Conversing with teens can be tough at the best of times. Photo / 123rf
With the impending return of tertiary students to Northland, we thought we’d bring you up to speed (or get you woke) with their lingo, just so everyone’s on the same page. Jodi Bryant delves into the world of teen speak …
Conversing with teens can be tough at the best of times when you’re lucky to get so much as a grunt in reply. Young people these days seem to be a lot more vocal from behind a screen, but even that is like a different language … Cue Google Translate …
While not ideal, sometimes, it’s a matter of, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. So here is an interpretation of teenage slang for 2025. But it comes with a couple of disclaimers:
1. Young people will likely find it an absolute cringe if you try to speak their language, to the point that if you start using a certain word, they will promptly drop it from their vocab. (The same applies to their music – pick a song you loathe and start blasting it. Now you’ve made it uncool, and you’ll notice they soon ditch said song.)
2. As their language is ever-evolving, there’s a high chance some of these words may already have been “cancelled” from their vocab, so if you try busting out some skibidi slang thinking it’ll give you W rizz and aura, you’re likely being delulu, so don’t shoot the messenger. (Not hundy p if that made sense, but see interpretation below.)
Rizz – Charisma. W-Rizz = winning charisma, L-Rizz = lack of charisma.
Aura – Cool/star quality.
Glow-up – A significant improvement in appearance or confidence.
Baddie – hottie/attractive.
Chopped – Unattractive.
Ick – When someone gives you the ick, it’s an instant turn-off.
Bussin’ – Really good, especially food.
Mid – Average or unimpressive.
Glazing – Over-hyping something.
Skibidi – Multiple meanings – cool, bad, dumb, absurd … Often used in a conversation filled with brain rot. It is derived from a popular YouTube video series called Skibidi Toilet.
Brain rot – Low-quality, addictive digital content.
Cap/no cap – Lying/no lies.
Facts – In agreement.
Bruh – Another version of bro.
G – A term of endearment for friends.
Delulu – delusional.
Fit – Outfit.
Woke – Aware of what’s going on.
Goat – Greatest of all time.
Fomo – Fear of missing out.
Left on read/seen – When you message someone and they read it without responding.
POV – Point of view. Commonly used on social media to indicate a first-person perspective.
Rent-free - When something occupies space in your thoughts.
Ship – Relationship. “I ship so-and-so with so-and-so.”
Vibing – to have a harmonious connection.
Sigma - A term that originally referred to an unbothered male who plays by his own rules (i.e. not an alpha male or a beta male, but a sigma male). “Sigma” has expanded to use as a filler, nonsense word to inject into a phrase. “What the sigma” simply means, “That’s surprising!”
Take the L – Take the loss.
W (pronounced dub) - “That’s a W!” = “That’s a win!”
Whip – Car.
Tea – Gossip. “Spilling the tea” is telling someone the gossip.
Bread-crumbing – A dating behaviour where someone gives small, intermittent bursts of attention to keep a person interested without any real intention of committing to a serious relationship.
Beige Flag – Somewhere between a red and a green flag, a quirky characteristic of a person that isn’t a deal-breaker.
Salty – Jealous or upset.
Lowkey – Subtle.
Main character – When someone either is, thinks they are, or behaves as though they are the most central person or star in a situation.
Gyatt – A shapely buttocks.
Cancel – To delete someone or something out of one’s life.
Boomer – A way to dismiss an older person who is criticising a young person on a topic the teen doesn’t think they understand. Comes from baby boomer, the name for the generation born between 1946 and 1964.
Wig snatched – To be amazed, blown away, caught off guard to the point your wig literally falls off.
6-7 (said with a hand gesture with palms face-up moving up and down) – Derived from a rapper, then became linked to an NBA basketballer’s height, before going viral on the internet with one meaning translating to “so-so”, before spiralling to mean nothing at all, with classrooms now banning the phrase.
Hundy P – One hundred per cent.
Text Slang (Yes, written in lazy lower-case)
fr – For real
irl – In real life
rn – Right now
idk – I don’t know
ikr – I know right?
ngl – Not gonna lie
tbh – To be honest
wyd – What you doing?
iykwim – If you know what I mean
We asked a few non-teens for their take on some of these words …
Jade Reid, 24, receptionist and nurse trainee, pictured with son Tukaea Reid-Goffin, 3, didn’t think she’d be up with the play on teenage slang but surprised herself.
Salty – “Grumpy.”
Whip – “It’s like a belt... Oh, wait, a car!”
