor but didn’t 🤣
Bless you for this; my daughter has been using this without explanation and I have been SO CONFUSED (about the transitive form)
Also we have family slang which I now force onto the entire world- my kid never wanted his food hot or cold, just "medium" and for some reason now that means whenever something happens that's not bad but not great I will describe it as "medium" "pretty medium" "very medium" It's so useful as a phrase! (Maybe I also picked it up from somewhere I'm not that creative with language lol)
You've created the adult version of "mid". It was just mid. He's so mid.
“Mid” is DEVASTATING
I - age 51 - have adopted mid SO quickly. It's just so useful.
Bussin’. Apparently it means cool, great, delicious. Used most often with food I think? That’s from my niece and nephew. My 10 year old introduced me to “ate” as in “She ATE that” which means she killed it, owned it, slayed it. 🤷🏽♀️
A lot of these phrases, I think, trickle down from the drag scene which I love. Slay!
Was just thinking of Paris is Burning as I read through these! I confess I'm not sure how to tell "tribute to drag balls" from "appropriated from minority community," but I feel like the kids at least get a pass.
I have a preschooler who calls skylights “sunlights” and I refuse to correct him
upgrade 4 sho
My 13 year old has recently informed me that 'riz' means cool, like 'lit.' She called me 'bruh' sometime shortly after that. I really didn't anticipate being called bruh so much as a mother.
Rizz doesn’t mean cool it means like you have charisma, that you can charm people..which can be cool but I have told these are two different things :)
everything I know about rizz I know via stories about Baby Gronk--what are these words I'm even saying?
NPC (non player character) is big with my teen boys, used to describe a person who just kind of exists in the periphery/background of their lives. One of my guys is much more talkative than the other, so he sometimes says his brother is a total NPC at school. (Sick burn!)
Oh yeah I’ve heard that one on like Reddit. Also I saw my son using “gigachad” in a text
Also ‘main character’ as in She thinks she’s the main character. Not a charitable description… also HIM as in “I’m HIM” like I’m the man, or ALPHA that’s another one
Low key/ high key - how you are feeling about something or not very much, kind of or a lot. I’m low key worried about the test tomorrow.
AAAAAH low key. My sister is 11 years younger (early 30s) than I am and when she comes to dinner my husband and I count how often she says it and compare totals after.
This isn’t so new, but since about 2020, everything that seems shady to my kids is “sus.”
My 10yo boy is also really into “vibes.” A typical conversation in our household is like this:
Kid: “Mom, can we throw away all of the clothes you bought me and get new ones???”
Me: ?!
Kid: “These clothes you buy me — they’re just not my vibe!!!!”
Me: “What *is* your vibe?”
Kid: “I don’t know… but just not (gestures in direction of closet and dresser) any of this!!!”
I’m sure I’ll think of more…
Paul was advising me on this issue and said "I have another one. 'Drip.'" I said "OK, say it to me in a sentence." He said "I don't know... 'that's drippy?'"
Sus.
Is Paul collecting advising fees these days?
I pay him in making his entire life possible!
That is the best response ever. “I pay him in making his entire life possible.” You ate that! 😆
the people are hungry!
I torture my children by saying "drip drip!" when they are looking particularly fly and they say MOOOMMMM no one SAYS THAT
this is so cute and made me lol
I am constantly being told by my 11 yo son that I "don't pass the vibe check".
My 15yo sent me a text saying "ONG we are so good at running." Apparently, ONG = "on God," which means "I swear" or "verily," lol.
I am not changing OMG by one letter. No.
Now I want the youths to start saying “verily.”
"Yea, verily" even!
Work in a middle school and can confirm
We use a babysitting service and our most recent college age sitter described our evening plans as “awesome sauce.” I have a feeling this was a one off weird kid, but we were both amused by the possibility that “awesome sauce” was making a resurgence.
Yeah, at this point “awesome sauce” is from like 2005 internet discourse. I think it first showed up on Homestar Runner. It’s rad that the youths are still using it.
Homestar runner! Never knew anyone that had heard of it besides my younger brother who told me about it
Omg. Need to go find Trogdor, now! Thanks for the reminder!
Homestar runner is early internet. I loved that place. There’s a song from there I still sing in my head (no lyrics to it) that’s absolutely ridiculous. Just such silly/weird early internet times.
