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Pop Culture

Teacher's funny lesson explaining Gen Z terms turned into a brilliant history lesson

His teaching style totally slaps.

@larrylexicon/TikTok

This was a great moment. No cap.

What started out as a lighthearted class presentation quickly turned into a fabulous humanities lesson for all.

A teacher under the pseudonym Larry Lexicon has 1.8 million followers on TikTok, where they tune in to catch the funny-yet-inspirational interactions Lexicon has with his students.

Recently, Lexicon had his class rolling with his meticulously crafted PowerPoint explaining what certain Gen Z words mean.

"All year long I've been listening to you and making a list, which I've compiled here for you — the Gen Z Term Dictionary," he told the class, saying that they should speak up if anything was inaccurate.

Here’s what he came up with.

He took “bruh,” (aka the “staple of their generation”) to simply be the alternative for “bro,” except that “bruh!” can also be used as an exclamation. That was correct.

Although the word “Rizz,” was fairly new to him, he also correctly guessed that this was short for “charisma,” and thus refers to someone who has the ability to charm.

“You can use it in all kinds of ways. Like I’m the Rizzard of Oz!” he joked.

“Bussin” he took to mean that something was good, particularly food. Also correct. He even knew that “bussin’ bussin’” meant that something was really good. Clearly, Lexicon had done his homework.
@larrylexicon Let me know if there are more terms I need to add to my list! #larrylexicon #doyourbuckingvocab #genzterms #teacherlife #highschool #teachersoftiktok #school ♬ original sound - Larry Lexicon

However, a few people pointed out in the comments that many terms have roots in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). So in his third TikTok, Lexicon chose to make some revisions, and explained to the class why those revisions were important.

"I know you think you came up with a lot of these words, but you didn't, and they've been around for a long time," Lexicon said, noting how parts of AAVE language are at first “looked down upon by society as uneducated or thuggish” yet nonetheless sneak into daily vocabulary through pop culture.

"What happens is it makes its way into like, white suburbia, and you get a middle-aged dorky white dude mislabeling it just for a whole generation as a term dictionary," he said. "And it ends up erasing the importance of it."

@larrylexicon Food smacks, music slaps. Got it. #larrylexicon #aave #genzterms #teacherlife #teachersoftiktok #school #revisions #slaps ♬ original sound - Larry Lexicon

Lexicon then admitted that it was a mistake made by his own ignorance, which was okay, because he was able to take feedback, learn and act on it to grow.

“Being ignorant’s OK, but being willfully ignorant and not doing anything about it — not so OK."

Viewers who have been following Lexicon’s series applauded him for taking the time to make even a silly little powerpoint into an important conversation for everyone involved.

“I love how you’re learning it and then teaching it! This is education!” one person wrote.

“The fact that you came back and showed HOW TO LEARN and that it’s OK NOT TO KNOW but not ok to be willfully ignorant,” added another.

“This is a hell of an example for your students,” read the top comment.

In case you’re curious, here are all the words gathered so far for the newly re-titled "AAVE-inspired Gen Z term dictionary."

  • “Delulu”— delusional.
  • “Eepy”— really sleepy.
  • “Be so for real”— “Are you serious?”
  • “Witerawy”— “Literally,” but with emphasis.
  • "Baddie" — "A pretty girl, typically very curvy and independent." But can also be a guy.
  • "Gyatt" — A substitute for “gosh darn!” typically used in response to seeing a baddie.
  • "Getting sturdy" — A dance usually used when winning, kind of like a touchdown dance.
  • "Bet" — Another way of saying "OK" or "alright." Likely a shortened version of “you bet.”
  • "Slaps" — a verb for when a song is really good. Or food. Maybe? Debate’s still out on that one
  • "Cap" — A lie.
  • "No cap" — The truth.
  • “On god”— undeniable truth.

Lexicon plans to add new words each week throughout the remaining weeks of school. If you’d like to follow along, he can be found on TikTok.


This article originally appeared on 5.19.23

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Family

Gen X mom can’t understand why her Millenial and Gen Z kids watch TV with closed captions

She came around after she heard their reasoning.

via GibsonIsHere/TikTok and Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

The generational caption debate is a big deal.

If you’re a Gen Xer or older, one surprising habit the younger generations developed is their love of subtitles or closed-captioning while watching TV. To older generations, closed-captioning was only for grandparents, the hearing impaired, or when watching the news in a restaurant or gym.

