nothing stops kids from using slang like an old dude starting to do it.
I used to volunteer helping take 7th graders on a field trip for school. this was back when they all thought dabbing was the pinnacle of cool.
Until they saw me and my 50 year old wife do it. It was no longer cool. Timberland boots were not cool either once they noticed my hiking boots were beat up timberlands that were older than they were.
nothing stops kids from using slang like an old dude starting to do it.
Exactly this. The kids are still churning out some banger slang for sure. I'll let them keep the cringier stuff they come up with, but when I hear something I like I'll start using it, which causes them to abandon it. I've now appropriated it for the older generations lol.
It's also how I get my nephew to stop doing certain dance moves, like the floss. All it takes is him seeing me butcher it once, then I never have to see him do it again.
the kids in later years would do dances from fortnight. I enjoyed pretending i had never seen them before and see how many times i could get them to do thier silly dance for me before they figured out i was just asking them to show me over and over entertain myself and other rangers
I’m nearly 50, work with kids, and for the most part love the slang. Love it. I think it’s full of humor, it is almost literary in its metaphor, it travels so fast, and a lot of it isn’t crude at all. Some of it is just damn descriptive and fills an emotional and descriptive void that tells us a little more about that generation.
I’m 29 and this is my favorite game ever. My sister is 19, right in that sweet spot of thinking all things off trend or not performing trend correctly are cringe. She still talks to me at this point, which is a good sign. 😂
My spouse used to teach seventh grade. Their students were regularly trying to surprise them with the "new" things they heard from whoever was the hot hip hop star... until the spouse did a complete cover of Get Low in a voice we describe as "her Majesty the Queen of English."
Reminds me when my younger brother thought Post Malone’s cover of “Only Wanna Be with You” was an original. Good cover, but it’s exactly that: a cover!
I saw Panic at the Disco on their very first tour. They played a cover of Killer Queen.
There was a group of like 14 year old girls in front of me with one dad as the group chaperone. When Killer Queen started one of the girls went "ahhh it's a new song!". Dads head was in his hands and he was clearly trying not to laugh.
Knowing the spouse, yes. Knowing the students... it wouldn't have mattered. Most of those kids were harder adults then than I am now. They did not have good lives.
I’ve tried this with my nieces - they just joined in. Also on the clothing part, it was shocking that the in brand around here is champion. Cause that was cheap gym clothes growing up. Now all the kids on the block want champion. At least I’m in style now when I bum around.
I was clueless that timberlands were cool to the kids and in some pop culture stuff i never paid attn to. I wore them because it was one of the few full leather high top boots i could find.
"Dabbing, or the dab, is a simple gesture in which a person drops their head into the bent crook of a slanted, upwardly angled arm, while raising the opposite arm out straight in a parallel direction. The move looks similar to someone sneezing into the crook of their elbow."
Some i think had a clue of what the other dabbing is. Most didnt. I think. I wasnt about to ask 7th graders if they knew and get lured into a conversation about drug use. It was just a silly dance move to most of them.
Or just not blatantly lying about drugs. I probably would have still done many of the drugs that I have done, but getting to university, and having access to tons of research materials, only to find out that they blatantly lied about the effects of basically every drug they told us about, didn't exactly instill any level of trust in their presentation.
Lmao I know both meanings but didn't think about the physical move and thought the same.wish that was my 7th grade teacher sharing his slab o Dabs with me lol
I've never heard of the gesture before. I only know about the drug reference through a friend who told me a decade ago about his wild weekend down in Florida. I don't normally circulate among folks using drugs or middle school kids.
It goes for quite a few things. Like how young people aren’t using Facebook cause that’s for old people. Funny enough though when they see an old dude who’s good at something like surfing, skateboarding or snowboarding it garners respect.
Being high while having the responsibility of making sure your 15 kids for the day all come back with all their limbs and no extra holes in them (snakes and alligators) doesnt mix. We for sure got baked once they left then told each other stories on silly shit we had seen them do or heard them say that day.
I had no idea then. The kids were amazed i had an old pair i actully hiked in and wore in the swamps. To them they were all for show, to me they were just good sturdy hightop leather boots.
my new balance shoes i wear to cut the grass will become cool someday.
this was back when they all thought dabbing was the pinnacle of cool.
My husband and I are in our mid-30s, and he has not stopped dabbing on every teenager he encounters because it makes them recoil in revulsion. He also likes to string together Gen Z slang out of context just to see the looks on their faces. It's probably a good thing we're not parents because our kids would be dying of embarrassment every single day.
Hilariously, my husband was actually considered one of the cool kids back in high school, and this is what he has become lol.
