new 190414 SunlIfe- Millennial speak - The Straits Times · Lang Leav poetry unironically, using...

SUNDAY TIMES GRAPHICS: SALLY LAM ST PHOTOS: MARK CHEONG

Millennialspeak

Example: “Get woke, stay woke.” The phrase “stay woke” dates back to the

1960s and surfaced in pop culture with Erykah Badu and

Georgia Anne Muldrow’s 2008

song Master Teacher, but

truly hit its stride with the

rise of the Black Lives Matter

movement in the United States.

Woke is a politically charged term and should

not be used generically. If you go around claiming you are woke, you probably are not.

Salty

Example: “She’s just salty her story didn’t

make the front page.”

Woke

ThirstyDesperate, especiallysexually.

If one posts a sexually attractive sel�e on social media, this is a “thirst trap”.

LitReally amazing.

Examples: “Looking lit today” or “This party is lit”. As early as the 1910s, “lit” already meant “intoxicated”.

Example: “I’m looking at all these photos of my friends at the bar and I’m fomo-ing so hard.” Marketing strategist Dan Herman �rst published a paper about this phenomenon in 2000. It is closely linked to social media addiction.

On �eek

Example: “Your eyebrows today are on �eek.”

The phrase went viral after a 2014 vine by American teenager Kayla Newman,

or “Peaches Monroee”, in a six-second video posted

on the social network Vine.

Perfectly executed, similar to “on point”

or the more contemporary “looking snatched”.

Things associated with being basic include: Starbucks pumpkin

spice lattes, quoting Lang Leav poetry

unironically, using #blessed in

your Instagram captions for no

real reason.

Basic

tl;drToo long; didn’t read.

Used to call out somebody for being long-winded, or to signal in advance that a post will be lengthy so people do not complain later. Commonly used on platforms such as Reddit and Tumblr.

It can also be used to refer to other things one is very passionate about, for example, “pizza is bae”.

Bae

A brief lexicon of the generation’s slang

Fomo

Example: “Did you see the new Game Of Thrones trailer? I’m so shook.” Superlatives include

shookt and shooketh.

Shook

A derogatory term that refersto a person so mainstream that

he is beyond uninteresting. Your signi�cant other, said to stand

for “before anyone else”,

but more likely to have been a

derivative of “babe”.

Upset, bitter and, therefore, rude.

Fear of missing out. It can be used as a verb.

Having a very intense,emotional reaction of shock, fear, excitement and more.

Aware about issues of social injustice.