When you said song I thought “the cheat is not dead” if you remember that one 🤣
my mom says "awesome sauce" a lot (it was in a commercial recently?) and thereby, my 4 y.o. also says it - and honestly, i'm not mad about it!?
I’m a teacher and I say awesome sauce a lot. I was informed it’s “from” Sponge Bob
When my neurodiverse kid was 3, his vocabulary was a bunch of useless words (octopus, volcano) learned from alphabet songs and one useful word “abasi.” It seemed to mean something to the extent of “I would like that (thing, activity, etc.) please facilitate it for me, mother.”
We have NO IDEA what abasi came from or was supposed to be. It could be Farsi, or Thai or Malay. It could be several words jammed together.
That sounds like Esperanto to me!
I love this
A little late to the game so maybe this got said already, but my decades younger sisters (cuz we have different moms and dudes can fertilize for life) recently responded to a story I told them about someone being unpleasant to me with, “Tomato tomato!” Tomato was repeated twice BTW and pronounced the same way both times so I was very confused. I’ve been told it means BOOOO THUMBS DOWN, like you are throwing tomatoes. So that was their response to the mean person in my story. Tomato tomato!
that's so much nicer than "shut up"
Ooooh yah, nice observation. It totally replaces the old “SHUT up!”
When my 6-year-old and his friends are playing outside I can hear them all yelling “Stop acting sussy!”
That is so funny. Like a cross between sissy and fussy
Sussy Baka is the complete term.
Sussy Baka is real???? I thought that was some bizarre derivative of "sus" that my kids came up with. Just googled it and fell down a knowyourmeme rabbit hole! Wow I am even more unhip that I realized.
“Bruzzen” is one my oldest son and his friends say. Pretty sure they made it up. It’s a combo of brother-cousin - what you’d call your ride or die absolute best friends.
awww. this is dear to me because my son announced to a random lady, after his bro was born, "I has a bruzzer."
My kids are older now and it's a lot of let's goooo and sus etc. BUT one thing from when they were young that we still use is heat seaters for seat heaters. It just sounds so much better! Also moustachioes for pistachios 😂
Those are adorable. My kids invented the phrase handitizer. I’m not sure why that’s not its own product yet.
My daughter also says “hanitizer”. I love it and we’ve adopted it as family slang!
My kid (currently 12!) used to say "fire truck" instead of "pacifier" and it was THE BEST
My kid also says moustachioes. She also says stash-yous instead of cashews.
"Drip" -- my 19-year-old, who just went off to college a couple months ago, dropped this one in a conversation recently and it floored me.... that I have to Google this stuff now 😥 When did this happen?! 🤣
(Also, I was really late to the party on "tea" -- though I heard that at work from some co-workers in their twenties 😃)
He sounds like a drip king, rizzing up all the hotties on campus
Actually, she's a drip queen! (But I still love this! Hey... now we're using the slang!)
forgive me!! She’s still the drip king though.
A urologist in Austin is ran an unforgivable billboard campaign to "quit the drip" with prostate...something... and I will never, ever be able to use that word out loud.
noooo
There is a billboard in Valpo for a doc says he'll do the other side for free.
For the witches still on FB there is an amazing group dedicated to younger people explaining shit to older people. Highly recommend: https://m.facebook.com/groups/766624240616939/
My 5 year old does not press the doorbell, he rings the dingdong. I will never correct him. My 7 year old picked up Bruh and Bro at before and aftercare and I am forever correcting him that I go by mommy these days.
Perhaps amusing only to me, but my 17yr old daughter and I call each other bro all. day. long. and it cracks us up. (The dog is the only male in the household, which I think makes it funnier?) Meanwhile, a male friend absolutely loses his mind when his 11 yr old son calls him bro.
bruh this is the best
We call each other dude. All of us. Mother father daughter. So I like this. :)
Ooh, my daughter does this sometimes when she is mad and it makes me CRAZY! But when she is not mad I am a-ok with it, lol.
I call my 13 and 10yo sons “bruh” all the time! They don’t even notice usually, which makes it even funnier.
NPC --a phrase from gaming meaning "non-playable character." IRL, (I think) an NPC is a person who can't think for themself...
everything is mid, and the landline is a "1999" or "1900s" phone (it's a cordless from the 21 century
I haven’t heard that one before. Love it.
that's so rude
I work in a middle school and the things I hear! Rizz is big right now. Rizz equals charisma/your reputation. As in, “How’s your rizz?” with an answer of “Not good, bro” or “On fire man, you see who I was with after class?”
