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You’re in a conversation with someone younger than you, maybe a patient, a student, someone you follow online, or your own child, and suddenly the sentence stops making sense.
“That movie was mid.”
“I’m not gonna lie, that’s kind of sus.”
“She gives off main character energy.”
“That’s so cringe.”
You understand the words individually, at least some of them. But strung together, they make no sense.
As a psychotherapist and a mother of a teen, I hear this language not just in passing, but in emotionally deep and layered conversations on a daily basis. Slang shows up in how people describe relationships, anxiety, attraction, and even their sense of self. Gen Z trends have been trickling down to Gen Alpha, who are already pushing the language further, talking about brain rot, rizz, low-key, or terms such as “6–7,” which I have yet to decode.
Slang has always been about belonging. Every generation develops its own language as a way to reinforce identity, taste, and cultural alignment.
It functions as a social signal and serves to separate one generation from the previous one. Humans are wired to form groups, and shared language is the fastest way to determine who belongs and who doesn’t. When someone understands the jokes, the references, and the metaphors of a conversation, they are accepted as part of a group or a movement.
Teenagers and young adults use slang to create a cultural password, an easy way to identify peers who are online in the same gaming rooms, music scenes, or other social ecosystems.
But unlike previous generations, where slang spread through school hallways, today’s slang spreads digitally and therefore impacts a wider group and emerges and disappears faster than ever.
A phrase might appear in a TikTok video, circulate through otherwise disconnected communities, and then land in everyday conversation within weeks. By the time older generations hear it, the phrase may already be changing meaning.
What’s fascinating is that for Gen Z and Gen Alpha, slang serves as emotional language online. For example, “mid” is used in reference to something unimpressive, “sus” to evoke mistrust, and “main character energy” to convey confidence.
Many of these phrases are used to compress complicated feelings such as discomfort, anxiety, longing, sadness, and skepticism into bite-sized constructs that can be communicated in seconds.
In fast-moving digital environments, where attention spans are short and communication happens through texts and memes, this kind of conversation becomes incredibly efficient.
For a generation that has grown up online, there is a constant negotiation of wanting to be seen but not wanting to be exposed. Today’s youth uses irony as a way to exaggerate emotional responses and rely on humor and sarcasm to express themselves while maintaining an emotional distance. This is particularly appealing in digital culture, where vulnerability can feel risky. It creates a psychological buffer and allows one to communicate their vulnerabilities while maintaining plausible deniability. In the event a comment generates negative responses, it can easily be dismissed by retreating into humor.
Why It Feels Harder Right Now
Adults often assume the difficulty comes from unfamiliar vocabulary, changes in tone, or abbreviations, but the true challenge is the context.
Many slang phrases make sense only within specific cultural ecosystems, such as TikTok videos, influencers, meme cultures, fashion trends, or music scenes. When Gen Alpha talks about “brain rot,” they are referring to a state of numbness that is hard to disengage from, at least that’s what I think it means. These phrases are not meant to be clearly translated, so they aren’t. They stem from experiences that someone who wasn’t born with an iPhone in their hand will never fully understand.
It’s easy to dismiss slang as superficial, but it’s important to remember that an entire generation falls back on it for connection. In many ways, slang becomes a GPS that directs people to their interests, their communities, and even their own emotions.
Listening Differently
If you’re trying to keep up with the changing lingo, you can probably stop trying. Language used to take decades to evolve and devolve, but now it moves quicker than seasons. The truth is, we don’t have to have a full grasp on it. It’s OK for our kids to have their own language, and for us to live on the outskirts of it. What matters is being able to truly listen and have the capacity to assess what’s underneath it. When they refer to something as cringe, the word they use to describe their discomfort doesn’t matter. What matters is understanding the source of distress or unease. Or when they say “that slaps,” to recognize what moves them and what they connect with. Or when they mention wanting a “soft life,” what matters is understanding what they are longing for or what overwhelms them. It’s important to stay curious and pay attention to what they are trying to communicate.
Because what doesn’t change is that our children depend on us and look to us when they are in trouble, confused, or scared. And let’s face it, the world is more frightening than ever, so who cares how they convey how they feel, as long as they do.
