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Do you know what a gyat is? What if someone said you were skibidi? And how would you respond if you were asked to do something ‘furda’?
Generation Alpha (the children of millennials and the cohort below Generation Z) has a variety of baffling slang terms that are tied to internet culture.
It makes sense, given that these young people, who are now entering their teens, have grown up in a world full of memes, viral videos, and social media (and spent a good portion of their childhood during the pandemic).
To get to the bottom of their confusing terms and understand where they’re coming from, DailyMail.com spoke to 11-year-old Tom.
Scroll down to see the full Gen Alpha slang dictionary
Generation Alpha is digitally focused even beyond the levels seen in Generation Z (Getty)
“We use slang words in an ironic way,” he said.
But we use it all the time. My theater group at school is called ‘Skibidi Ohio Rizzers’.
Skibidi is a word that young people use to refer to the web series skibidi toilet, which means “evil” or simply to be strange.
Ohio refers to a meme that suggests the entire state is strange and sinister, while ‘Rizzer’ refers to people with a lot of charisma or ‘Rizz’.
Technology and being online are the center of their worlds: Tom uses online gaming terminology for everything: when he was practicing chess (another Generation Alpha obsession), he said, “I’m going to grind,” an online gaming term which means doing a particular activity over and over again.
The term Generation Alpha was coined by Australian researcher Mark McCrindle.
McCrindle said he switched to using Alpha (instead of following Z with A) as a sign of how different Generation Alpha is.
He said: “It conforms to the scientific nomenclature of using the Greek alphabet instead of the Latin alphabet and it made no sense to go back to A.
“After all, they are the first generation born fully into the 21st century and are therefore the beginning of something new, not a return to the old.”
Tom said that Generation Alpha uses emojis totally differently than “the way Millennials use them, like you’re supposed to.”
He said that (for example) they never use a laughing emoji, only a sad and crying one, for something that is funny.
Generation Alpha texters would use a skull emoji to show that something is funny.
Tom said: ‘Yes, there are other inappropriate emoji too.’ I won’t tell you because they’re really quite inappropriate.
ALPHA GENE ARGANIZATION DICTIONARY
Furda
Doing things for kids without any benefit to yourself. 3. Self-sacrifice for the benefit of friends
Gyatt
Tom said, ‘This one means a big butt.’ It’s measured in levels, so the higher the level, the bigger the fund.’
covered
Capping means “lying,” Tom explained, and he and his Gen-Alpha friends rarely said the word lie.
He said: “We might say, ‘Bro, you’re very limiting’ if we think someone is lying.”
Ohio
“This just doesn’t make sense,” Tom said. ‘Ohio is meant to be a weird state, so we say it all the time. I could show you some Ohio memes so you understand a little better.’
In their chats with friends, everything is a meme, and Generation Alpha often seems to delight in being as weird and incomprehensible as possible.
Skibidi
“Skibidi’s bathroom is a bit finished,” Tom said. He says his 8-year-old brother found it funny earlier this year, but he said now he and his friends use it ironically.
The Skibidi Toilet videos are a series of web videos that became a hit on YouTube: very strange videos, with horror movie overtones, of a head sticking out of a toilet.
Sigma
Sigma is like being an alpha male, Tom explained.
“When you say you’re a sigma, it means something like you’re the alpha male or you’re trying to say you are.”
Cracked
Much of Tom’s lingo relates to games like Fortnite, which he plays online with his friends.
“We could say, ‘Bro, you’re crazy,'” he said.
Rizzer
Gen Alpha constantly uses the word rizz q (meaning ‘charisma’) and even variations like ‘rizzer’ or ‘rizzler’.
Tom said, “It means charisma, like dating and stuff.”
Bet
Generation Alpha eliminates “bet” as a shortened version of “Bets.” Tom said.
applauded
Clapping means dying by surprise in a game, Tom said, especially if you’re facing a “cracked” opponent.
Cold
Tom said: “If something was really cool, and maybe a bit sigma, we would use the word cold – when we text we use the freezing emoji for this.”
Goat
Tom said that Generation Alpha uses the term ‘GOAT’, as in ‘greatest of all time’, as a verb: ‘You’re a GOAT.’
Bussin
Another word that Tom and his Generation Alpha friends use for “cool” is “bussin.”
“We could say, ‘Hey, that’s a business if something is really cool,'” he said.
Science
Tom and his game-obsessed friends tend to use the word “lore” (used in games to describe prior knowledge) for almost any type of knowledge.
fanum tax
The ‘Fanum tax’, named after an online streamer known for stealing other people’s food, is supposedly a gen-Alpha term for taking something from someone.
Tom said: “My friends and I don’t really use this one.”
Drip
Exceptional style. Tom said, ‘The baby has that leak’ when his little brother got new clothes.
Preppy
Wearing pink or pastel.
Fool
A man in a relationship with a woman where he is very submissive.
their
Abbreviation for suspicious and frequently used in the game Among Us, which Tom and his friends liked.
Drip
Exceptional style. Tom said, ‘The baby has that leak’ when his little brother got new clothes.
Preppy
Wearing pink or pastel.
Fool
A man in a relationship with a woman where he is very submissive.
their
Abbreviation for suspicious and frequently used in the game Among Us, which Tom and his friends liked.