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'What on Earth is a GYAT?' Millennial feels ancient after learning the latest Gen Alpha slang

Now, we have Gen Alpha teenagers.

via NicolePellegrin0/TikTok

Nicole Pellegrino talks to ger Gen Alpha sister about slang.

Once you finally discover what Gen Zers mean when they exclaim “Slay!” every third sentence, Gen Alpha has arrived to make you feel even older. Gen Alpha is the official title for those born between 2010 and 2023, and the most senior have just become teenagers.

In a new TikTok video seen over 5.4 million times, Nicole Pellegrino, a Millennial-aged director of TikTok strategy for a media company, attempts to communicate with her Gen Alpha sister Simone, and bestie, using slang that she has no idea is “out.”

"I can't say, like, 'That's a slay'?" Pellegrino asks.

"It's not even funny how 'out' slay is," Simone replies.

WARNING: Video has adult language.

@nicolepellegrin0
Why did noone tell me slay is out #genalpha #genalphatok #genalphaslang

In the video, Pellegrino is most confused by the term GYAT (which not everyone agrees is an acronym). "What on Earth is a GYAT? A yacht?" Pellegrino asked. The Gen Alpha girls couldn’t believe that she had no idea what the acronym meant.

According to the girls, GYAT is a way to compliment someone who has a nice butt. It stands for Girl Your A** Is Thick. "If you have a BBL or if your butt shakes when you walk, that's when you would yell GYAT at somebody,” Simone clarified.

The language lesson caught many older people off guard who weren’t ready for another generation to crop up and confuse them. "I’m still trying to learn all the Gen Z slang and now there’s Gen Alpha slang too. Man, I am so old!" Jwoo991 wrote in the comments. "Why are Gen Alpha like fully formed beings? I thought they were still babies," India added.

@nicolepellegrin0
Replying to @hollymadison Gen Alpha’s out here using Siri to write essays 😹 #genalpha #genalphaslang

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gen alpha

Why retiring the gun emoji isn't as silly as it sounds.

Starting in September, Apple will make another update to its iconic and useful emojis.

As part of the update, the company is getting rid of the pistol emoji and replacing it with a green water gun.

While Apple hasn't officially addressed the reasons for the swap, it seems pretty clear that, after another year filled with horrific gun violence, the company is responding in some small way to America's frustration with gun culture.

Before I continue, let's get one thing straight:

No, of course swapping the pistol emoji for a water gun is not going to solve America's gun problem.

Obviously.

You will never see a news story with the headline: "New Water Gun Emoji Directly Responsible for Decline in Gun Violence."

HOWEVER...

Ask yourself another question: "Is one person recycling water bottles going to solve global warming?" No, of course not.

Is recycling those water bottles still the right thing to do? Will it still help make a small dent of progress in the face of an overwhelming challenge? Yes.

Like it or not — emojis are a big part of our cultural lingo.

They're not the biggest, most important, or most central part of our culture, but millions of people use them regularly to communicate, laugh, make plans, and occasionally to represent body parts ("Peach and eggplant emoji" to you as well, good sir).

Photo by Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images.

Which is why emojis have been updated on multiple occasions to better represent the times we're in.

In 2015, a variety of skin tones were added to help represent people of different races, same-sex couples and families were added to help represent people of different sexual orientations, and this latest update will also include a pride flag and a more diverse array of female emojis, after an official bid from Google.

There's nothing wrong with adding and changing emojis to be more representative of the things we talk and care about, while also acknowledging that the cartoon keyboard in our phones is not the axis on which the most critical conversations of our culture turn.

But I digress. Back to the revolver emoji. It's already pretty troubling.

Aside from being yet another byproduct of our gun-obsessed culture, the gun emoji has been a key factor in a few real-life incidences in which the police got involved.

In February 2016, a 12-year-old got in trouble with the police after posting a message on Instagram containing the gun emoji along with the bomb and knife emoji. In Brooklyn, New York, a teenager was arrested on terror charges after making a perceived threat to police officers using emojis. His charges were eventually dropped.

No word yet on the swords or the clearly dangerous chemistry set. Screengrab of iPhone emojis taken on my phone.

As far as people being frustrated at gun culture, though, you probably don't need reminding that 2016 has been as close to a tipping-point year as we've ever had in recent memory.

Multiple police-involved shootings, a horrific massacre at a nightclub in Orlando, an outright attack on the Dallas Police Department, and hundreds of mass-shooting deaths have created an environment where lawmakers are (finally, maybe, possibly, hopefully) ready to step up and do something.

Rep. John Lewis speaking to the press during his gun control protest in June 2016. Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty Images.

There was a 15-hour filibuster on gun control after the Orlando shooting as well as a congressional sit-in led by civil rights activist Rep. John Lewis.

People have also been taking out their frustration toward the lack of action on gun control in little ways, like defacing posters for the film "Jason Bourne," which prominently feature actor Matt Damon holding a gun.

People have had it with a culture that consistently fetishizes and glorifies guns, and replacing the gun emoji with a water pistol is a small way to lessen the presence of guns in daily conversation.

No, the water pistol emoji isn't going to solve America's problem with gun violence, or make you dinner, or tie your shoes for you, or make "True Detective" great again, or anything else.

We still need to work on gun control. We still need to stand up to gun lobbyists and politicians and others who stand by, complicit, as gun violence continues to claim more lives in America than anywhere else in the world.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

In the meantime, we can also appreciate that the revolver emoji is now a more fun and less deadly water pistol.

It's a small gesture that shows that we, as a people, with our incredible technology and advanced methods of communication, don't need a little cartoon gun to live our lives or communicate with each other.

Who doesn't love emojis?

They're so useful and versatile! You can use them to react perfectly to almost any situation, cryptically label a Venmo payment, and even rap the entirety of a Kanye West song.

