By: Sophie Li

Born in 2010, the question of whether I’m Gen Z or Gen Alpha occasionally comes up (maybe a Zalpha). A quick Google search has sources split. Going to school with classmates over a year older than me, I get teased and called a “Gen Alpha kid.” But there is one reason why I stubbornly see myself as Gen Z: slang.

My younger brother is Gen Alpha. Although he is conservative with his slang use, the line between Gen Z and Gen Alpha does exist, although it’s not a very clear one. I’m vaguely aware of the vocabulary the majority of Gen Alpha has adopted, but to quote a Zoomer on The Peak, “Our slang is normal. Theirs comes from Ohio???” And thus began my journey as a Gen Z-er to unpack the differences, meanings, and origins of today’s slang.

Let’s start with Gen Z slang. Our generation’s entire arsenal of slang is vast and forever changing. Even as a Gen Z-er, I don’t know half the slang people use, and there’s a blurry line between what’s outdated and what’s not. But after a bit of conferring with my fellow equally lives-under-a-rock friends, we have a solid list.

Some unproblematic Gen Z slang includes mid, lowkey, and ate.

“Mid” refers to anything subpar or completely, absolutely mediocre. In other words, “meh.” Examples include “That song is so mid” and “This school lunch is mid. Three stars.” Simple enough. According to dictionary.com, the slang term was initially used to describe average marijuana but evolved into a more general term in the 2010s. Stephen Marche, the author of “The Next Civil War,” describes mid as a “brilliant, precise word for a world full of mild disappointments.”

“Lowkey” is simply a filler word meant to downplay the intensity or seriousness of the sentence. It means kind of, sort of. For example, you can say “This food is lowkey good” even if the food is delicious but you don’t want to come across as that big of a fan. If you’re afraid of what other people are going to think about an opinion you have, stick “lowkey” in front of it to dilute the statement a bit. “He’s lowkey cute”, for instance. It says a lot about the way we talk, and the intense need to downplay our ideas in front of other people.

“Ate” means to succeed. For example, “She ate that up.” Or “ate and left no crumbs.” This means that they are impressively succeeding, leaving nothing to fix and no pieces to pick up. To compliment someone’s outfit, you could say, “You ate that look”. The phrase is thought to have come from African American and LGBTQ+ communities in the 2000s and was used as an expression of praise for excelling in a performance. I’d say that this is one of the few truly uplifting and positive Gen Z slang terms.

I discussed these phrases with my Gen Alpha brother, only for him to exclaim, “People say that?” Mind you, he’s only two years younger than me. There are some Gen Z slang that Gen Alphas use as well, though. For example, “bet”, meaning “okay” or “alright” and “sus”, which is a shorthand for suspicious. There’s also “rizz”, which is a shortened form of charisma. If somebody has rizz, they are attractive and pull. If somebody rizzes someone else up, they are flirting with them. If someone is deemed the “rizzler,” they have a lot of rizz and are very flirtatious.

Overall, these are some useful words that could be applied to many contexts. (Besides rizz, I suppose.)

Gen Alpha slang goes in a completely different direction.

From “gyatt” to “skibidi toilet,” it gets wild.

“Gyat” used to be a shortened form of “goddamn” but quickly evolved into something…not G-rated.

“There’s no cute way to say it — it’s just a word for a big butt,” said Alta, a 13-year-old eighth grader in Pennsylvania to the New York Times. “If someone has a big butt, someone will say ‘gyat’ to it.” According to Know Your Meme, it was Twitch streamer Kai Cenat who popularized the term.

And then there’s Ohio. One of the more perplexing usages, “Ohio” refers to anything weird, creepy, or “sus.” “Only in Ohio” is used in the context of something weird going on. In the same vein, “Ohio rizz” means weird or awful rizz.

And finally, the infamous “skibidi toilet.” Skibidi is an adjective without a definitive or sensical meaning. It’s a word that only Gen Alpha gets away with saying because they’re just kids. “Skibidi toilet” refers to a series of videos with a head sticking out of a toilet and singing a song.

Although Gen Alpha and Gen Z slang often cross over, their fundamental differences are clear. The strange incomprehensible world of Gen Alpha slang is to any outsider, “only in Ohio.”