If you mindlessly scroll through TikTok for any length of time, you’re bound to come across something like this: An elderly person, probably a baby boomer, is spouting Gen Z slang while gesturing good-naturedly toward something like B&B or blind. “Northumberland Zoo’s hit is different.” “kill”; “no cap”. “It’s about giving literacy.” To date, there are nearly 4,000 of these videos and have been viewed millions of times.
Each view feels like a nail in some kind of linguistic coffin.
That’s not to say that “Gen Z writes marketing scripts” videos aren’t interesting. they are. Most of them are serious, and their moodiness even feels intentional. But as anyone on the internet or who has gone through adolescence will tell you. “Once someone’s done, no, once a 35-year-old starts using your slang, maybe even after hearing it once, you’re done.”
Perhaps it should be. What becomes more obvious as this meme grows is that much of this slang isn’t actually from Gen Z. “Giving,” “killing,” “serving”—these terms have been around for decades, rising from black and Latino ball culture to the mainstream through shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race. has penetrated. ‘Liz’, the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year for 2023, is new, but if it’s being used to promote the Royal Armory collection, Kai Senat’s Twitch stream popularized the term Very different.
Intergenerational crazes happen all the time, especially online. When “OK Boomer” became popular in 2019, The New York Times said it was “the end of friendly generational relations” and a sign that Gen Z was tired of being looked down upon by older generations. said. While Millennials were still very much online and too burnt out to fight, Z seemed more willing to speak his mind to become the internet’s cultural engine. . Sometimes this appeared as an adoption or appropriation of something earlier. Sometimes that meant creating language and humor that was almost incomprehensible.
But then, as Gen Z began to look down on Gen X, the idea that this was the only age group that was irrelevant quickly took hold. Latchkey kids grew up exposed to grass, so being insulted online affects them differently. They might reply to your TikTok, or they might send the most infamous and most polysyllabic white rapper after you.
Baby boomers and Gen It feels like it is.
“Gen Z Writes a Marketing Script” is not the first TikTok trend to go viral by sharing how different generations speak online. Two months ago, I asked my Gen Z staff to edit a video that consisted of short, awkward “ummm” pauses.
The Monitor is WIRED’s weekly column about everything happening in the world of culture, from movies to memes, TV to TikTok.