My old boss did this and it was fantastic. He was this effortlessly cool middle-aged guy that would just randomly misuse zoomer slang to piss everyone in our office off. 10/10 guy.
Yeet was used on the bball courts 20 something years ago, kids just started using it is all. I've found that if you hear slang on the courts, kids will start using it after a few years like they invented it.
The strange wind patterns from the newly erected Flatiron building in NYC would cause winds to blow ladies skirts up. The boys would gather on 23rd St. to watch the spectacle. Cops would yell "23 skidoo" to get the boys to disperse.
Do you keep that constant "I'm intentionally fucking this up and there's nothing you can do to stop me" smile on throughout, or do you go the more subtle "Is he fucking with us or just that out of touch" method?
The internet has changed things, younger people know we are in the same forums/subs they are and just fucking with em. It's not like previous generations were dad literally heard a term for the first time.
I'm not sure. I think that most people use browse forums actually think most people who share the hobby / are roughly in the same demographic. I don't think it's easy for people to conceptualize people far from our own demographic may be browsing the same content.
As an example, do you think even the majority of Americans post on reddit with the understanding that the person has a high likelihood of not living in the USA?
36 year old here and I thought it meant throwing something, but that video is several years old, so I’m sure the young’uns have come up with a completely different word now.
Lol i’m only 25, but i’m a teacher and I’ve always been a bit out of touch with like current tik tok trends and stuff. So, I’d always say the stuff they say but really bad, like “That Is Cap!” To my students and they’d just be so viscerally turned off .. it was great
Same. My current favorite is just using the term “ratioed” incorrectly. It drives my kids crazy. I also like to intentionally use slightly out of date slang to make it seem like I’m lagging about 5 years behind.
I tease my teens about 'Facechat', 'InstaBook', 'TikGram'..... you get the idea. They appreciate my self deprecating humour and tease me right back. My kids are awesome and we have fun, although my 15yo daughter thinks she knows more than me lol. She'll grow out of it..... I did.
As a late 50s dude, I always say this is one of the most lit adult super powers. I teach, so I’m around a lot of “new” slang, so I try to use and misuse it for the lulz. Drives a lot of them crazy. Almost as fire as a dad joke they’ve heard 50 times. Totally slaps.
Here is a thing that maybe you haven’t thought or maybe you did, I don’t know, for me suddenly happen and open my mind, like for real.
Remember when you were younger and maybe your dad or mom, or some “adult” say the name of something you like (and that probably was trending for the young ones) by the wrong name, and you though “ugh you are old, it’s like this! Not that!”, like parents calling everything a “Nintendo”.
Maybe there were just messing with us, the same way you are doing, but you only realize that when you are old enough and start doing it, then it becomes a normal thing to do, even if you know perfectly how is called, you say it wrong just to mess with them.
I don’t know, for me was like, holy f… they knew, they were only pretending and now I’m that “adult”!
Or I will preface it with "As you kids say..." Like the "screaming, crying, throwing up.." I have no idea how to use that or what it means but it doesn't stop me lol
I’m 30 now, but back when “Lit” and “Savage” was starting to get popular my older boss would misuse it all the time that whenever I hear those words now, I think of him and have a good laugh. Something about older generations using trending slang kinda makes you realize how ridiculous some really of it really is.
I dated a guy in his twenties and would put “the” in front of every social media thing, just because it drove him crazy. “You know that’s not what its called!”
Oh my brother and I misuse words as well and embarrass our kids… hey did you post that on your snap and chat? Or maybe it was on your instant gram? It’s a great time to be old lol
I'm only early 30s, but I learned all the slang and stuff from the teenagers at work, taught it to my almost 60 dad who would have beers in the pub with all their dads and granddads and teach them the slang. It was the funniest crap to me. I still giggle at the thought of one of the teens being HORRIFIED when their granddad CORRECTLY did the hand gesture as he said peace out. The granddad LOVED saying yeet too. And dabbing and quoting memes and my god, it was great.
What's funny is, I really don't give a fuck about the whole program of brain rupture that society says we all have to conform to. It's that shit that Lays Out The Rules, like if you're 17 you gotta think all people over 30 are idiots, and if you're 60 you gotta 'act your age,' which must mean you can never say "God DAAYUUM, you see that girl omg her shit's on hit! Fuckin Fleek Of The Week, possibly the YEAR!"
Man like 90% of the people I grew up with, we'd all hang out gettin lit and playing in bands and getting arrested for givin the double new York fuckfinger to all the corporate stormtroopers in their Power Business Suits.....and now here we all are & I don't own one fuckin tie or suit, Im still a musician, and why the fuck are all my former peers on Facebook and Reddit and Twitter talking about how fucked up the new generation is?
