A guide to ‘terminally online' slang: 5 terms that define Gen Zs, Alphas

Straits Times

a day ago

An oversized hat worn by Zendaya on the red carpet in 2014 is emblematic of the irony-laden and unserious language of the "terminally online" youth. PHOTO: AFP
SINGAPORE – 'Money printer go brrr.' 'Zendaya spelled backwards is hat.' 'This meme is an infohazard.'
If none of that made sense to you, you are experiencing the linguistic equivalent of cultural whiplash. (But do not worry, t he sentences above will be demystified in this story. )
An ever-widening divide is playing out in how different generations use an increasingly fragmented internet and discuss daily life.
Digital natives Generation Alpha – born after 2010, weaned on a diet of iPads and often raised by digital natives themselves – are introducing a new lexicon, such as 'skibidi' and 'rizz', inspired by internet influencers.
Gen Zs – aged 13 to 28 and raised on TikTok or Reddit – are beginning to enter the workplace and stake their claim with phrases such as 'slay' and 'cringecore'.
Meanwhile, millennials – aged 29 to 44, and who grew up in that awkward space between the Walkman audio player and the first iPod – are using parlance like 'lit', 'HODL' and 'negging'.
Nowhere is this divide clearer than in the use of language.
On the local HardwareZone forum – where a sizeable chunk of users have accounts created before 2015 and are often older millennials and Gen Xs in their 40s and 50s – conversations carry distinctly local cadences: '9 to 5 everyday pcw on EDMW and jjww about gahmen and angry boomers.'
Translation: 'Spending my office hours complaining about the government and old people.'
On the other side of the generational divide is SGExams, a 280,000-strong Reddit forum dominated by students and young adults (mostly in their 20s and younger) discussing their exam stress and relationship angst.
Here, users speak in globally sourced and video game-inflected internet-speak.
In one thread where a teenage user asks for advice about whether a crush actually likes him, a peer commenter writes, 'man catch signs challenge (impossible)' – meaning 'this guy does not get it'.
These lexicon differences underscore how groups adopt words both for convenience and as a marker of belonging, to sift out insiders from outsiders.
As internet culture marches on in all its diversity, here are five things you need to know so as not to get left behind.
1. Intentionally meaningless
What does 'skibidi' mean? Answer: Absolutely nothing.
Originating from a machinima (animated using video game graphics) YouTube series, the word has become emblematic of the lingo of Gen Alpha.
The term 'Skibidi' originates from the YouTube animated series Skibidi Toilet, which has racked up over 50 million views on the platform.
PHOTO: YOUTUBE
And yet, the word is meaningless. It is a nonsense word used for humorous effect, to add emphasis or to confuse older generations seeking to decode it.
This weaponised absurdity is central to understanding how internet culture influences language, as much of it thrives on irony so layered that 'getting it' means there is nothing to get.
Take, for example, the 'Zendaya theory', a trend of TikTok videos that have amassed millions of views since 2020.
These videos typically feature American actress Zendaya in a 2014 red-carpet look – where she wears an oversized hat – accompanied by sinister music and glitchy editing.
Thousands of users post comments like 'Zendaya spelled backwards is hat' or 'Never seen Tom Holland and the hat in the same room', referring to the actress' reel and real-life partner, English actor Holland, and insinuating something darker.
But there is no theory.
After going down the rabbit hole of TikTok videos, one finds that the trend was started by a user who was so taken with the hat that he or she posted many edited videos of it – until TikTok's algorithm amplified this absurdity into a trend. Thousands joined in thereafter, creating elaborate and humorous conspiracy theories around nothing.
Once you grasp 'sh**posting' – deliberately absurd or provocative humour – you understand that much of internet culture is social play disguised as communication. In other words, the virtual equivalent of an inside joke, but on a massive scale.
Such weaponised irony is commonplace online.
There is the 470,000-strong Reddit community Never Broke A Bone (its calling card is: 'From Have you ever broken a bone? No? Then this is the place for you') for people to discuss their superiority to those with weak bones.
Other examples include live-streaming platform Twitch's worship of 'Big Chungus' – featuring a chunky, photoshopped version of cartoon character Bugs Bunny – for no discernible reason.
And there is the nonsensical and artificial intelligence-generated 'Italian brain rot', a series of absurd memes involving characters with pseudo-Italian names, currently trending on TikTok.
