Gen Z and Alpha slang like 'skibidi', 'rizz', 'fanum tax' a sign of evolving language | ABC NEWS

Published: Sep 04, 2024 Duration: 00:04:55 Category: News & Politics

Tags : news australia ABC News abc EDGE slang Gen Z skibidi fanum sigma rizz gen alpha goon rizzed up fanum tax zillenial millenial

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now have you heard of words like Riz Sigma and even skidy toilet no well you're not alone they've spread over apps like Tik Tok and into schoolyards across the country and some Poes have even blamed the Gen Alpha slang for falling levels of literacy John is now from BTN high is kale Matthews so kale for anyone over the age of 16 I guess what do those words mean yeah look I actually go by the skidy sigma rzl Lord now but thanks for having me on anyway um they mean a lot of different things it's hard to keep up with a lot of the slang skib toilet everyone I spoke to said that was a bit of like sometimes it's good sometimes it's bad it's just a bit of a filler word um but a lot of these terms are kind of starting where you'd expect on the internet um they're starting on Tik Tok they're starting in twitch streams YouTube creators are are coming up with these slang terms as part of their Stream So Phantom tax which is kind of stealing some of your friends food that was a YouTube creator that came up with that one and uh as you might imagine the internet is uh a place where a lot of the younger generation hang out and it's dominated by younger generations and so all of these words kind of creep into the vocabulary of generation Alpha and and some people who are older as well and sometimes kind of to the bemusement of older people who don't spend a lot of time in those places on the internet so uh I spoke to some people on the street about some of the words and whether they knew what they meant do you know what skibbidy toilet means I would have no idea brother teaching you uh Noah I mean he talks sometimes with his friends and I can't understand when he's on the game My mom says Pooky now soor what's poy then means like my love like love it's confusing sometimes cuz it keeps changing like I think if you're using it on a daily basis I think it would like just become a part of your vocabulary like if you're writing an essay I hope you're not saying oh he's so Sigma language is always going to change how people change and culture changes and language goes with it I think we impose our values and our view of the world and interpret their interpret their behavior in terms of how we would have acted when we were 20 and and and the world has moved on we can't operate in that mindset so tell us more how this all started kale yeah well it started uh basically like I said on the internet it it proliferates through the net and that's kind of different to how slang terms arose in the past you know slang terms were kind of associated with particular subcultures um you know way back when uh and so now that they're coming up on the Internet they're they're reaching a broader audience of young people that I think the older Generations are missing out on a little bit um and so basically older Generations when they hear these words they get a bit you know unsure of what they mean and a bit skeptical about what the younger generation are doing with language but this is I guess just how language goes it evolves it changes over time and um the the linguist that I spoke to as part of this story basically said language has a couple of well there's a couple of different things we do with language and the first is content transfer um and so that's sharing ideas and that's where formal language comes in but the other is forming relationships uh and slang terms like skib and Phantom tax are good for forming relationships and kind of providing a few clues about who you are as a person so if we spent the whole time kind of walking around and speaking in proper English all the time it' be somewhat hard to work out who your friends are so if you want to be down with the young people feel free to Chuck in into your vocabulary I will from now on Kale but do experts think that we should be worried about the use of these words the the experts I spoke to said no essentially in order to uh kind of be a functioning member of society and and and make friends and and be involved uh in your particular groups and your subculture you need to have an understanding of the slang and the words that are being used so that you can kind of uh interact and and get along with them and then uh all of these words are are kind of how we make friends

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