By Emily Bowker
DOES like the use of teen slang, like, get right up your nose, like?
As hard as it might be to believe – given that I am a member of Gen-Z, although I often feel too old to be labelled as such – it is really starting to irritate me. Is it getting too much, or, at 19, am I just going through what all previous generations have – getting irked that a new slang is taking over which seems inane and stupid compared to the words we adopted?
Or is there something bigger going on given the unbelievable reach and power of social media?
Young(er) people, brought up on a diet of YouTube, TikTok and who knows what else are being swayed by “influencers”, who are surely are living up to their name.
The first time it struck me that something was wrong – and I was irritated – I was on the bus to work and heard a group of teenagers, probably around 12-14 years old, using the phrase “skibidi toilet”.
If you are a parent of children that age, you’ll have heard it too. The same goes for “sigma”.
I remember sitting there thinking what on earth a “skibidi toilet” could be and did I really want to know. Most of these words don’t pass me by but this one certainly did.
In the interests of journalism, I discovered that the term “skibidi toilet” has no meaning whatsoever. It came about after a group of influencers started an animated series on YouTube. The series follows a war between human-head toilets and humans with devices for faces. Now, I don’t know whether that is just stupid or hilariously embarrassing.
Maybe I am just a “Karen” – another term that confused me to begin with. The label, associated with middle-class white American women who are seen as entitled or rude to workers and “demand to speak to the manager”, is commonly used to insult older women.
I just can’t wrap my head around why we need to keep introducing new slang terms. Maybe I am simply getting old. Or is it that these internet crazes come and go with such alarming speed that we never have the time to understand them?
The list – oh yes, there’s a long list – is quite possibly endless. I could sit here all day telling you all of the words I have now learnt, but I don’t think I care enough to bore you with “allat”.
Another social-media sensation is the phrase “brain-rot”. Now this is one I understand (gold star for me!). It is used to describe how the internet is “rotting” the brains of those who are seen as “chronically online”. For those who are wondering and need further clarification, this means that social media is our worst enemy. Many of us fall victim to the doom-scrolling phenomenon on TikTok or Instagram, where we can’t get enough of the content we are ingesting as we think to ourselves “just one more video then I will go to bed”. Then we look up and realise it is 3am and we still haven’t slept.
Does this count as “negative aura”? Am I so out of touch with all of these new sayings that I am officially “one of those” who need to ask my little sister for clarification on what these things mean, just to be met with a torrent of abuse. That is not “peak”.
Peak – another fun one. And no, I don’t mean the highest point of a mountain. Peak can mean that something is good, great even. This is not one I can say I used a lot when I was younger, but at least I can understand what it means.
Of course I understand the “old-fashioned ones” that have been around for who knows how long – words such as “slay” or “ate” .
I am not entirely outside of this slang bubble, though. Unfortunately, I use the word “like” in every other sentence. It just makes it easier to like describe things if you like get me, y’know?
I don’t blame you if you don’t. I hate how much I use the word that I am trying my absolute hardest to not use it at all, like. Maybe as I am now “one of those” I will start filtering it out. I hope it doesn’t slip into conversations with my boss. It is not professional at all, but I guess learning to use the right language in the right situation is all part of growing up.
All this “yap”, yes that is another one, meaning “information”, will eventually fall out of use (let’s hope). There should be some slang-free zones.
So, if your child is “skibidi toileting” rather too much, you might need to find some different influencers to follow – and preferably not ones on TikTok.
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Emily Bowker (19) is about to start her second year of study in Journalism at the University of Brighton. Over the summer, she has been working as a paid JEP intern helping with the Pride of Jersey Awards.