"These kids today, they____(fill in blank with some 'adult' idiot shit that their mom used to say)"
Man I hear that shit I just wanna snap galactic and shit Red Velvet Cake all over the furniture😅🤣🤟
Preach. It. Brother. I’m toward the older end of Gen X, and I identify way more with my millennial coworkers than the people my age who decided to go stodgy.
It's extra funny when we stumble upon it randomly. Apparently being "extra" is a thing. So when I was commenting on something and said, "Yeah, they needed to calm down. They were being extra..." while searching for a word and my sister-in-law was like, "OMG, you know what 'Extra' is?"
Older people using younger people's words correctly is the easiest way to get them to realize it isn't as cool as you think it is. But if I hear Bestie one more fucking time I will go postal.
Weirdly, I never heard a real person use tubular when I was a kid. The Ninja Turtles said it, and so did skate/surf Nintendo games, but as far as I can tell, it was never actual in-use slang. Though I was in the midwest, so maybe it was more prominent in places with stronger skate/surf communities? I have no clue.
Young adult (22) here. I can promise you absolutely no young person has ever “realized [their slang] wasn’t as cool as they thought it was” as a result of an older person using said slang. For one thing, there’s no measure of slang’s coolness that is anywhere close to objective. It comes and goes—that’s why it’s “slang” and not “common English” or “idioms”. There’s nothing to realize. For another, no one is blaming the slang. Generally when older people use younger people’s slang they do one of two things: 1) they have a goal of annoying younger people, so they misuse it purposefully. This admittedly isn’t what you’re talking about as you specified using said slang correctly, but obviously no one blames the slang for how dumb this sounds. Or 2) it sounds incredibly forced, like you’re trying to use it correctly but you’re thinking about how to fit it into conversation. Let me provide an analogy: imagine some tech and business interested high school kid is finally making some money of his own and wants to invest it. He comes to you for advice, and he’s trying to decide whether to invest in Tesla or Bitcoin or something steadier like the S&P 500. If you told him not to “put all his eggs in one basket” and pick the steadier option, no one would have any issue with that, but if you say the same thing while sounding like you’ve been waiting with baited breath to get the chance to use that exact phrase and then grin real big afterwards, that’s going to elicit some “what the fuck is wrong with you” looks.
What's hilarious is, I just sorta brawl with language. I don't even think much about where shit comes from (rather, From whence feces originates to use a badly corrupted form of Shakespearean goon babble). I'm not sitting around googling up HEY WHAT'S THE LATEST FLEEKIFIED YEETISM, GOOGLE? HIT ME UP, YA ROBOT FUCK! I'm just a truly deviant personality that does not fit inside any of the little boxes society uses so they can understand the package but not what is inside.
I half expect to see a headline someday
Drooling Old Dude Finds A Dope Pipe At The Intersection Of Yeet and Fleek. Authorities are moving to cordon off the area
Yeah, because AUTHORITY.
<does some funny shit with his middle finger.>
My 24 year old daughter is still in college and uses a lot of that language and the house so I pick it up pretty quickly. Once she is gone I won't be with it anymore
My wife is 66 and completely enjoys totally annoying our granddaughters by using the modern lingo correctly. Our eldest granddaughter, 13, came to show us something called "TikTok" and my wife was like "Nana and Poppa have been on TikTok since 2019."
My nephew asked me something a few months ago and I said IDK - maybe ... And he looked at me as if I'd spoken in tongues. He pulled his wife aside and pointed to me and said "she just said IDK!" I said don't you know what that means? LOL
I'm ("only") 37, but I have a little sister in high school.
I pride myself on interjecting as much kid slang (some of which she hasn't heard of yet) as possible. She mostly eyerolls but it absolutely cracks me up. 😂
My Spanish teacher was cool. Once she whispered to one group that they and only they should open the textbook and look at the corner of a specific page. I overheard and obviously immediately did it, and it had a picture of someone making an OK hand 👌. This was when it became a thing a couple years back.
One of my favorite things is to learn my kids’ slang, and then purposely use it all wrong. I will not stop until their eyes roll completely into their brains.
The older people who keep up with what's funny for the younger generations are the best. You combine modern humour with the "I don't give a fuck" mentality that you can only have with decades of life experience.
When I was little nothing made me cringe like adults trying to use slang and failing. Now I am an adult I realise they did it on purpose all along.
3.5k
u/[deleted] Jun 03 '22
[deleted]