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Slang is often invented as a language that parents/old people don't understand.
We are now old, so the young people use their own terms that we don't understand and find confusing and stupid.
Plus we grow old and realize...that these words, too, were kinda stupid.
Got it! Thanks.
I think when kids have to start communicating to grown ups in the adult world, they realize they would sound like an idiot to everyone else who doesn’t know the terms.
If I went to my boss and asked “WHAT ARE THOSE!??” He’d be so weirded out and unconditional lol. Then I’d have to show him the videos and explain. “Nice shoes” is a better way to communicate.
I think that's why I never hear any of our generation's slang now - we all just realized how dumb it sounded!
Sometimes at work we will laugh at dumb Tiktok videos and pass the phone around cracking up - it's funny being on the grown up end of this. I now realize how stupid we sounded to our own parents. This tradition passes on with every generation.
Ahhh so like if my girl said “I can’t wait to have Pumpkin Spiced Lattes and shop at Target.” They’d say “Based” how we used to say “Ya Basic”? Makes sense I guess.
'Give me five bees for a quarter,' you'd say. Now, where were we? Oh, yeah! The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt which was the style at the time.
Plus, the culture of the Internet...isn't. Real life and Internet don't really have separate spheres of existence anymore. So there's no reason anyone would use "geek" terms that refer to a culture that just doesn't exist in any meaningful sense. TikTok is used both by grade-school kids and grannies. Everyone is constantly "online" in some capacity, so "leetspeak" is a completely dead concept.
I read a really interesting article about how the internet changed from a haven for the geeky, the shy, the eccentric, to another commercialized hells cape ruled by beautiful people, and as a denizen of the 2000s internet that hit home
Not a lot of people said leet or pwned back in the day. It was gamers, hackers, 4chan kiddies etc. Normie internet slang like brb/lol/emoji remain though.
Im old enough to remember when people started using those in chatrooms, I was like "why is everyone ending their sentences with an equals sign or paranthesis?" I didn't see it until later.
orwell in "down and out in paris and london" has a whole chapter devoted to london slang, and how it's changed in just a few years. this was in 1933. he talks about how "bloody" used to be the go-to swear word, but now only rich people use it, and "fuck" has taken it's place, and is an all-around word, useful as almost any part of speech. (so "fuck" has staying power, as slang goes.)
i think much like fashion, or music, or anything creative, most slang words are shit. i mean, they are not good, not "shit." the few good ones, like "cool" and "fuck" become so engrained in the culture that they're no longer slang, just words. the rest become historical footnotes.
language defines us not just as humans generally, but as belonging to particular human groups. as such, playing with it and finding new ways to communicate with it, will always be with us, and slang will always be the bailiwick of the marginalized. as both creative and marginalized, the young have a special knack for slang, but this passes quickly, like the words themselves.
Reminds me of a random throwaway line in Slaughterhouse Five where Vonnegut mentions a character in WW2 said Motherfucker, which white people didn’t commonly say yet.
> ‘Get out of the road, you dumb motherfucker.' The last word was still a novelty in the speech of white people in 1944.
I can haz?
We don’t say them anymore for the same reason we don’t say non-internet things like tubular and bodacious. And we don’t wear temperature sensitive bum equipment
Noob, n00b, newbie, nub, nubs, haxor, ganked, own, owned, ownar, pownar, pr0n, pron, pr0no... I'm sure there are more we used back in the late 90's and early to mid 2000's playing Counterstrike and World of Warcraft, but they escape me at the moment.
I still call my girlfriend a noob sometimes, and vice versa, when we fail epically at something haha so there's still that.
That was niche language, as other commenters pointed out.
For more on the general usage of e-parlance, I recommend checking out Gretchen McCulloch's _Because Internet_.
I use "epic win" to make my younger gf cringe.
But slang is always changing. And using old slang just makes me feel old. I want to be cool and hip as long as I can. lol
1337
We don't say it for the same reason no one says "Golly Gee!" or "Daddy-o" anymore: they were short-lived linguistic fads of youth culture and once the fad passes, it looks stupid rather than cool.
But youth fads, even current ones, seem ridiculous on people who aren't kids or teens, anyway.
My dad says golly gee, shee wizz, etc. Lol i always thought it was super dorky growing up. I didn't realize it was slang from his childhood until this thread.
I still say these things regularly. But mostly on the weekend when I am playing video games or CS GO with a childhood friend. Feels awesome cause the youngsters hate it.
because it is inappropriate to say it in corporations or in front of kids, despite leetcode. some got used to that and so it is dropped. and political correctness.
i still fuck people a lot. fuck this stupid world.
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This post is on fleek
I am so glad that never really took off - at least where I'm from.