“Not good bro” 😂
curious - is POV pronouced p-o-v or p-aah-v ?
pee oh vee
perilously close to p in/and v 😬
oh, I'm going to laugh at that when it comes up. good times.
My child learned "sick" for cool from some of our older neighbors but he is six and it's so hilarious to see him try to be cool
Aww
A million years ago my kid and his friends starting calling everything cool ‘beast’ (that’s beast!), which for some reason was so funny to me.
Fire - awesome, cool That’s fire. Mostly boys use this one
My teens say this one too. They also say “cash money” - as in “oh that’s cash money” when someone is cool or good. I was trying to say it recently but instead it came out, “Oh that’s cash fire,” I guess inadvertently combining the two, and my kids cracked up so hard. So now that’s what we say all the time. When something is just the absolute best, it’s cash fire.
cash fire is an evolution of "cash me outside"
Ha! Good call.
Thank you, all, for this—I needed a good reason to laugh out loud this morning! My 10-year-old, AKA my source of all slang, and total devotee of "sick" (everything good is always sick) is battling COVID ... but her spirits are good and her symptoms are better, so all looking up. Thanks too for the Martin Scorsese link—it was totally sick!
no!! I hope she feels better and doesn't give it to anyone else at home.
Thank you! So far so good, which is "super sauce" around here. 😂
Courtesy of Mr. A-Game on YouTube (highly recommended if your kids like Zelda and/or Mario, Mr. A is funny and completely kid-friendly) -- my 7-year-old sprinkles little meme sounds into his soccer trash talking. He'll sing Josh Groban's "you raise me up" when he's made a good play, or shout "parkour! parkour!" from The Office when dribbling. Also heard at practice, "let him cook!"
My daughter uses “mid” a great deal . I think it means less than good ,as in bad, but not the worst.
Speaking of Joe Pesce …When she was a toddler and I’d use the quasi-Italian expression “capisce” to punctuate explaining things to her like “Upstairs is off limits, ka-peesh?” And she started responding in her own invention of the affirmative by saying “ka-posh”. It continues to this day.
I don't know if a link will work here, but this is my Rosetta Stone:
https://shutupandtakemymoney.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/i-find-it-kinda-bussin-i-find-it-kinda-cap-meme.jpg
hahahahaa
My teen boys say “cap” and “no cap” aaaaaalllll the time. It basically means “BS” and “no BS” but they use it after every sentence.
“I am totally on top of my homework. No cap.”
“Cap! Bruh, I call cap.”
“No cap!”
“Cap!”
On an endless repeat.
BRUH.
My 4 y.o. recently revealed that some things in the world are “hanks.” She tried to explain it by telling us which things are hanks and which things are NOT hanks. Maybe AI would figure out the pattern, but I’ve got nothing for a definition. All I know is there’s a fat file folder in her mind called “hanks” and we’re always asking her “Is ____ a hank?” She answers with that teenage “duh mom obviously” tone and it’s hilarious
hanks for this
One that really amazes me is ‘You tryin’ As in ‘You tryin to go to Starbucks?’ It really means ‘Do you want to’ but I find it fascinating that the phrase turns it around as if the ‘asker’ is now the ‘one being asked’ and makes an assumption. Making the ask more oblique, putting some space there. I feel like Gen Z have these interesting ways to put emotional distance between themselves even though they are constantly communicating/being seen. See next two items..
Also how they approach (or not) dating/romantic interests like there is the ‘talking’ stage which is not really talking but almost always texting (to be clear). The there may be ‘hanging out’ - spending time together in some way. Then maybe ‘dating’ which actually might mean they are seeing each other as if they are together, but still not. And then actually ‘together’ - actually in a relationship. AND there is the ‘situationship’ which is being in a relationship/emotionally invested but not being able to name/commit to it, even thought you are actually doing it.
Like using the words, ‘thirsty’ and ‘simp’. You cannot be seen to be desperate - thirsty or like someone so much that it seems like you’d do anything for them - simp (this is more gendered in that it’s bad for boys to be a simp.
I laughed so hard at Jessi Klein's book when she described her desire to get her toddler to eat as "Thirsty"
My high school students say "slay." In response to something cool: "That's slay." Or it can also mean doing something cool. The other day, one of them asked, "So, let's say we don't exactly slay on this test. Can we do retakes?"
