By Jessica Tomer

This article was supposed to be pure fluff: a handful of modern slang terms—“rizz,” “brain rot,” the somehow ubiquitous “skibidi”—defined by current Commonwealth students with their usual panache for us older and out-of-touch folks. 

But students, riled by the very mention of “slang,” exploded into explanations (and giggles) when asked about their use of these terms. Where did these words come from? What do they mean, exactly? Who can use them, and why? Their responses revealed the charms and contradictions inherent in slang, terms that are simultaneously unifying and exclusionary, used seriously and in jest, fascinating in their evolutions and wildly context dependent. In Commonwealth fashion, it quickly became clear that a shallow exploration of slang would not do (and shame on me for thinking so). So now it’s only part fluff.

Take the infamous “skibidi,” which comes from a series of viral videos created by Alexey Gerasimov, a Russian-Georgian animator who goes by the handle DaFuq!?Boom! The original video, posted in 2023, is just fifteen seconds long and features a man’s head popping out of a toilet, singing “skibidi bom bom.” While the video itself went viral, racking up 214 million views on YouTube (and potentially billions of views on TikTok), the term “skibidi” has wormed its way into the popular lexicon, at least among young people. Depending on which Commonwealth student you speak to, “skibidi” can be used either randomly or intentionally. It can be any part of speech. “It has no fixed meaning. It’s all used in context,” says one ninth grader. “I could look at someone and say, ‘That’s so skibidi sigma.’ It could mean any number of things based on what was previously said.” (By the way, “sigma” means a “successful, independent, wildly popular person.”) One student says “skibidi” is comparable to a vocal tic, like “um.” “It’s an all-purpose word,” says another. “No one has actually agreed on what it means because of its strange origins.”

Other slang terms are somewhat easier to pin down. “Aura” and “vibe” generally still mean what Merriam-Webster says they mean—a distinctive atmosphere or quality—to Commonwealth and other teenagers, though they’re used more frequently and colloquially now. “Let’s just say you trip down the stairs,” offers a ninth grader. “You lost so much aura.” But you can also gain aura if, say, you quickly solve a math problem that has stumped the rest of the class, another one adds.

In a recent English class with Mara Dale, students shared their word of the week, focusing on slang for the benefit of CM: There’s “goober,” an African Bantu word for groundnut now taken to mean “naive, ignorant, or foolish person.” “Stan,” adopted from the Eminem song of the same name, meaning an overly zealous fan. And “crash out,” which the student says “describes when you have a really angry reaction towards something. And I don’t know where it comes from, but I find myself using it a lot.” Then there’s “rizz,” which is technically short for “charisma,” but “it’s more nuanced” than that. “If you have rizz, you have game,” says a ninth grader in another class. This begs the question: what does it mean to “have game”? But their classmates’ titters hint at the term’s more salacious undertones (i.e., sexual attractiveness), and no one seems willing to explain “rizz” further in front of adults.

You’d be forgiven for not recognizing these terms as current slang. After all, a “drip” was once a boring person; now, to be told you have “drip” is a compliment, meaning you look stylish. Calling a friend “a glorious king” might be an example of “glazing” (complimenting someone excessively), says one ninth grader. Or perhaps you “ate and left no crumbs,” meaning you went above and beyond.“The origins aren’t really clear,” says the student who shared the phrase, “but it [comes] from African American and queer vernacular.” (Incidentally, “king” as slang likely does, too.)

“Slay” might have one of the longest histories of any popular slang. An Old English term of Germanic origin meaning “to strike or kill,” “slay” might have been used as slang as early as 1593. It came to mean “to do something or perform exceptionally well or impressively,” thanks to the ballroom scene of the 1970s and 1980s, an underground Black and Hispanic LGBTQ+ subculture dedicated to inclusivity and free expression. Another popular slang phrase, “it’s giving,” has similar origins in ballroom and also likely comes from African American Vernacular English (AAVE). Loosely meaning “an evocation,” “[it’s giving] doesn’t have to be a description of a person. It can be literally a description of anything,” says a ninth grader. “It’s like a vibe.”

Whose Words Are They?

A few other students also referenced how many slang terms had been appropriated from Black and queer culture. “A lot of things originate from the gay community and then are appropriated by young white people who then spread it to everybody else, because everybody wants to be like the young white girl,” says one ninth grader. What does it mean when folks who are not part of such marginalized groups adopt their vernacular and are then credited with introducing it to popular culture? “I think that’s a hard question to answer,” one student offers after a lengthy pause. “I don’t know where a lot of the words come from. You just hear them once, and you’re like, ‘Yeah, okay, that’s a funny word.’” Students often weren’t sure about a given slang word’s origins; “pop culture” and “social media,” they assumed. “People just start using it, and you do it, too.” While they will sometimes look up new words, they say, time and distance erode the connection to the source. “There was a time when ‘slay’ was very clearly a drag thing, and it’s so far from that now.”

Another student bristles at the appropriation of words derived from AAVE, like “slay.” It’s usually fine to use these terms, the student says, but to ignore their roots diminishes their meaning and highlights the double standards Black people often face. “These words have such unique origins, and there’s a lot of history behind the use of AAVE, how it was deemed basically not English” because it didn’t adhere to “normal” (read: white, Western) standards—even though AAVE is as internally consistent and linguistically complex as any language. When Black people use “twin” as a slang term for dear friend, the student says, their usage is questioned. “But then we find a lot of these words are being used by other people, and nobody’s like, ‘Oh, why are you saying that?’ Nobody’s critiquing it.” Just look up the meaning of the word before you use it, the student says, like you would for any unknown term. (The press-and-hold feature on many smartphones makes this easy to do.) “If you’re doing that, I think you’re gonna be fine, and you won’t just completely pass off or ignore people or the importance of this dialect,” the student says. “It’s like you’re doing a research paper: you don’t just write what you think you know.”

