Gen X explains Gen Z: Volume One

Yeah, you probably only know about their main

Yes Rebel Wilson, you are but just barely

Me: Gen X, but like a young Gen X (born in 1977)

My daughters: squarely Gen Z (born in 2005 and 2007)

Count me among the many who find Gen Z to be an astonishingly delightful generation of humans! Something I love the most is having conversations with my girls about language. I’m a word nerd through and through, and my fascination with words and phrases has definitely rubbed off on them.

I’ve been mentally composing a post about a Drarry fic¹ I just read that explores multiverse theory, the veracity of dreams, and the nature of grief, but I’m shelving that to start a series (??) where I tell you what I know about what the kids these days are saying. Let’s learn together!

I started thinking about writing about this when I told close friends that I had finally started a spam account on Instagram.

Spam account??

Not just a few friends my age who don’t have teens yet were confused. Isn’t spam bad? (Internet spam = bad. Actual spam, sliced and browned in a skillet and added to. a bowl of ramen = very good.)

I realized this is just one way that Gen Z has fun with language, constantly adapting phrases they’ve heard from the Olds and making them their own. Today in Volume One of Gen X explains Gen Z, we’ll cover spam accounts, fuck ass bobs, and studs.

SPAM ACCOUNT

noun

Refers to an Instagram account created exclusively for one’s closest friends where you share silly memes, unedited pictures, inside jokes, etc. Used primarily for Stories. Antonym: main account - your public-facing account where you post polished, aesthetic, vanilla pictures. Your mom follows your main, your inner circle follows your spam.

Gen Z uses Instagram in so many ways that are so foreign to me. They hold long-form conversations in Messages. They rarely post to the main feed. They create entire spam accounts instead of using the Close Friends features. I find it all deliciously fascinating, even though I myself have a very skittish relationship with the app.

this is so dumb lol

I missed sharing slices of life with friends, and I know my friends were missing seeing what I was up to on social media, so my 16 year old helped me set up a spam account. I’m still terrible at IG, but I’m trying.

Okay, onto the next term:

FUCK ASS BOB

noun

A hairstyle where the hair is properly parted down the middle and bobbed at the chin. Most precisely with no bangs, though in under specific conditions, exceptions are made. The kind of bob that would ask to speak to the manager.

Example:

Sourced here but seen across the world wide web

The etymology of the fuck ass bob goes back to 2017. A short video was posted to Vine of two Black teenage girls arguing in a classroom, and one of them says “You talk so much … with this fuck ass bob.” I think it’s important to note that they are Black teens because the vast, vast majority of phrases that make their way into Gen Z’s lexicon specifically and internet vernacular in general come from AAVE. And that’s a conversation for a different day.

Probably most of you have come across this term at this point in time and space. What I find interesting is that Gen Z is evolving the descriptor fuck ass to go beyond describing Kat from Euphoria and are now using it as a description of anything that is aggressively obnoxious.

Case in point: I sent my oldest daughter this TikTok which basically suggests naming your thinking mind a silly name and then treating it like an assistant. She responded, “That’s a really good idea. I’m gonna give my anxiety some fuck ass name.”

And speaking of TikTok, it is on this blessing-and-curse of an app that so very many of my conversations with my Gen Zers begin. Let’s wrap up Volume One of this series (??)² with stud.

And before I give you the definition, I need for you to watch this TikTok. I am embedding it for ease of viewing:

@kmonroe0125They hurt my baby feelings SOOOO BAD!!!! 😂😂😂😂😂 #blacktiktok #boymom #family #familytime #dadsoftiktok #familycomedy

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OKAY. I am the dad in this video looking on in confusion. “Do you know what a stud is?” I am here to tell you, I did not.

STUD

adjective

A masculine-presenting (masc) lesbian. Though at times stud would be used to describe masc lesbians generally, it is used most correctly as a self-reference by Black masculine-identifying lesbians.

As a Gen Xer, I grew up knowing and using the descriptor stud as a way to describe a hot guy, particularly an athletically built hot guy. Hence my shared confusion with the dad in the TikTok! I watched that video probably five times before I sent it to my daughters to ask “Okay, what am I missing here?”

You can read this piece by Kris Chesson at Autostraddle on why it is a term from and for the Black queer community.

Okay, friends of every generation, I think that’s it for Volume One of Gen X explains Gen Z. Please do feel free to share all of your recent language-related discoveries with the class!

Working through my Instagram anxiety,

Meg

1. Yes I am still reading Drarry fics. Do not come for me unless I send for you.

2. Look, this might be the only volume of this series. I don’t know. I refuse to promise anything. However, if YOU come across words or phrases you want an explainer on, please send them my way and I will do the reporting.