Mr Amirul Hakim, 28, who works in tertiary education, says that part of the joy stem s from watching these memes develop and get remixed endlessly across contexts.
'I think it's hilarious, I love them, and I don't blame anyone young or old for not getting it because it's a symptom of being chronically online.
'Not only is it intentionally meaningless, but there is (also) a sort of 'planned obsolescence' of it, in the way that it's meant to expire. If you reference it late, you'd be 'unc' (short form for uncle, meaning old or out of touch) or 'washed up',' he adds, noting that by the time such slang reaches Facebook and Instagram, its popularity is nearing its tail-end.
2. Making sense of disillusionment
Some communities take this embrace of satire a step further, using it as a response to disillusionment with society.
For example, 'Do you have diamond hands or lettuce hands?' is not about grip strength. It is about whether you can hold on to investments through volatility or tend to sell at the first sign of trouble.
Meanwhile, 'money printer go brrr' is a mockery of most central banks' monetary policies, and 'HODL' (originally a typo of hold) is a rallying cry for cryptocurrency and retail investors to 'Hold On for Dear Life' to their assets amid signs of turmoil.
Such vocabulary is commonplace on Twitter accounts run by cryptocurrency enthusiasts and on the Reddit forum Wallstreetbets.
'Instead of speaking about the fundamentals of a stock or its price-earning ratio, we talk about 'pumpamentals',' says Dr Andrew Bailey, a professor of philosophy at Yale-NUS College, referring to the hype that can lead to a token's rapid growth in value.
'Many people feel that the world of finance isn't working to their benefit, it's just a scam, so I'm gonna scam it to my benefit,' he adds. 'It's a total rejection of business school-style thinking and that facade of seriousness.'
Dr Bailey believes that this language of 'financial nihilism' prevalent in online finance communities – typically dominated by millennials – reflects deeply held frustrations.
When traditional financial systems feel rigged against ordinary people, online communities create counter-languages to mock establishment expertise.
Among enthusiasts of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, 'money printer go brrr' is the signature phrase that ends many pro-crypto online screeds about the failures of the modern economy. The implication is that bitcoin is the solution for every social ill, notes Dr Bailey.
Such language has real-world consequences.
At the height of its popularity in 2021, Wallstreetbets made headlines for coordinating a mass purchase of GameStop stock to spite hedge funds and short sellers.
PHOTO: WALLSTREETBETS
Wallstreetbets, a 13 million-strong subreddit community for 'making money and being amused while doing it', galvanised members to buy massive amounts of shares in American retailer GameStop in 2021. This drove the price from around US$20 to US$400 , in order to spite hedge funds which had 'shorted' (betting the share price would fall) the stock.
Meanwhile, in Singapore, crypto-related scams accounted for nearly 25 per cent of the $1.1 billion lost to scams in 2024.
This nihilist world view extends to internet subcultures beyond crypto.
Incels, short for involuntarily celibate, have also formed a distinct vocabulary based on disillusionment that seeks to make sense of one's isolation from and frustration with society.
According to incels, being 'redpilled' means waking up to the 'truth' that feminism has ruined society. Such thinking is now embraced by the manosphere, a collection of misogynistic online forums and communities.
Other examples include the '80/20 rule' (the belief that 80 per cent of women go after only 20 per cent of men), 'mogging' (dominating someone, typically using one's appearance or social status) and 'negging' (using subtle insults to undermine someone's confidence).
Collectively, these terms imply that society is hierarchical and that immutable traits, such as one's appearance, determine one's place forever in the pecking order.
3. Parasocial relations
This quest for social connection also explains another subset of internet-born vocabulary.
Internet researchers use the term 'parasocial relationships' to describe one-sided relationships , where a person develops a strong connection with a public figure, such as a celebrity or musician, who does not know him or her personally.
Stan Twitter, a dedicated online community within the social media platform, epitomises this. To 'stan' someone means to be his or her obsessive fan. The term was first popularised by a 2000 song by American rapper Eminem about an obsessive fan named Stan.
Fans on Stan Twitter have embraced a competitive validation culture with terms like 'flop era' (when an artiste's popularity declines), 'ratio' (when critical replies get more engagement than the original post) and 'bias' ( refers to one's favourite member of a music group ).
