This is a list of slang terminology used by

Generation Z Generation Z (or more commonly Gen Z for short), colloquially known as zoomers, is the Western world, Western demography, demographic Cohort (statistics), cohort succeeding Millennials and preceding Generation Alpha. Researchers and popular me ...

, or those born roughly between the late 1990s to the early 2010s in the

Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and state (polity), states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.

. Generation Z slang differs significantly from slang terminology of prior

generation A generation refers to all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively. It can also be described as, "the average period, generally considered to be about 20–⁠30 years, during which children are born and gr ...

s in history in that Gen Z was the first generation to grow up entirely within the

internet age The Internet Age refers to the time period since the Internet became widely available to the public for general use, and the resulting impacts on and fundamental changes in the nature of global communication and access to information. The beginni ...

. Due to this, much of their slang originates from

online media Digital media is any communication media that operate in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronics device. '' ...

such as

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

apps like

TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

, or

Twitch Twitch may refer to: Biology * Muscle contraction ** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation ** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction ** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle con ...

. The ease of communication that comes with the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

also results in their slang being proliferated to a greater and swifter extent. Much of Gen Z slang today was not termed by members of the generation itself but rather were terms already in use by certain communities. In many cases, Gen Z slang is derived from

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

vernacular English and

LGBTQ+ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is ...

slang. This has led to accusations of

cultural appropriation Cultural appropriation is the inappropriate or unacknowledged adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of another culture or identity. This can be controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from ...

List

Notes

References