Being the first true digital natives, Gen Alpha is a cohort well on its way to establishing their identities online. However, this comes to the complete bafflement of Gen Y and Z, who suddenly felt the whiplash of their age when trying to comprehend Alphas’ growing digital vocabulary.
Since Gen Alpha officially “came online” in 2023, the media has tried to one-up each other about what the kids are saying nowadays and how older generations can use terms like ‘Fanum tax,’ ‘GYAT,’ ‘rizz’ and ‘Ohio’ in their daily lexicon.
From The New York Times to the Deccan Herald, New York Post and Daily Mail, media titans and their audiences are trying to make sense of the noticeable change in language spearheaded by Gen Alpha.
Starting with Skibidi Toilet in February 2023, the onslaught of Alpha-specific references baffled Gen Y and even Gen Z, making both generations feel old as Kieran Press-Reynolds writes for Business Insider.
Perhaps the most notable example of this generational divide came in a November 2023 TikTok by @nicolepellegrin0 that has over 986,000 likes, featuring her sister Simone and her best friend Jorja about “what’s in vs. out” in modern-day slang.
“This needs to be a series,” commented @hollymadison on the viral video. And in some ways, that’s what the Internet got.
Following the release of the parody song “Sticking Out Your Gyat For The Rizzler,” TikToker Anthony Mai video-reacted “Gen Alpha is making their own memes now. It has begun. We are the next cringe gen on the chopping block,” to which over 7,000 comments expressed confusion about what most of the words mean.
To cope with the sudden age check in the slang space, Gen Y and Z started making fun of these terms in signature fashion.
In a TikTok viewed over 6.4 million times, @huntcho rewrote a verse of Outkast’s 2003 hit “Hey Ya!”: “My grimace don’t rizz around / Unless it’s Livvy Dunn / Or if it’s baby Gronk.”
Meanwhile, @felixbosquesh reimagined Radiohead’s “Creep” using the lyrics: “You rizz like Kai Cenat / In a skibidi world / I wish I was sigma / You’re so f---ing sigma.”
The emergence of generation-specific slang can be traced to a few different factors. But the identity formation related to linguistic divergence is key for Gen Alpha as it helps them mark the uniqueness of their generation in an overcrowded digital world.
What’s interesting, though, is where Gen Alpha gets their slang.
Globally, gaming has become Gen Alpha’s new social media – 44% of US Alphas don’t just simply play; they also watch other players, join communities, follow streamers, and create content. Meanwhile, 60% of Chinese Alphas and 62% of Alphas in Hong Kong use gaming to feel more connected with friends and family.
With these post-2010s babies being the first true digital natives, it’s tempting to copy or critique their attempts to experiment with language and culture online. But one thing the early death of the word ‘cheugy’ shows is that young people’s linguistic creativity is an identity-forming process best not interfered with.
To get to grips with the wild ride Gen Alpha slang can be, we’ve created a hand glossary to keep you in the loop with how Alphas currently communicate:
GEN ALPHA SLANG GLOSSARY
🍑 GYAT - “Girl Your A** Thick*” or a clipping of "GYAT DAMN SHE THICC,” popularised by Twitch streamer Kai Cenat
🎀 Preppy - originally from prep-school culture, it now means a bright-coloured aesthetic featuring pinks, ribbons, bowties, and Stanley cups
😩 Help - equivalent to LOL or LMAO (for Gen Y), usually spelt in all caps
🫦 Rizz - a clipping from “charisma”; having good game, especially in flirting
🚽 Skibidi - coinage from the Skibidi Toilet show, denotative meaning unknown; as of March 2024, a Gen Alpha said it’s out and is now only used ironically
💸 Fanum tax - an expression said when stealing a friend’s food; from Fanum, a Twitch streamer who openly steals food from Kai Cenat
🐺 Sigma - synonym of “alpha” of the pack, but is more of a loner, which makes them a lot cooler
🤪 Ohio - weird or nonsensical, comes from the perception that “Ohio is meant to be a weird state.”
📖 Lore - someone’s backstory, might be true or not but is a recognisable narrative of a person’s life
🕸️ Canon event - coinage from Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse, it’s an arguably unchangeable moment that shapes and defines a person; can be in the past, present, or future