I am in my mid 30s and just moved to a college town, so this one is a little PG-13- “dead ass”. This gen z guy was walking down some bleachers and stumbled and said to his friends, “I almost fell dead ass.” It made me laugh out loud in the moment and then at myself later when I realized how not cool I was and how I had misinterpreted it! I thought it was like a style of getting hurt? Or idk just that he almost fell on his ass. No-I told the story to my husband and he (who works with college kids) said it means “truth” or like “true story”.
It’s weird to relive an event and realize you actually missed the meaning, or you thought someone was funny and made up an interesting way of saying something, but they really didn’t. It honestly weirdly messed with me.
Slay - verb, adj, noun. You were awesome, that is awesome, etc. but said it a chill way. ‘You slayed’ or just a positive response to something like let’s get ice cream - slay. Girls use this, boys don’t really
My favorite example of this was when we had a 10 year old girl over here and my son captured and released scary bug in the basement and she was so excited about his bravery she said “slay!” Even though that’s the opposite of what he did.
My friend used Slay! to annoy her college age daughter (the fun never stops), who accused of her ‘cultural appropriation’ 😂 The whole thing was so funny to me that I ended up getting them each a Slay mug for Xmas
My 13 yo uses “slay” ALL the time. She’ll be reading or watching tv and if ppl are doing things she thinks are good she is muttering to herself “ohhhh slay slay slay slay SLAAAYYY…” It is hilarious. And my 11yo has decided his favorite slang word of the moment is “vibin’”😂😂
my nearly 13 yo and her theater friends use "slay" for everything, to the point where their theater teacher tried to get them to stop (sus!), which only made them double-down on using it.
Omg how could I forget “bro bein’ like…” 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
My husband heard 2nd hand that Gen Z frat boys use the phrase “Let’s goooooo”, but in a very chill, stoned sort of way, to encourage one another. Note: I have not seen this out in the wild.
Our toddler has created a whole slate of almost-there words that I hope he never gives up: “pump man” for pumpkin; “mazagine” for magazine; and “lew-room” for living room. I’m disappointed that he no longer says “gonu” when he wants a remote control. And recently, he pulled down my shirt and said “tatas” when he saw the upper half of my boobs.
i work with a lot of sales bros in the corporate world and they're always saying "let's gooooooo" or "let's fuckin' go!" or simply "LFG" (in slack) and so, it's got legs!
I also think this one got big with Hamilton around our house, when Washington appoints Hamilton Secy of the Treasury and he replies “let’s go” in that deadpan voice 😂 (nerd alert?)
The Grade approximately 4-8s I teach say "Let's goooo" quite a lot, with varying energy levels for different occasions. (I get so much slang intel from my students! None I can think of ATM that I haven't yet seen here, though. Plus I'm on mat leave now so I'll have a lot of catching up to do when I go back next Sept.)
I wonder what the etymology is of "Let's go" being a regular phrase we'd all say like at a sports game to being a hot slang phrase--how that got set off.
Let’s goooo is used by both boys and girls
Taylor Swift said let’s fucking go at her football boyfriend game so it’s canon now
LFG often used in texts
My husband and I still haven't let go of "mement sitzer" for "cement mixer" even though the kid in question no longer remembers saying it that way at all
mement!! I'm dead. Also "sitzer" makes me think of a sitz bath; much less adorable.
I was looking for this one--my 7-year-old says it constantly. It seems just to mean "cool." Ex: "I found diamonds in Minecraft, let's goooooooo."
Goat or Goated.
As in she is the goat. or this is goated.
I am him. Or he's not him.
My big kid started saying BUMPS in lieu of swear words. I think it's hilarious and have adopted it when I can.
In our household we started using Caroni to describe shitty drivers instead of calling them other names or using adjectives the kid would be prone to repeat “What a Caroni!” -in Bugs Bunny voice
that is so much cuter than my secret middle finger approach.
I had to come back & add that this weekend my nearly 13yo taught me that if someone looks great or is on point, they "eat". Olivia Rodrigo eats in "get him back."
Additionally, the kids today call each other the see you next tuesday word as a term of affection, like seeing a friend in a cute outfit you may say "you look c*nty!" or "Hi, c*nt!"
imagine your mom getting all dressed up and her sassy grandchild going "Nana's serving c*nt today!"