It was a Friday evening, and our dad was driving us to a Christmas Tree lighting when it happened. During an innocuous conversation with my little sister and her bestie, I dropped the word “slay.” This is when the gasps started.
My 12-year-old sister Simone and her best friend Jorja are both members of the Gen Alpha species. As a 31-year-old Millennial myself, I was both intrigued and terrified to learn what is “in” and “out” as the year of our lord 2023 comes to an end. (Slay is apparently “so out.”)
In my defense, it’s hard to talk to the youths! Trends go in and out faster than my skincare routine. So, as a gift to my fellow Millennials (and yes, Gen Z too), I asked the hard questions and I’m happy to report back with an updated Gen Alpha glossary for anyone who isn’t chronically online and considers “GYAT” the equivalent of speaking a foreign language. Proceed with caution.
@nicolepellegrin0 Why did noone tell me slay is out #genalpha #genalphatok #genalphaslang ♬ original sound – Nicole Pellegrino
Gen Alpha Texting and Emoji Etiquette
Nicole: Okay, first of all, when we were texting to set this interview up, why do you text in all lowercase letters?
Simone: Typing with capital letters and grammar is kind of like, weird. Punctuation and full sentences is a school thing. Leave the school stuff at school.
Jorja: Yeah, I just think, like, normal texting seems too professional. I only text normal if I’m upset or mad.
Simone: Yeah if I get mad, I’ll write out all the correct grammar.
Nicole: I’m gonna change all my texts to lowercase after this because now I feel way too formal with uppercase.
Simone: Yeah, you should.
Nicole: When it comes to texting, you use way less emojis than me… Is that intentional?
Jorja: Not really, there’s just a lot of emojis that aren’t… good.
Simone: Yeah.
Nicole: Okay, like the cry laugh emoji? (😂)
Simone: Yeah, that emoji that you use a few too many times.
Jorja: There’s only a few that we actually use and like.
Nicole: What are the emojis that we DO like??
Jorja: I like the heart hands (🫶), and the heart (❤️), and the crying one (😭).
Simone: Sorry, there’s something really loud in the background and I told my parents to be quiet on set. One second. *Returns after berating parents* Oh, also the cats. Like the cat that’s laughing (😹), the cat with the heart eyes (😻).
Jorja: And the monkeys. The monkey that’s like this *shows monkey covering eyes*
Nicole: Oh, so we can use the animals showing expression, that’s okay?
Jorja: Yeah, and the skull (💀).
Simone: For example, if Jorja’s like, “I don’t want to hang out with you,” I’ll put something like, “That’s what you think,” with the skull emoji. So the skull emoji is kind of like joking around in a mocking way.
Nicole: You know how you can “react” to iMessages? Is that okay to do?
Jorja: Well, I really only use the heart, but the other ones are like cringey. I use the “Ha Ha” sometimes but sometimes… No.
Simone: I use the heart and the exclamation points. Like if it’s just a random Tuesday and a friend sends me a long paragraph, I’ll do the heart. Because, like, I don’t feel like doing anything else and sending a long paragraph back. No offense.
Nicole: No long paragraphs over text, got it. That’s with us millennials too!
Jorja: Unless it’s your birthday.
Simone: Yeah.
Nicole: What’s something normal to comment on a friend’s Instagram post?
Simone: I’ll be like “YOU DEVOURED” in all caps with like, the heart eye emoji.
Jorja: Or like “ATE” which means you ate and left no crumbs. Or “YESSS” in all caps with a bunch of S’s.
Nicole: What abbreviations do you use?
Jorja: We have a lot of abbreviations for words. So like “alright” is now “alr,” “nevermind” is “nvm,” “I know” is just “ik.”
Nicole: Oh, we do that too, but I didn’t know the first one. Do you guys do voice memos?
Jorja: No! Not really, unless it’s like something funny. Like sometimes after I get home from Simone’s or after she was at my house, I’ll just send her something random if we made a joke while she was at my house. But not like important stuff.
Nicole: Oh, see me and my old 30-year-old friends use voice memos to communicate.
Simone: You gotta stop doing that. It takes two seconds to type the letters.
Jorja: Or you can do the voice to text.
Nicole: I don’t even know how to do that…
Simone: That’s how I type my essays for school.
Jorja: Yeah, I do too.
Gen Alpha Fashion Trends
Nicole: You guys told me about “Vanilla Girl” the other day in the first video. What exactly does that mean again?
Simone: I feel like some people kind of misunderstood when we said “beige” and they thought we meant that it was boring, but it’s really just like, “cozy.”
Jorja: Yeah, it’s like sweat sets and jackets, and just cute. There’s also Coconut Girl.
That makes sense. It’s cozy and simple. So what is a Coconut Girl?
