This single image could not be more inaccurate about about Gen Z slang even if the selection process was getting a series of randomly chosen monkeys to tap on keyboards to generate phrases.
This is like… early 2000s millenial speak, and only the emo/weeb ones. Gen Zers were like 5 when people were talking like this.
not to totally derail a funny post but i think this is a prime example of people who cant code switch being pissed off by people who can.
I cant talk much, but what little i can comes in two flavors - at-home talk, and Proper Talk.
the first is basically an appalachian dialect and accent so thick as to be nearly indecipherable to people who speak Vanilla American English, and the second is the way my speech therapist taught me to talk “correctly” and usually what i write in. im obviously much better at the first (i stutter a little less, for example), and i have to actively try to do the second but i can do both.
i believe (correct me if i need to get back in my own lane) that people who speak AAVE have similar experiences.
heres the thing - people fucking hate code switching, especially if you do it in front of them. my father’s family, who are all City Folk, will get blindingly enraged if my sisters and i “talk like trashy hillbillies” in front of them.
it’s not “proper” its “uneducated” is “makes you sound stupid”
sounds a lot like how older people feel about slang, no?
but have you ever met a teenager who isn’t capable of turning off their slang for a presentation? a job interview? hell, just hanging out with grandma?
and the thing is, its not just that they think we’re stupid because they devalue our way of talking. it’s also that they know we’re excluding them. why else would we speak in a way that some people in the room don’t understand, unless the conversation was meant only for those of us who can?
it’s the same reason white people get pissed about spaces for people of color, cishet people furious about pride, able-bodied people who complain about disabled parking spaces.
they’re so used to being the default that the idea of a space, an event, a language that excludes them just. fucking enrages them. they can handle it. it just doesnt compute.
so they devalue it, they call you uneducated and stupid and trashy. they try to imitate the language (as above) to mock it, but all they do is show off just how little of it they understand.
all of this is to say that grasping language well enough that you can flip it like a switch, pick and choose the best words and phrases to make yourself understood in so many wildly different environments?
makes you a thousand times more fluent in a language than someone who just lucked out on being born “the default”
The common Gen-Z greetings is: H-hewwo?
The biggest red flag that boomers don’t know shit is that yeet isn’t on the list
Why Movies About College are Actually Full of Shit.
This is very important because my brother and I grew up thinking college was like this. Like we would live out a beer commercial.
And when I got to college and it DIDN’T happen, it stressed me out. I thought I was doing something wrong again. I had, apparently, messed up high school according to the media, and now college?! The supposed best time of my life?! It created a big depression, and living far from home made it worse as I had no friends or family I could immediately talk to. It took a long time for me to understand that movies and commercials and shows that portray college like that is complete and utter bullshit.
Also, a reminder:
Most Americans don’t have college degrees. Of the ones who do, tons of them don’t finish in four years.
Lots of people go to community colleges.
Lots of people live at their parents’ house while in school.
The TV and movie stereotype of college–even just the “everyone goes to college and lives in a dorm” thing–only a tiny minority of Americans actually live that out.
I don’t know how she does it. I don’t know how she reads my intent so clearly.
When I walk to the kitchen to get a popsicle or thaw a slice of banana bread or warm up some mango slices, she doesn’t care. She stays on her chair and waits patiently.
But when I walk to the kitchen to scoop myself a bowl of ice cream, she’s at my heels SHRIEKING by the time I turn on the light. She knows. She’s not smelling it, she’s not hearing me say ‘ice cream’, she’s not accustomed to some predictable pattern because I rarely eat ice cream.
But she fucking figures out before I even reach the refrigerator. It’s the only human food she asks for, and I have to give her a small tithe of it to keep her from shredding the skin from my legs and popping my eardrums. She’s terrifying.
Registering the unique “ice cream gait”, try walking without rhythm so the cat will not be able to track your movements.
But what if it’s not my Ice Cream Groove… what if I excuse pheromones of Ice Cream Intent?
There have to be ways to thwart her Ice Cream Knowledge. Perhaps I will have to trick myself into believing that I’m actually getting up to thaw leftovers, and then I’ll start exuding Leftover Intent pheromones.
I DID IT!
I got up to make myself a cup of tea, thought Tea Thoughts, and then at the last moment I filled my tea cup with ice cream instead of tea.
My cat didn’t even notice. She didn’t smell it, or pester me while I was eating, or come running and yodeling her need when I opened the freezer.
I am free.
What happens if you think about ice cream while getting something else?
I just tested this. I got up thinking Ice Cream Thoughts, and by the time I got to the kitchen, guess who was at my heels meowing?
underrated mbmbam moment: when travis got a new dog and talked about wanting to give her a website like the one he has for his other dog (buttercupisaverygoodgirl.com) then realised if he wanted lilyisaverygoodgirl.com he needed to race justin at that exact moment for it and he franticly starts trying to buy it but finds that it exists already and redirects to justins twitter and its then revealed justin bought it the day travis got the dog
Here’s my piece for the @omgcpreversebang! I got to draw whatever my heart desired to see in a fic, which was nursey and dex bonding over a stray, and then @maxine-gayfield brought it to life and developed it into a story! You should definitely give it a read here : D
Like, if you’ve got a screenshot proving me and the wiki wrong? By all means, please show me so I can be corrected. But so far people pretty much have just given me a nebulous “I thought they were he/him,” or “you can choose whatever gender you want for them,” in which case, I choose NB.
I am Silver Tongue, I am an artist. I have many characters and you can check out my art in the art tag. I occasionally practice witchcraft though I don't do anything too complicated. I am girl 2 and don't know what else to put here.
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