Little Kids and Corporations

Slang certainly isn’t new, but it seems to evolve and spread more quickly now via social media instead of schoolyard conversations. Who’s driving the proliferation? “Streamers, streamers, streamers,” says a ninth grader. YouTubers, Twitchers, and TikTokers have joined culture makers like popular musicians as trustworthy purveyors of slang, and their live chats with audience members turn into a type of proselytizing. One term used by Commonwealth students, “Fanum tax,” or the playful taking of some of a friend’s food, is explicitly named after one such creator, Fanum, who has 2.7 million followers on Twitch and 1.77 million subscribers on YouTube. The current popularity of “demure” is essentially thanks to one viral video from August 2024, viewed five million times on TikTok, posted by content creator Jools Lebron, a trans woman known for her makeup tutorials.

The viral “skibidi toilet” video spawned a slew of copycats, including from businesses trying to cash in on its popularity. “This probably led to many younger folks being exposed to these videos,” surmised one Commonwealth student. “When something’s bright and flashing and has cool sounds, that’s gonna stick in their heads, especially if it’s repetitive.” While the videos have since died down, “the words stayed around and became this weird phrase that was used, even though it never had a meaning.”

Some Commonwealth students say they first heard these slang terms from folks significantly younger than them: six- to ten-year-olds. Once the “iPad generation” got on social media, during and after COVID, one Commonwealth student posited, they started hearing their favorite YouTubers using slang and introduced it to their friends and families. “It sounds so stupid when you say that, but it’s true. A lot of [the words] are coming from little kids,” the student says. “But then there’s also slowly been a rejection of some of these slang words.” When little kids use the words seriously, “You’re trying to be cool, and you’re not.” Whereas older teenage siblings use slang ironically, jokingly, even derisively, they say.

But if children are the ones introducing slang into their households, why are they part of the out group? Perhaps for all the reasons anyone (at least those with siblings) might expect: younger siblings will always be persona non grata, and teenagers will always be on the vanguard of what’s “cool.” But Commonwealth students say they also see the use and misuse of slang as part of the ritual of growing up, remembering how they, too, sounded comically earnest when using slang in middle school. They know better now. “I would never use [aura],” says one Commonwealth student. How do you know which slang terms you’re supposed to use ironically? Context is key. There are certain words one should only use with close friends and almost exclusively in “casual conversations,” students say. And one must use the words “properly,” and not too much or too little. Those out of the loop are given away by not knowing how to use this “secret language” or its grammar correctly, one student says. Hearing, say, a hapless adult try to use “skibidi” in a sentence is like hearing someone “speak Spanish with an American accent; it just sounds wrong.”

Tribes

“It sounds a bit cliché, but it’s like our own specific way of communicating with each other. And I think it just creates a sense of ‘when you start using slang words, you become cool,” says a ninth grader. “It’s a way for us to differentiate between our peers and to know which ones [are] closely related to us. And it’s a way for us to be able to relate to each other more than we relate to adults,” adds another. “We have a secret way, which adults don’t understand.”

“I use slang to talk to different groups of people,” says an eleventh grader. “Some of my friends don’t spend any time on social media and therefore don’t know some of these words, and so I’ll use normal words with them. And with people who spend more time on social media, that’s when I take out my library of funny words, and I use that to communicate instead.”

One sophomore doesn’t mind adults using current slang. “Other generations had stuff like this,” they acknowledged. “If something originated from us, obviously, many people will be protective of it because it started as ours. I feel like language should be accessible to anyone and everyone, but when older people use it, it sometimes feels like them trying to interact with kids, but it just comes off as artificial.” “I wouldn’t really use [slang] with people older than me,” says another student. “But then, occasionally one slips out, and they’ll have no idea what it means and I have to explain.” Indeed, many of our students have to explain slang to their parents—Gen Xers and Millennials who might still find “wicked,” “hella,” “not gonna lie,” and “cool beans” slipping into their own speech. But the rifts aren’t just between children and their parents or siblings; even Gen Alpha and Gen Z (i.e., our ninth and tenth graders) vary in slang use and sensibilities. “It becomes very clear generationally and also between your classmates” what slang you share, said one Commonwealth student.

An eleventh grader uses slang “because it’s efficient. A lot of these words have complex meanings that are difficult to convey pretty simply. So just making a word out of it is an awful lot easier.” Their classmates quickly reply: “Yeah, ‘slay’ is an answer to every question,” and saying “‘Kamala [Harris] is brat’ is a more efficient version of a longer endorsement that conveys everything that you need to know.”

As one sophomore points out, evoking the quote from Twyla (Field) Ramos ’73 that former Commonwealth English teacher/sigma Eric Davis so loved (“It’s all pretty boring until you start to think about it”): “In a way, we’re making up this whole new set of rules…without even thinking about it, you know? And what may sound stupid and silly could be really interesting when you take a look at it.” 

Jessica Tomer is the Director of Communications at Commonwealth. This article originally appeared in the winter 2025 edition of CM, Commonwealth's alumni/ae magazine.

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