Gen-Z-Friendly Acronyms

ROTFL, old.

So I was writing a character not long ago and considered having her say “YOLO.” However, this character’s supposed to be fairly young, so I ended up asking a question a lot of writers ask themselves—“Is this still a thing young people do/say?”

Honestly, I sometimes had to ask that question even when I was young. My habits weren’t always typical.

One can go too far with it. Young people are trying different things all the time, and some of them are into what their parents or grandparents were into—in the early 2000s, iPod-listening teens loved the Beatles. Still, some slang has a sell-by date—you wouldn’t want to write a modern teen saying “be cool, daddy-o” unless they were being sarcastic. And “YOLO,” which I often see offered up as a “modern” alternative to “You only live once” or “Carpe diem,” is now kind of last-decade to Generation Z, AKA “the modern youth.”

What do they say instead? One recent-ish study suggests that in texting, the replacement is DIFTP—short for “do it for the plot.” This expression asks you to think of your life as a story. If you’re a character within your own narrative, then “doing it for the plot” means taking the action that’ll make your story an interesting one. I like that perspective. We all should try to lead interesting lives—as long as we’re not stirring up enough drama to become the plot’s villain.

What else is different? Well, “bet” is more popular than other affirmatives like “y” and “kk” (online) or “kay” (offline).

“LOL” is still understood, but it’s now almost the equivalent of a polite chuckle rather than the outburst it used to communicate. Older laugh-intensifiers like “LMAO” and “ROTFL” have fallen out of favor in the younger circles. Younger users are more likely to go with “IJBOL” (I just burst out laughing) or 💀. The skull emoji signifies “I just died laughing.”

Here are a few other initialisms that have inspired a lot of searches about their meaning in recent years—and what they mean:

SMH: Shaking my head (in disdain)

ISTG: I swear to God

ICL: I can’t lie (similar to NGL, not gonna lie)

IYKYK: If you know, you know (tautology essentially meaning “This is an inside joke”)

IB: Inspired by (often used to give credit, as when a TikTok video has been “inspired by” another video)

SNM: Say no more

#XYZBCA—This one is technically meaningless, unless its meaning is “I would like some more TikTok views.” Some users popularized the hashtag as a way to show that they were especially plugged into TikTok culture. I doubt this one will have a very long shelf life, if it’s not uncool already.

Of course, a lot of slang can die fast under the microscope. It’s possible that even the act of listing these newer terms makes them less appealing to the zoomers who’d rather they be a secret code. Picture a 1980s skater kid listening to a college professor saying “Ah, yes…‘rad’! A shortening of the term ‘radical.’” Wouldn’t feel very rad for them, would it?

But I can’t help it—I love chasing knowledge. It keeps me young.