Look, maybe it’s just because I’m no longer in the young crowd, but does it seem like we get new, confusing slang at an exponentially faster rate than before? Just when we finally decipher words like rizz and no cap, now there’s mewing and gyat to contend with. And this is coming from someone without children. I can only imagine how out-of-the-loop parents and teachers must feel.
That is, unless you’re Sam Salem, an eighth-grade substitute teacher who decided to take linguistic matters into his own hands by creating his own “Gen Z slang.”
Salem, who travels around the country doing comedy shows when not “facing his toughest audiences- classrooms full of Gen Z kids,” recently posted a series of videos to his TikTok sharing a truly diabolical plan to not only use made-up “Gen Z-sounding slang words,” but “gaslighting” his students into thinking they’re real.
And then whenever a student questions him, Salem simply assures them that A) a rapper uses the word all the time, B) it’s all the rage with high schoolers, or C) it’s all over Tiktok. Total evil mastermind.
Below are Salem’s handcrafted Gen Z words. So just know, if you hear a youngster using one of these, you have him to thank.
“Clipped”: when something is really good, alá highlight clips of a sports game.
“Mute”: a replacement for lowkey. So when you want something down in a non-overt way, do it “on mute.”
“Feta”: a negative thing. Think how feta cheese crumbles. When something is feta, it is a good thing that falls apart easily.
“Parked”: just like a parked car doesn’t move, something that’s parked is boring and not going anywhere.
“Pebbles”: while a mountain or a boulder presents a huge obstacle, pebbles are “smooth sailing.” So when something is pebbles, it’s easy to overcome.
“Terk” : inspired by Salem’s favorite Disney movie, “Tarzan,” a Terk is your loyal-to-the-end bestie. Just like the character Terk was to Tarzan.
@samuelsleeves give me more fake slang words to use on my students #teaching #teachersoftiktok #highschool #middleschool #education ♬ original sound – Sam Salem
“Sparse”: the opposite of “ate.” As in, “ate and left no crumbs.” So basically, as a way to say that whatever thing a person is doing is very not cool. So not cool that it’s sparse. Get it?
“Getty”: inspired by the famous Getty museum of Los Angeles, this word suggests that something is “a work of art.”
“Oozing”: kind of a polite way to tell someone they’re talking too much, since the words are “oozing” out of them, or if they’re doing something that’s embarrassing. Nobody wants to be oozing.
“Swirled”: someone who is wishy-washy—a friend one minute and ignoring you the next, for example—might be someone who is swirled.
“Nabs”: an acronym that’s the opposite of BAE (Before Anyone Else). Which is this case would be Not AnyBody’s Somebody. Could be a good thing, like when someone is single, or a bad thing, when there aren’t any romantic prospects.
“Remy”: Another Disney reference, Remy is inspired by “Ratatouille.” Just like a rat shouldn’t go together with food “because it’s gross,” when something is remy that means two things which shouldn’t go together surprisingly do.
@samuelsleeves Replying to @*LisaG* don’t be swirled otherwise you’ll end up nabs #teaching #teachersoftiktok #genz #millennial #ratatouille ♬ original sound – Sam Salem
Over in the comments section, people were applauding Salem’s fake slang , and not in a muted way.
“You ARE the trendsetter now,” one person wrote.
“You’re ironically creating new slang,” seconded another.
In essence, Salem actually did make fetch happen. Kudos.
Seems like Salem is not gonna stop creating new words anytime soon. To keep up with the trends, follow him on TikTok here.