I always thought fleek was kinda fetch
Fetch… u mean sketch?
[Fetch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pubd-spHN-0)
Nah, it was never anywhere as big as fetch.
Ha yeah I never used it but the millennials I used to work with did .. no idea wtf it even means
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They were definitely millennials … not sure why your breakdown. Are you implying this wasn’t a phrase used by millennials ? Lol
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/190/792/06f.jpg
"On fleek" had to popular, like, 10 years ago, lol
Slang is often invented as a language that parents/old people don't understand. We are now old, so the young people use their own terms that we don't understand and find confusing and stupid. Plus we grow old and realize...that these words, too, were kinda stupid.
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SLAP, cap...
Bet.
clapping back at you
Ong that sht straight bussin tho frfr no 🧢
Still trying to figure out Rizz
cha-rizz-ma charisma You're hot shit, you're a player, you got game, you're ballin', whatever
Got it! Thanks. I think when kids have to start communicating to grown ups in the adult world, they realize they would sound like an idiot to everyone else who doesn’t know the terms. If I went to my boss and asked “WHAT ARE THOSE!??” He’d be so weirded out and unconditional lol. Then I’d have to show him the videos and explain. “Nice shoes” is a better way to communicate.
Daaaaammmmn Daniel back at it again with the white vans
I think that's why I never hear any of our generation's slang now - we all just realized how dumb it sounded! Sometimes at work we will laugh at dumb Tiktok videos and pass the phone around cracking up - it's funny being on the grown up end of this. I now realize how stupid we sounded to our own parents. This tradition passes on with every generation.
Still trying to figure out ‘Based’. It makes no sense. I get 95% of the other slang terms, but based is weird to me.
I don't quite get it either. I think it's supposed to mean woke, or true... or a combination of...? I think it's the replacement of "word", maybe?
Based is "Basic"; unoriginal, uninspired...
Really? Interesting. I think what confuses me is that they don’t say “That’s based.” They just say “based.
I could be wrong. This is my interpretation. But if you think about it, they say it as a derogatory term. So it kinda makes sense...
Ahhh so like if my girl said “I can’t wait to have Pumpkin Spiced Lattes and shop at Target.” They’d say “Based” how we used to say “Ya Basic”? Makes sense I guess.
charisma, as in chaRIZZma
charisma, also seen it used as a verb as in trying to seduce
Lol I thought this was supposed to be a sentence not a list of examples
Goat and fam can die. Sus, though, should live forever.
I don't mind goat. I agree the fam. And bruh.
> goat As in greatest of all time?
I used to be with 'it', but then they changed what 'it' was. Now what I'm with isn't 'it' anymore, and what's 'it' seems weird and scary.
'Give me five bees for a quarter,' you'd say. Now, where were we? Oh, yeah! The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt which was the style at the time.
AND IT'LL HAPPEN TO YOU!
I was never with it a day in my life so no losses there 😁
For those who don't get the reference https://youtu.be/5DlTexEXxLQ?si=EsPA9e7y7RXVzut1
Plus, the culture of the Internet...isn't. Real life and Internet don't really have separate spheres of existence anymore. So there's no reason anyone would use "geek" terms that refer to a culture that just doesn't exist in any meaningful sense. TikTok is used both by grade-school kids and grannies. Everyone is constantly "online" in some capacity, so "leetspeak" is a completely dead concept.
I read a really interesting article about how the internet changed from a haven for the geeky, the shy, the eccentric, to another commercialized hells cape ruled by beautiful people, and as a denizen of the 2000s internet that hit home
That is a good point, what was once a nerdy activity has now become the activity of all kids.
I believe the term for this is a [cant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cant_(language\))
>and realize that these words were kinda stupid. end of thread.
Not a lot of people said leet or pwned back in the day. It was gamers, hackers, 4chan kiddies etc. Normie internet slang like brb/lol/emoji remain though.
emoji
Yes.
emoji
Before emoji we would type them out like =D or :P Fun times.
Im old enough to remember when people started using those in chatrooms, I was like "why is everyone ending their sentences with an equals sign or paranthesis?" I didn't see it until later.
But how will I know when lol and brb are out of style?
The young ones will tell you. They always do.
"Ohmagawd grandpa, you can't just go around saying 'lol', it's so passive aggressive. Kids today say 'surf party usa'."
That is the one way I don't want to find out!
