Slang trends birth and mutate so frequently nowadays it’s impossible to keep up. Have you heard of the Skibidi toilet? The “millennial pause”? Do you use the laughing emoji to signify that you’re laughing out loud? Chances are, Gen Alpha — the generation of kids and teens born after 2010 — thinks your way off-trend. Sorry.
In a new TikTok that’s been viewed over 3.3 million times, Nicole Pellegrino, a millennial-aged director of TikTok strategy for a media company, was schooled by her Gen Alpha sister Simone and her sister’s best friend for her out-of-date slang. Viewers who identified as twenty-somethings agonized over the clip making them feel old and obsolete.
“I can’t say, like, ‘That’s a slay’?” Pellegrino, who is in her early 30s, asked the two girls at the start of the video. (“Slay,” a slang term that originates in Black and Latin queer culture, is often used online to say a person did something impressively.) Pellegrino’s sister cupped her hand over her mouth and both quickly urged her to avoid the phrase.
“It’s not even funny how ‘out’ slay is,” Simone said.
Pellegrino asked them about the word “bet” — a term often used as a short synonym for “sounds good” or “OK” — to which they gave a disapproving hum.
Then she inquired after whether it was okay to use the laughing emoji, which drew a flabbergasted reaction from the two.
“Do you actually use the laughing emoji? Dead serious?” Simone asked.
“When you laugh, if it’s something funny you do cry [emoji], because no one laughs by using the laugh,” she explained. She also suggested using the skull emoji when telling a person something insulting as a joke. Consider yourself warned.
After her sister mentioned the word “GYAT” in a sentence, Pellegrino appeared shell-shocked. “What on Earth is a GYAT? A yacht?” she asked.
The girls were similarly amazed that Pelligrino wasn’t aware of the term.
They explained it as an acronym for saying someone has a nice butt (“Girl Your Ass Is Thick,” essentially). One of the girls offered a scenario: “If you have a BBL or if your butt shakes when you walk, that’s when you would yell GYAT at somebody.”
(For the record, many commenters disputed the girls’ definition of the term, which has been assigned various definitions online. Some said it’s shorthand for the complimentary phrase “girl you ate that,” while Urban Dictionary’s top entries identify it as a less profane way of saying “goddamn.” The phrase has also sometimes been used as an exhortation to “get your act together,” per Dexerto.)
The TikTok hashtag for “gyat” has 6.5 billion views; the most popular posts are all memes and butt-related jokes.
The only slang term Pellegrino offered that the girls seemed moderately satisfied with was “okay period,” which people use as a way of underscoring what someone said or expressing agreement.
Thousands commented on the clip, many of whom said they felt ancient watching Gen Alpha spin up a whole new vocabulary and seemingly rewrite age-old definitions of things. “I’m 24 going on 100 APPARENTLY,” one exasperated reply said. “This AGED me and I’m 25,” a top comment with 20,000 likes said.
Some viewers disputed the girls’ definitions and analysis of what’s fusty versus fashionable. Many people claimed that “slay” is still hip or said their interpretations were just “TikTok language.” The post inspired an abundance of capitalized responses.
“I FINALLY LEARNED WHAT GYAT MEANS!!!!! THANK YOU, JESUS!!!” wrote one commenter.
“THEY ASSIGNED WORDS TO GYAT?!” said another.
Others resigned themselves to falling out of touch, snarkily commenting on the usefulness of such slang.
“Okay! Got us,” one person said. “Now ask them how to spell ‘restaurant.'”