Jorja: Coconut girl is beachy and has a lot of flower print. Definitely not my style.
Simone: I feel like in the summer I’m a coconut girl.
Jorja: Yeah, they wear flower dresses that are either pink, green, blue, or yellow.
Oh, so they have a uniform. What other types of girls are there?
Simone: Preppy girl.
OMG, what is that?
Simone: There’s new preppy and old preppy. New is like bright colors, Lululemon, Drunk Elephant skincare.
Jorja: The old preppy is like Vineyard Vines, Ralph Lauren Polo, etc. Like you literally go to prep school.
Nicole: Are leggings out?
Simone: I don’t think leggings could go out. They’re just really simple.
Jorja: Leggings and sweatpants are normally what people wear to school because it’s comfortable.
Nicole: The one big question everyone’s wondering: Are skinny jeans back in, or are they still out?
Simone: Well, listen. There’s Y2K style. But with Y2K, you can’t wear skinny jeans one time and still be Y2K. It’s like baby tees.
Jorja: I normally wear baggy jeans if I wear jeans.
Simone: I prefer high-rise jeans. But I mean, wear whatever you want, I don’t care.
Nicole: Us Millennials like high-rise, but Gen Z likes low-rise. I guess Millennials and Gen Alpha like the high-rise together. Is there one fashion trend that makes you cringe?
Jorja: This isn’t a trend anymore, but when people used to get the shirts with the galaxy print or with cats all around.
Simone: OMG wait, like Minecraft tees? *Shakes head aggressively no*
Nicole: Wait, one last question: Someone from Gen Z told me that belts are out. Do you agree?
Simone: No, belts can’t be out. Come on now! If my pants don’t fit my waist, you know dang well I’m gonna put on a belt. What do you want me to do? Have my pants dragged around my ankles?
Nicole: Tell ‘em! Literally someone from Gen Z laughed at me for wearing a belt the other day!
Simone: One of my favorite things ever is having a big blazer and a cute belt on with it.
Nicole: I love that, Simone, that’s so cute!
Gen Alpha Glossary
Bop
Jorja: Yeah, like Ice Spice is such a bop. But if you’re like, “This is a jam.”
Simone: *Laughs* That’s so wrong! Instead of jam you would use bop, because “jam” is just like, you’re trying to fit in with your grandchildren.
Erm
Jorja: I feel like not everyone says it but we do.
Simone: Erm is like if someone does something and it makes me annoyed, we look at each other and go “erm.”
Jorja: Or if someone over text makes a joke about me I’ll be like “erm.”
Nicole: So it’s typed and verbal, that’s so interesting.
GOAT (Greatest of all time)
Jorja: Only if you’re, like, watching football.
Simone: Yeah, if you’re like a 17-year-old boy then yes, but if you’re not, then…
Jorja: Yeah, we can skip out on that one.
Help
Simone: So “help” is similar to “erm.”
Jorja: So we don’t really like our math teacher, and I’ll say something funny about her. And then Simone will be like “HELP.”
Simone: But it’s HELP in all caps.
Jorja: It’s basically like “LOL.”
Nicole: So HELP is a way of showing that you’re laughing to your friends. And you say it in all caps.
Jorja: Yeah, so like we wouldn’t know if you truly needed help.
Simone: Yeah I’d be like, what’s so funny?
Lit
Simone: I say litty more.
Low-Key
Jorja: That’s still a thing.
Simone: I feel like low-key will forever be a thing.
Purr
Simone: I love purr. I comment “purr” on my friends’ Instagram posts. I’ll be like “ok purr” with a heart eyes emoji.
Queen
Nicole: Like if you’re killing it on TikTok and I say, “Okay, Queens!”
Jorja: No, no queen.
Simone: I like queen though.
Jorja: Simone, no you don’t.
Simone: Okay true true, that’s a lie.
Rizz
Simone: It’s your ability to pick up girls, basically. So, if I were to rizz Jorja up, I’d be like, “If a spider bit me to make me Spider Man, can you bite me to make me YOUR man?”
Sheesh
Jorja: OMG no! That is SO out.
Simone: Niki, don’t even say that out loud. It’s so bad. It brings the flashbacks of like, 3rd grade, like 3 years ago!
Simp
Simone: It’s so out. So out.
Jorja: That was like a 2020 thing maybe.
Nicole: I got news for you guys. Gen Z is still saying simp.
Simone: Gen Z is behind. No shade to Gen Z or anything, but Gen Z, we’re gonna be making fun of you guys like you made fun of millennials soon.
Swag
Both: No, that’s so out.
“W” and “L”
Jorja: W means win and L means loss. So if you have W rizz, that means you have good rizz. If you have L rizz you have bad rizz.
Nicole: Well thank you, guys. You girls are the absolute best and destined for greatness. I’ll let you get back to your homework now!
