Are you gigachad? Gen Alpha slangs are taking over the internet, leaving millennials scrambling

A rising wave of Gen Alpha slang is sweeping the internet, baffling parents as they try to decode the meanings behind viral terms like “rizz” and “gigachad.”

The world of Gen Alpha slang has become a maze of new phrases that is leaving parents and adults struggling to keep up. From the viral “slay” to “rizz” and “sigma,” today’s youth have created an entire vocabulary that even their own parents find baffling.

Generation Alpha is the term used for people born between 2010 and 2024.(Pexel)

Dallas stay-at-home mom Jen Kim, 38, reflected on the slang explosion, explaining how the vocabulary shift has become harder for parents to keep track of. “When we had slang there were only a few phrases that we had to keep up with, and you could kind of guess what they meant,” Kim shared with The Wall Street Journal. “This is a whole vocabulary that we’re trying to decode.”

For example, Kim’s niece, Avery, a 10-year-old trendsetter, referred to a gift of colored pencils as “slay,” a term that Kim correctly deduced meant “good.” However, Avery’s response to her husband’s claim of having “rizz,” or charisma, was less kind. Kim recalled that Avery gave him a look of disapproval, as she humorously accused him of lacking “rizz.” To make matters more complicated, Avery also called her uncle “omega,” which, according to her, means “the lowest rate you can get.” As a result, Kim was branded as “beta,” a label that denoted a lower status than her husband’s alleged “alpha” position in their family dynamic.

In schools, the onslaught of new terms is even more pronounced. Educator Philip Lindsay noted that his middle school students often use over two dozen slang words in just one week. Terms like “sigma,” meaning “cool,” “gyat,” used to describe someone attractive, and “skibidi,” originating from a viral YouTube video, are common in his classroom. “Skibidi” can carry both positive and negative meanings depending on context, reported the New York Post.

Are you gigachad?

Another term that’s caught the attention of parents and the internet alike is “gigachad,” which describes someone who is exceptionally masculine, physically attractive, and muscular—essentially a modern-day ideal of a “chad.” According to Wikihow, this is an idealised version of a “chad”—a confident, good-looking man. While many of these slang words have roots in African-American and LGBTQ+ communities, their rapid spread across the internet has made them ubiquitous.

As a result, parents are now frequently resorting to online searches to decode the lingo. Cecilia Hermawan, a Boston mom, had to Google the meaning of “mewing,” a term describing an exercise aimed at enhancing your jawline. Similarly, Matt Murray, a dad who turns to Reddit for clarification, has mastered terms like “sus” (suspicious) but still finds “skibidi” and other phrases elusive. Despite his best efforts, Murray admits that understanding this slang has become “kind of like a foreign language.”

Some parents, like startup founder Carleen Haylett, have given up altogether on understanding the ever-changing slang. “I put my AirPods in with the noise-canceling so I don’t have to listen to it,” she shared.

The struggle to keep up is not limited to younger parents either. Sharon Blanchet, 78, recently had to ask her 17-year-old granddaughter what “homie hopping” meant, learning it referred to an ex-boyfriend dating one of your friends after a breakup. She wryly remarked, “Boy, do I feel old.”