Korean terms such as 'maknae' and 'oppa' – meaning the youngest member and big brother respectively – have also entered the popular lexicon.
Stans avidly track their favourite artistes' album sales, music chart performances and red-carpet looks – as if doing live sports commentary.
'I feel like it started from people deciding that extreme devotion is the best way to show your love for a celebrity,' says 18-year-old Singaporean student Alleyah, who declines to share her last name.
The devout fan of K-pop girl group Loona – who used to post 'fancams' (fan videos of a particular artiste) and get into arguments online defending the band – believes it stems from finding comfort and solidarity from a shared love of a celebrity, which places the idealised object of affection on a pedestal.
'The idea nowadays is that you have to be a dedicated fan and show it, otherwise you're fake,' she ad ds. 'I felt that way too, that I needed to be invested in Loona's whole life to show everyone I was a true fan. I was convinced it was flattering.'
The rise of video-streaming platforms such as YouTube and Twitch adds an interactive twist to parasocial relationships. Here, popular American content creators like MrBeast have created communities of mostly Gen Z- and Gen Alpha-aged internet users built around their personalities and numbering in the hundreds of millions.
'Fanum tax': the phrase meaning stealing food from a friend began as a recurring inside joke by American live streamer Kai Cenat and his friends, before it was adopted as generational lingo.
PHOTO: KNOW YOUR MEME
For American live streamer Kai Cenat, broadcasting his daily life has turned everyday occurrences and inside jokes into generational lingo.
He is credited with popularising the terms 'rizz' (charisma), 'gyatt' (as in gyatt damn) and 'fanum tax' among Gen Zs and Gen Alphas.
Fanum tax refers to a friend playfully stealing food, inspired by a fellow live streamer with the habit of helping himself to Cenat's food during his live streams.
Part of the power of live-streaming culture is how viewers do not just spend hours passively watching. They chat, participate in polls and sometimes even send money to their favourite streamer. This engenders a relationship that live-streaming enthusiasts describe as being 'one step closer' than your typical celebrity-fan relationship.
'People forget these are human beings and mostly adults with lives of their own outside the persona they show,' says Alleyah. 'I've lost count of the numbe r of times I've seen people get into online feuds over their favourite streamers and try to imitate their behaviour.'
4. Myths for a digital age
Collaborative storytelling and meaning-making form the core of what makes the internet special.
Part of this stems from the structure of the internet, which embraces modes of content that are quick-firing, easy to remix and allow for endless copy and pasting.
From the earliest text-based forums to the popular TikTok dance trends of today, small inside jokes can take on mythical quality among those in the know.
Nowhere is this more apparent than creepypastas, a term used to describe horror-related legends or stories shared across the internet, many of which appear to be real experiences, even though they are fictional.
While folks of a different generation may have told their ghost stories in real life, possibly over a campfire, today's horror stories are shared in Reddit posts and TikTok videos.
Consider the 'smile dog', a 'cursed' JPEG file of a dog with an unsettling human-like smile. If you see this image, the dog haunts your dreams and drives you insane, unless you pass on the curse by sending the image to someone else, or so the story goes.
Unlike traditional folklore with murky origins and established mythos, internet myths emerge from collective authorship and constant editing.
'The Backrooms' — an internet myth of a fictional and infinite office space that one can be trapped in — originated from the image board 4chan and is the subject of many creepypastas.
PHOTO: 4CHAN
Stories mutate as they spread, and communities decide which elements survive, often based on virality, as they evolve from memes into the digital equivalent of folklore.
Popular examples include the 'Slenderman' (a supernatural figure that stalks and abducts people), 'backrooms' (fictional and infinite office spaces that one can be trapped in) and stories of the SCP Foundation (a fictional database dedicated to cataloguing paranormal phenomena and objects).
When a term achieves widespread recognition outside of its origin subculture, fans of creepypasta call it 'containment breach', borrowing language from the fictional SCP Foundation.
Meanwhile, the term 'infohazard' is used to denote something that poses a threat to you simply by your having knowledge of it, like the smile dog.
What is novel about much of this collaborative myth-making is how it expresses modern anxieties about capitalism and technology, which seem to resonate more with digital natives than supernatural fears of previous generations.
