Lost in Translation: Parenting in the Age of Skibidi and Sigma

I am a Gen X Dad. I used words like “Radical” and “Dweeb” back in the day. And I still use those words and a few other select ones today. My son just turned 11 and is proudly of the tribe called Generation Alpha. And the way that he chats with his online pals and his schoolmates IRL (that’s In Real Life for you dweebs), he might as well be a foreign spy using invisible ink or microdots. Sometimes the words coming out of his mouth sound like he flew in from Jupiter the night before and is planning an all-out invasion of Planet Earth with his little friends. I check on him every night to make sure he isn’t hiding a death ray pistol in his jammies.

We all have our little secret words and slang. It’s a generational thing. People I considered older than me had words like “Dagnabbit” or “Shake a Leg”. If you lived in the `40s, you most likely heard words like “Hooey” or “Bupkis” from the movies of that time. If you were digging it in the `50s, you would get an earful of people called “Square” or “Turkey”. If you hung out when Maricel Soriano was born, somebody may have shouted “Yeba!” or “Groovy!” to you. A decade later in the `70s was the time when “Erpat” and “Ermat” and “Dehins” ruled.

It's all really a matter of semantics and meaning and belonging. Having your own language was like having a secret. In the online article “The Power of Slang” by Tom Dalzell, “Slang is everywhere he says—and youth slang, in particular, exerts enormous power,” Dalzell writes. “By design, slang is wittier and more clever than standard English. As a species that seems to have a genetic inclination to linguistic creativity, we humans (to borrow again from Whitman) seem to find endearing slang’s “rich flashes of humor and genius and poetry.” With slang, each generation or subculture/counterculture group has the chance to shape and propagate its own lexicon, and in so doing to exercise originality and imagination. The end result is a lively, playful body of language that is at times used for no other reason than that it is fun to use and identifies the speaker as clever and witty.”

Having their own language gives our kids a sense of power. A sense of belonging even. I mean, there are probably people who are fluent in Klingon. I’m not messing with them and risking getting a Bat'leth shoved up my spine. But seriously, this is all part of how they will develop and socialize with their peers. Plus, it’s a cool thing to have. I mean, like I mentioned earlier, we all had our own words back in the day, too.

Which brings us to Generation Alpha’s current language. If you're a millennial or Gen Z, you’ve probably been up to your necks with words like “Mumshie”, “Guize”, “Drip”, and my personal favorite “Sheesh”. Gen Alpha’s is slightly more confusing; some words and phrases might overlap or be revised versions from the past two generations. To help guide us through this minefield of expressions, here are a few words to get you started in interpreting all this.

ALSO READ: From 'Sus' To 'Stan': Slang Every Gen Z, Alpha Parent Must Know

adj. | mediocre, meh 

The language will always shift and evolve and even overlap. When your kid hits their teen years and their college days, the slang will further mutate, be chopped up, and come back more confusing than ever before. And that’s fine. It’s your job as a parent to navigate through all the words and get straight to what your kid is trying to say.