But it stills signals mockery, outrage or exasperation.It took me two weeks plus to get comfortable with the learning curve but it's totally worth going through. It doesn’t have to include repetition, nor does it need an accompanying SpongeBob image. (And it likely originated even earlier, assuming an even snobbier tone.)īut this year, it’s broken from its original meme mold. Yes, this was mainly popularized a couple of years ago in a SpongeBob SquarePants meme. While you might argue, “That’s technically from 2017,” I might just say “ThAt’S tEchNiCaLly FrOm 2017!” back at you. We’ll often see people use all caps for emphasis.īut recently, people have started using alternating capital letters to express a different kind of intonation: mockery or exasperation. Other times, it’s simply used derisively to indicate that someone is out of touch with technology, pop culture or current events. It can be deployed simultaneously as a prod - for Boomers to think about the political tension and their role in it - and as a deflection, stopping the conversation to indicate “you already have all the power.” Vox does a good job distilling the meaning of the phrase: It’s intended to convey “the perceived irony that while Boomers nitpick and judge younger generations for their specific choices, it’s the boomers’ own choices that created the bleak socioeconomic landscape that millennials and Gen Z currently face.” It then spread as a hashtag on social media platforms like Twitter. It gained traction through the “OK Boomer” song, recorded by Peter Kuli and Jedwill, that TikTok users started including in their videos. There’s a lot under the hood of this phrase, which is a signpost for intergeneration sociopolitical tension.
“OK Boomer” might be the most discussed and debated 2019 language trend. As they become more widely used – and associated with speakers like VSCO girls – their origins are forgotten. Like a lot of language innovations, these two can trace their origins to queer people of color and black English. They aren’t widespread and popular immediately. “Sksksk” has been around since at least 2014, while the Masters video clip that “and I oop” originates from first streamed in 2015.īut that’s how language trends proceed. Neither “sksksk” nor “and I oop” was born in 2019.
The phrase became widely used in a similar fashion: to acknowledge - and lighten the mood after - an embarrassing or jarring situation. In it, drag queen Jasmine Masters - a competitor on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” - interjects an “oop!” midsentence, after “and I…” She explained that the interjection occurred because she’d painfully hit her testicles. The next, “and I oop,” comes from a video that went viral in 2019. However, this out-loud pronunciation is often used for mockery - use it carefully. And it’s more pronounceable than a traditional keysmash - “as ldfkjls” - so it can be said out loud. What helped it catch on? The two keys are spaced fairly far apart on mobile devices with a more crowded keyboard layout, so they’re easier to smash back and forth with each thumb. As Buzzfeed explained, “It’s sort of like saying ‘I can’t even’ as if it were still 2013.” It can mean laughter, excitement or nervousness. The first, “sksksk,” is a popular keysmash, representing someone furiously hitting the “s” and “k” keys back and forth. That’s because VSCO girls – largely white, teenage, middle class girls who promote a certain style and aesthetic on social media – have popularized their use.
Two new language features - “sksksk” and “and I oop” - are often talked about together. They included “ finsta” - a social media user’s second account with a more private, selective audience - and the interjection “ yeet,” which is meant to convey surprise or approval.Īs the year winds down, we’ll walk you through some other recent trends to get you up to speed before you’re inevitably barraged with new ones in 2020. Last year, internet language expert Gretchen McCulloch – whose best-selling book “ Because Internet” is its own noteworthy language event of 2019 - identified multiple terms that have become popular among Gen Z users in recent years. Social media has created an entirely new linguistic ecosystem, with new words, phrases and features for expressing ourselves cropping up all the time. For more information, see the note accompanying this story. The University of Oregon partners with The Conversation to bring the expertise and views of its faculty members to a wide audience. Editor’s note: This article is republished as it appears in The Conversation, an independent news publisher that works with academics worldwide to disseminate research-based articles and commentary.