Ship – “Oh yeah, that’s like when you ship two people together because, for example, they’d make a cute couple.”
Goat – “When you’re really good at something.”
Delulu – “Delusional.”
Skibidi - “Like, skittish?”
Cap – “Fake/false.”
Aura – “Like, emotions …?”
ngl – “Not gonna lie.”
irl – “In real life.”
Patsy McRae, 80, with dogs Billy and Chico, retired teacher and grandmother of eight, had not heard of most of the words but was planning to try some out with her 18-year-old grandson.
Rizz – “No idea.”
Bussin’ – “Interfering.”
Glazing – “Follow someone on text.”
Skibidi – “No idea.”
Glow-up – “Happy and smiling.”
Aura – “A certain presence.”
Delulu - “Is that like doolally, as in slightly mad?”
Baddie – “There were always baddies in cowboy movies.”
Goat – “Greatest of all time.”
Idk – “I don’t know, as in ‘I don’t know what is happening next’.”
6-7 – “Now that’s all the rage at the moment, isn’t it?! I have no idea what it means, but they’re now banning it in schools, and they have to count: ‘1,2,3,4,5 - 8!”
Nicholas Connop, 39, a Whangārei District councillor and father to two pre-schoolers, believed his engagement through Tiktok had allowed him some knowledge of the words and pretty much passed with flying colours.
Rizz/W & L Rizz – “It sits along the lines of charisma, and with the W and L ... I know they shorten words, so something along winning charisma and low charisma?”
Bussin’ – “I know it’s not waiting for the bus, but it might be something along the lines of turning up to catch the bus and it arrives with perfect timing!”
Skibidi – “I know of the Skibidi toilet videos and spin-offs, and so, something strange?”
Aura – “An aura is the light shining around someone, a glow. So, I can only presume it means along the same lines. When something is good, beaming with good energy?”
Boomer – “Anyone in the older generation.”
Salty – “Being jealous of what someone else has or has benefited from.”
Whip – “It means a car.”
Goat – “Greatest Of All Time.”
Ngl – “Not gonna lie.”
Cap – “Well, I know ‘No Cap’ means truth or honesty, so Cap must be ‘It’s a lie, fake etc.”
Sonny Shelford, 50, who works at a high school and is a father of two in their 20s, was on board with a lot of the words and even threw in a few extra ones. However, he believes the lingo varies at different decile schools.
Rizz – “Oh, the same as ‘lit’, they’re sort of side-by-side. It’s like, ‘Man, you’ve got game!’”
Glazing – “That’s like, you’re on fire, like if you’re really good at basketball, you’re blazing … Oh, ‘glazing’? No, I can’t say I’ve heard that one around my school.”
Skibidi – “That’s real modern, it hasn’t really hit my school. You’ve got categories like you’ve got private schools and your biggest CBDs. If you say ‘skibidi’ at my school, they’ll look at you like you’ve been in Auckland.”
Delulu – “That came in the same intake as skibidi …”
Goat – “Greatest of all time. There’s also Gwoat – greatest woman of all time.”
Cap – “Cap? No, I don’t know that one … Okay, so it sounds like it’s the equivalent of b/s (bullsh*t).”
6-7 – “It pretty much means what we Kiwis say: ‘Yeah-nah’.”
Whip – “I don’t know. Oh, are we talking about a car?”
Salty – Getting sour. “Like, ‘Don’t get salty.’”
Iykwim – “Iyk is always ‘If you know’, so it’s just a matter of working out the last part … Iykyk is, ‘If you know you know’ …”
Lana Jennings, 46, admin at a primary school, said her three teens would find her attempt at decoding their slang amusing.
Rizz – “Kinda like flirting? Chatting up? Something like that? I don’t get the difference between W-Rizz and L-Rizz though, if that’s the case. So maybe I’m wrong.”
Bussin’ – “Hassling?”
Glow-up – “Upgrading looks. Better hair, more of a tan, better look in general than you had.”
Skibidi – “Does this even mean anything?”
Delulu – “Delusional? Like, are you kidding?”
Cap – “Absolutely no idea. Just none.”
Baddie – “Probably means the opposite of what it sounds like …”
Vibing – “Liking something. Like, ‘Totally vibing that outfit.’ Or is that just how WE would have used it?”
Salty – “Mad, cross. Like, ‘Don’t get salty with me, I’m just asking.’”
6-7 – “Doesn’t really mean anything? Maybe used like ‘meh’ if it did?”