5. The new gatekeepers
Despite the internet's democratic promise and focus on collaboration, language evolution can, at times, be surprisingly hierarchical.
Take, for example, Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia that, theoretically, anyone can edit.
Although Wikipedia was the eighth-most-visited website in the world in April 2025, according to web analytics firm Similarweb, the reality is that only a small fraction of the site's users contribute.
According to a 2020 report by the Wikimedia Foundation, 87 per cent of those who contribute to Wikimedia projects – of which English-language Wikipedia is the largest – are male. Almost half live in Europe and one-fifth in Northern America.
This results in some stark inequalities in what Wikipedia considers important enough to catalogue.
As at 2021, only 18 per cent of content in all Wikimedia projects are about women. There were also more Wikipedia articles written about Antarctica than most countries in Africa, according to a 2018 analysis by the Oxford Internet Institute.
Popular pages such as Lady Gaga's have 'extended confirmed protection', requiring one to be an established user to edit. Meanwhile, news events trigger 'edit wars', with pages locked by established editors as they bicker over how to describe an evolving incident.
While the internet may have democratised publishing, it has not eliminated gatekeeping, which exists everywhere online.
Small groups of influential users, algorithmic amplification and platform dynamics often determine which terms achieve widespread adoption and which terms belong in last year's trend cycle.
Incel ideology originated in niche forums where users complained of their dating troubles, but spread through popular manosphere influencers.
Many terms popular among Gen Zs and Gen Alphas first originate from black and queer communities, then get popularised by popular Stan Twitter accounts such as Pop Crave.
For some Gen Z internet users, Pop Crave has supplanted traditional news outlets.
Ms Yi Qing, a 19-year-old waiting to enter university, first learnt about the death of Pope Francis in April on Pop Cra ve. What she loves most about it is how it provides a glimpse into how others feel about the news.
'I know articles used to have comment sections, but I feel like the culture of commenting on an article is kind of dying,' she says. 'It's nothing like being able to open 1,000 QRTs (quote retweets) and reading everyone's bite-size takes, or opening a reddit comment section and seeing all the comments.'
Racing against obsolescence
Perhaps the only constant in internet language and culture is change itself.
Internet database Know Your Meme has catalogued more than 21,000 entries explaining internet culture today, up from just over 4,200 at the end of 2020.
According to Know Your Meme, most memes catalogued in the early 2010s originated from YouTube and image-based bulletin board 4chan. By the early 2020s, that mantle was passed on to Twitter and TikTok.
Part of why internet language changes so quickly stems from shifting social realities.
Gen Zs and millennials in Singapore are more likely to use TikTok, Twitter and Reddit than Gen Xers and baby boomers, according to consumer intelligence firm YouGov's 2024 report on social media use. They are also more likely to get their news from social networks, instead of television, compared with older generations.
'Terms like 'chat' come from live streaming, and because live streaming is so prevalent among young people, they learn the terms and often pull them into other parts of their lives to the extent that this is useful or functional,' says Dr Patrick Williams, an associate professor and cultural sociologist at Nanyang Technological University.
Not all terms are made equal though, he adds. This explains why some terms transcend the boundaries of the communities they originate from, such that some millennials and Gen Zs now incorporate 'chat' into their daily lexicon, by saying phrases such as 'chat, I'm cooked' (I'm in trouble) to their friends.
'Culture is never static,' he notes. These changes may not be discernible on a day-to-day level, but language is a key dimension of culture.
Many cultural groups use slang terms to set up boundaries that distinguish insiders from outsiders. This could be young people distinguishing themselves from their 'boomer' parents who might not understand, or using terms to connect themselves to current cultural trends, causes or communities they find important.
'Language is also a key marker of identity, so the ability to understand or talk in a certain way says a lot about who you are,' Dr Williams says. 'And if you don't understand, that also identifies you in certain ways.'
This is partly why you might never understand Gen Alphas, Gen Zs or millennials if you are not one yourself. Because theirs is a language rooted less in generational differences than how the internet has given rise to hyper-specific niches, unserious language and constantly shifting trends.
This is the new social reality, where ghost stories are shared as memes, instead of being read in True Singapore Ghost Stories tomes. Where love of music means 'stanning' your favourite artiste and mourning him or her during his or her 'flop era'. And where millions of people bond over something as innocuous as an oversized hat.
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