What Does It Mean to Be Chopped?

New York Times

2 days ago

First came ate, served and cooked. Now chopped has found its way from the kitchen to the vernacular of Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
Before you start using it, one thing should be made clear: It's not a very nice thing to say.
Simply put, chopped has been adopted by many as a synonym for ugly or unattractive, said Morgan Ugoagwu, who posted a video on TikTok on the 'six signs you're a chopped woman.' It has been viewed more than 1.5 million times.
'There's mid and that's like someone who's maybe like a 5, like average looking,' she said in an interview. 'Chopped is like, it's worse than being what's considered mid.'
'Chopped is like maybe you're like a 1 or 2, just straight ugly,' she added.
There is no clear answer to how the word morphed from its dictionary definition into a meanspirited adjective. As with a great deal of internet slang, early uses of it seem to have come in African American Vernacular English, but multiple social media users said they began seeing it used more frequently this year, thanks largely to popular memes and content creators.
Ms. Ugoagwu, 22, said she felt the term was still mostly reserved for social media, rather than for in-person communication. 'It's definitely one of those TikTok brain-rot terms,' she said.
Stella Wang, 24, who posted a video on TikTok about what she called the 'chopped man epidemic' (voicing her observation that she had not been seeing many men she thought were attractive), said the term was 'chronically online.'
In her case, however, chopped is creeping into casual conversation with friends.
'Like, 'That guy's chopped'' she said of how she and her friends used the word. 'Basically, just like unattractive, ugly, not good looking,' she added.
Philip Lindsay, a middle-school teacher who frequently discusses the evolution of slang in social media videos, said Gen Alpha was far more likely to use the term in everyday speech. His students began using it regularly in the previous school year, he said, with it evolving from other phrases to the point where it now stands alone.
With his school a few weeks into its new year, he said he had noticed even more evolution, with some students using the word in a more general way — still with a heavily negative connotation.
'It's not just referencing something's aesthetic or physical appearance,' he said. 'It's been like, 'Oh I have to write all these notes down, that's chopped.''
The question now is whether the usage will have staying power, and if it will be adopted by a wider (i.e., older) demographic, which has recently happened with terms like 'crashing out.'
Despite the popularity of her video, Ms. Ugoagwu said she felt that a word like chopped could be confusing, especially when used around people who spent less time on the internet.
'If someone's chopped, just say that they're ugly or something,' she said. 'Or better yet, don't call anyone ugly.'