Exploring the Tamil man's obsession with the question 'Saaptiya?'
In India, texting has always carried a certain cultural weight, especially when it comes to flirting. Back in the Nokia 1100 days, where love bloomed over missed calls and thumb stamina (remember pressing 4 three times to type I, 5 three times to type L, and so on?), texting was the safest way to express love without actually saying it. Now the tradition, for Gen Z and Millennials, lives on — with emojis, voice notes, and carefully crafted replies. Yet, one thing hasn't changed for Tamil men sliding into chats. The opener is almost always the same: 'Saaptiya?' (Did you eat?) or the respectful 'saapteengala?'
Memes, centering around Tamil men's apparent inability to go past the ritualistic 'saaptiya?' and its follow-up 'enna saapta?', while speaking with their love interests, often flood our social media feeds. Some of them take it a step further, jokingly labelling them 'saaptiyasexuals' for their undying loyalty to this one phrase. Gen Z has even made it their own by adding their slang to it, calling it the 'Saaptiya Rizz'. Rizz, a slang in popular culture, is short for 'charisma' and is often used to describe a person's ability to flirt or charm others in romantic contexts.
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Time of India
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Hindustan Times
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India.com
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