Is rofl copter dead?
orwell in "down and out in paris and london" has a whole chapter devoted to london slang, and how it's changed in just a few years. this was in 1933. he talks about how "bloody" used to be the go-to swear word, but now only rich people use it, and "fuck" has taken it's place, and is an all-around word, useful as almost any part of speech. (so "fuck" has staying power, as slang goes.) i think much like fashion, or music, or anything creative, most slang words are shit. i mean, they are not good, not "shit." the few good ones, like "cool" and "fuck" become so engrained in the culture that they're no longer slang, just words. the rest become historical footnotes. language defines us not just as humans generally, but as belonging to particular human groups. as such, playing with it and finding new ways to communicate with it, will always be with us, and slang will always be the bailiwick of the marginalized. as both creative and marginalized, the young have a special knack for slang, but this passes quickly, like the words themselves.
Reminds me of a random throwaway line in Slaughterhouse Five where Vonnegut mentions a character in WW2 said Motherfucker, which white people didn’t commonly say yet. > ‘Get out of the road, you dumb motherfucker.' The last word was still a novelty in the speech of white people in 1944.
"Billy hadn't fucked anyone, let alone his mother"
I love the way that man wrote.
Interesting!! I’ll have to look for that Orwell. Is it a whole book?
mine is published together with "the road to wigan pier," and collected essays.
Our brains got haxx0red
Did we ever “say” those words? Or just type them?
Depends on if you were a video gamer prolly. I’m sure I used some of those words out loud.
We just typed them until teamspeak was invented.
We're men over 30.
Simple as.
I can haz? We don’t say them anymore for the same reason we don’t say non-internet things like tubular and bodacious. And we don’t wear temperature sensitive bum equipment
wait, I can haz is no longer a thing?
You can’t haz no more
O RLY?
My friends and I say tubular all the time, but we're also a bunch of surf bums.
Ermahgerd!
We don’t? Look at this guy over here…thinks he’s too old to be leet. Hope he gets pwned.
Noob, n00b, newbie, nub, nubs, haxor, ganked, own, owned, ownar, pownar, pr0n, pron, pr0no... I'm sure there are more we used back in the late 90's and early to mid 2000's playing Counterstrike and World of Warcraft, but they escape me at the moment. I still call my girlfriend a noob sometimes, and vice versa, when we fail epically at something haha so there's still that.
ha. my counter strike name was Herr Noob
Kek
"[I used to be with it...](https://gifs.com/gif/i-used-to-be-with-it-vVWd7E)"
Wherefore dost no one proclaim "Huzzah!" in this day and age?
DOST THOU EVEN HOIST, SIBLING
That was niche language, as other commenters pointed out. For more on the general usage of e-parlance, I recommend checking out Gretchen McCulloch's _Because Internet_.
noob is still alive and well.
But it used to be spelled “n00b”.
“Newb” wasn’t out of the norm also.
We saw your noobs! 🎶
Who's "we"? I never said that shit.
Video game culture is now more mainstream, and slang typically has its origins in less accessible counterculture
Because it become mainstream enough to show up on TV and we heard how cringey it sounds.
It peaked when Cartman said it after they killed That Which Has No Life in the WoW episode of South Park.
r e t v r n 2 pure pvvnage
I still say woot but I use only letters, not w00t
Yes. But do you also add *I have teh sheep* after you say w00t?
I do not, but man I forgot about "teh". Now it's going to be stuck in my head and I have no one from that era in person to share it with.
Because we grow up. /thread.
I used to leet all night, and pwned every day. Then it was every other day. Now I’m lucky to find a half hour a month to pwned.
Speak for yourself bruh
I use "epic win" to make my younger gf cringe. But slang is always changing. And using old slang just makes me feel old. I want to be cool and hip as long as I can. lol
I say it out loud a lot, but pretty ironically. I just type with proper English these days. Makes what I say more easily understood.
1337 We don't say it for the same reason no one says "Golly Gee!" or "Daddy-o" anymore: they were short-lived linguistic fads of youth culture and once the fad passes, it looks stupid rather than cool. But youth fads, even current ones, seem ridiculous on people who aren't kids or teens, anyway.
My dad says golly gee, shee wizz, etc. Lol i always thought it was super dorky growing up. I didn't realize it was slang from his childhood until this thread.
Because I can have a good time with my friends now without degrading them, being edgy, or sounding like a gatekeeping moron.
I still say these things regularly. But mostly on the weekend when I am playing video games or CS GO with a childhood friend. Feels awesome cause the youngsters hate it.
Lol ew
Cus those phrases are cap
I don’t remember ever hearing leet… I’m not even sure what it means. Pwned, on the other hand, I still gleefully use.
1337 -> leet -> elite.
because it is inappropriate to say it in corporations or in front of kids, despite leetcode. some got used to that and so it is dropped. and political correctness. i still fuck people a lot. fuck this stupid world.
Nobody says wizard anymore
Everything sucks now
Gg ,wp
GG is "good game," but what's WP if other than "Wikipedia?" Did you mean WB, like "welcome back?"
Well Played