How to ‘slay’ at youthful slang

The other day, I described someone as “sort of preppy,” and my 11-year-old daughter, Sophie, started laughing hysterically. Apparently, “preppy” has a sort of negative connotation with Gen Z/Alpha (Sophie, born in 2013, is Gen Alpha by most standards, but being on the cusp she considers herself a ZAlpha). 

Look, I’m a GenXer, and I know we had our own linguistic quirks, but these kids are practically speaking gibberish to the ears of many adults. But of course, I took to Facebook and asked my friends to hit me with all the youthful slang they don’t understand and I’d use Sophie as our version of Urban Dictionary. 

(Caveat: She’s not on most social media and doesn’t have her own phone, and she goes to a small private school in central Pa., so your mileage may vary.)

So let’s start with preppy “It’s like you walk into a room, and you say in a Valley Girl-esque voice (I interject: “Valley Girl?! That’s so Gen X!”) ‘It’s so preppy in here!’ Preppy is a style. You don’t want to be preppy. I don’t know the style because I’m not preppy.” Upon further review, it came out that “preppy” involves a lot of the same style we knew in our youth – maybe not so much the popped collars on polo shirts, but a lot of pink and bright colors, very girly. And oh, multiple Stanleys.

I think the next biggest question was, what the heck is “skibidi toilet”? Apparently it comes from a series of videos, but Sophie also informed me skibidi is a compliment. “And then, you know what a toilet is, right?” So to me, skibidi toilet is still clear as mud.

Do these definitions so far have rizz? This was a fun one: 

Sophie: “You have a lot of people who like you.” Me:  “So, charisma. It’s short for charisma.” Sophie: “No! Only in your old grandma-person Urban Dictionary definition!” (I don’t care what she says, rizz is charisma.)

And sigma follows. “If you’re sigma, you have a lot of rizz,” Sophie told me. When I told her one of my mom friends said her kids also throw in alpha and omega (“Apparently I am part of a wolf pack, a sorority, or the Greek alphabet!”), Sophie assured me “You can be the alpha sigma rizzler and then you have the most rizz.”

For further confusion, Ohio is now an adjective: “If you’re Ohio, you’re sus,” said Sophie. Me: “Why?” Sophie: “Because weird things happen in Ohio.” Me: “Your grandmother was born in Ohio. Your father went to college in Ohio.” Sophie: *shrug* 

“If you’re a skibidi Ohio rizzler you are sus and you have a lot of rizz.”

I’m running out of room, so I’ll leave you with Sophie’s favorite word, slay. Which, much to my befuddlement, is usually used as a noun or adjective, although things can still slay.

“Basically, the short rundown is it means good. Like, really good,” Sophie said. “Say you try a new food and it’s really good, it would be a slay.” 

I know, I haven’t touched “mewing” yet, and there’s still more to go, so in the next month, feel free to drop me an email ([email protected]) with any words you still need defined. Unless you have rizz and understand all this already.