They're fun, adorable, and still relevant, despite parents everywhere overusing the :poop-emoji: out of them.

Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images.

Emojis are used to symbolize ideas, objects, places, and, of course, people. But it's people that emojis aren't always the best at representing.

As long as there have been emojis, there have been campaigns to expand and diversify them so that more groups of people are included.

For the most part, those campaigns have been successful; different skin tones were added to help represent people of different races, same-sex couples and families were added to help represent people of different sexual orientations, and last summer, a taco emoji was added because tacos.

Yup. Emoji cookies. Photo via Rosanna Pansino/YouTube.

Despite several inclusive expansions to the basic emoji library, one gap has stubbornly remained: emojis for women.

More specifically, emojis for women who want to be depicted as more than a bride, a princess, a flamenco dancer, or twin Playboy bunnies.

There's also an emoji of a woman with her hand raised next to her face like she's carrying an invisible cocktail tray. I was never quite sure what was up with her, but a quick search in the Emojipedia (because that's a thing) shows that her official name is Information Desk Person. So ... she's a secretary.

While those emojis are very useful for brides, princesses, flamenco dancers, Playboy bunnies, and information desk people, there's a lot of women out there who aren't those things and therefore aren't represented on the emoji keyboard.

Men on the other hand get to be police officers, (napping?) construction workers, royal guardsmen, detectives, Santa Clauses, and Tom Selleck. Not to mention, and I promise I am not making this up: There's even an emoji for the niche audience of levitating businessmen. Regardless, when it comes to emoji, men have options.

The lack of female representation in emojis is not a new observation, either.

Just two months ago, Always created a campaign highlighting the need for more girl-powered emojis, and people have been pointing out the specific lack of professional women in emojis for a while.

Photo via Always/YouTube.

Now though, something is actually being done about it.

Google has handed in an official bid to add more professional women to the list of official emojis.

The 10 page proposal would add 13 emojis for different careers, including a doctor, a scientist, a mechanic, and a college graduate.

"No matter where you look, women are gaining visibility and recognition as never before," says Google. "Isn’t it time that emoji also reflect the reality that women play a key role in every walk of life and in every profession?"

Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images.

Google also noted that, when you consider that women are the most frequent users of emojis, it's ludicrous to think that they're still so underrepresented.

Yes, emoji are just little cartoon faces. But this matters because people are exposed to emojis at younger and younger ages.

Texting is the primary method of communication amongst young people. That means more and more young women and men are scrolling through emojis and only seeing women depicted as princesses and secretaries.

Whether you believe it or not, that sends a message.

Photo by Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images.

Consider the gender gap in STEM jobs, for example. Or the lack of female CEOs. Wouldn't it be great if girls saw images of themselves as scientists, engineers, and businesswomen within their primary method of communication? Wouldn't it be great if boys grew up seeing women depicted as their equals and not just their secretaries and wives?

Sure it's a small step in a huge problem, but it could be a really important one. Representation matters, and we use those little cartoon faces to represent ourselves all the time. It's only right that they represent all of us.

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Some say emojis promote gender stereotypes. A new update looks to fix that.

Women and girls send more than a billion emojis every single day.

Not familiar with emojis? They're those little cartoon images you might share via text or social media to convey, as their name would suggest, an emotion. Here are a few examples:

All GIFs from Always/YouTube.

While new emojis are being added all the time, there's one little problem with the ones we already have: They're pretty stereotypical when it comes to gender roles.

The girl emojis have a tendency to be very ... pink. There's an emoji of a woman getting her hair cut, a bride, two women dancing in bunny costumes, a princess, and a woman dancing on her own — you get the idea.

On the other hand, men and boys have many emoji options: athletes, business professionals, police officers, firefighters, and even detectives.

Right around puberty, girls' self-esteem takes a big hit.

A study by the American Association of University Women found that between grade school and high school, girls' confidence in themselves drops by nearly half. While boys also become less confident over time, the drop is much smaller.

That drop in self-esteem also affected girls in other ways. For example, girls were found to be only half as likely to stand up for themselves and far less likely than boys to believe they're "good at a lot of things." The reduced self-esteem correlated to a decreased interest in math and science.

But this problem has existed for decades, so what does it have to do with emojis? It's more a question of how emojis can help with this existing problem.

In a survey done by Always, two-thirds of girls reported feeling like emojis imply they're limited in what they can do because they're girls.

More than half of girls surveyed felt the emojis were stereotypical, and three-quarters said they'd like to see a more diverse set of emojis that aren't just doing stereotypically feminine activities, like getting manicures or having their hair cut.

Reinforcing an idea that girls are limited to certain roles in life only weakens teens' already vulnerable state of self-esteem. On the other hand, if they were explicitly given the message that they can be and do whatever they want in life, that could have a big impact in a positive way.

That's why Always started responding to emoji requests on their Twitter profile.

While you won't be able to use these emojis in text messages, it's still kind of cool to see these quick artist renderings of what more gender-diverse emojis might look like.

And here's something even better: Late last month, a new, gender-diverse set of emojis were submitted to Unicode, the group that decides which ones end up on your phone.

In an interview with Time, Mark Davis, the co-founder and president of Unicode Consortium, discussed the rise of the emoji (an emoji was Oxford Dictionaries 2015 Word of the Year), but also touched on some of the specifics of the latest, more gender-diverse draft of the emoji set.

According to Davis, the new set "will allow vendors to be able to support a male runner, a female runner, and if they want to, a neutral runner of no specific gender." In other words, it'll let you swap the gender of existing emoji options.

Problem, meet solution. Bam!

Whether or not this is a big deal in your life personally, for a lot of people, this could be a major win.

Watch the Always #LikeAGirl video below.