But these days, studies show that Millenials and Gen Z are big fans of captions and regularly turn them on when watching their favorite streaming platforms. A recent study found that more than half of Gen Z and Millenials prefer captions on when watching television.

It’s believed that their preference for subtitles stems from the ubiquity of captioning on social media sites such as TikTok or Instagram.

This generational change perplexed TikTokker, teacher and Gen X mother, Kelly Gibson.

Always leaning! #genx #millennial #caption #learning

@gibsonishere

Always leaning! #genx #millennial #caption #learning

"I have three daughters, and they were here. Two of them are young millennials; the other one is an older Gen Z," Gibson explained in a video with over 400,000 views. "All of them were like, 'Why don't you have the captions on?'”

The mother couldn’t believe that her young kids preferred to watch TV like her grandparents. It just did not compute.

"My Gen X butt was shocked to find out that these young people have decided it's absolutely OK to watch movies with the captions going the whole time," she said jokingly.

But like a good mother, Gibson asked her girls why they preferred to watch TV with captioning, and their reason was straightforward. With subtitles, it’s easier not to lose track of the dialog if people in the room start talking.

"They get more out of it," Gibson explained. "If somebody talks to them in the middle of the show, they can still read and get what's going on even if they can't hear clearly. Why are young people so much smarter than us?"

At the end of the video, Gibson asked her followers whether they watch TV with subtitles on or off. "How many of you out there that are Millennials actually do this? And how many of you Gen Xers are so excited that this is potentially an option?" she asked.

Gibson received over 8,400 responses to her question, and people have a lot of different reasons for preferring to watch TV with captions.

“Millennial here. I have ADHD along with the occasional audio processing issues. I love captions. Also, sometimes I like crunchy movie snacks,” Jessileemorgan wrote. “We use the captions because I (GenX) hate the inability of the movie makers to keep sound consistent. Ex: explosions too loud conversation to quiet,” Lara Lytle added.

“My kids do this and since we can’t figure out how to turn it off when they leave, it’s become a staple. GenX here!” Kelly Piller wrote.

The interesting takeaway from the debate is that anti-caption people often believe that having writing on the screen distracts them from the movie. They’re too busy reading the bottom of the screen to feel the film's emotional impact or enjoy the acting and cinematography. However, those who are pro-caption say that it makes the film easier to understand and helps them stay involved with the film when there are distractions.

So who’s right? The person holding the remote.


This article originally appeared on 1.11.24

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Pop Culture

Mom has her Gen Z daughter rate 90s teenage heartthrobs and the reviews are so hilarious

We still love you, Zach Morris.

@caitlin.the.realtor/TikTok, used with permission

Wait, so 90's fashion is in, but 90's hair is out?

Every era has its own version of what’s attractive. And very rarely does that aesthetic hold power with the following generation. In fact, it often becomes the opposite of cool.

Just think of Elvis. He might have been a universal sex symbol for a time, but it also wasn’t long before his pompadour became passé. Same goes for Paul Newman’s rugged manliness, David Cassidy’s babyface, Tom Selleck’s mustache. Indeed, for everything a season.

Which brings us to the 90s. The age of beach blonde surfer boys (real surfing skills not required, but a plus). Of flannel, lots of flannel, and super chiseled bodies. Let’s not forget this was the dawning of the term “metrosexual,” and also the time period that brought us that Calvin Klein ad with Mark Wahlburg.

How exactly would these guys measure up with the Gen Z kids today?

That was the question Caitlin Baudhuin aimed to answer when she decided to have her Gen Z daughter rate teenage heartthrobs of the 90’s and 00s on a scale of 1-10.

Let’s just say…none of them made the cut. Which saddened many a millennial and Gen Xer.

First up: Zachery Ty Bryan, who played eldest brother Brad Taylor on “Home Improvement.”

Baudhuin’s daughter graciously gave Bryan a 3. That’s the numerical version of “meh.”

Next: James Van Der Beek from “Dawson’s Creek.”

Appalled, her daughter says “It's so bad. It's like, I don't even know.”

At this point, you must be thinking, “well, she must be a Joshua Jackson kind of gal.” As Baudhuin explains, you were either Team Dawson, played by Vanderbeek, or Team Pacey, played by Jackson.

But after being shown a picture of Jackson, Baudhuin’s daughter makes a face like she’s just had bad shrimp, and says, “That's two. The last one was a four, that one's so bad. He's so ugly.” Ouch.

Finally, Baudhuin’s Hail Mary is “Saved By The Bell”’s Mark-Paul Gosselaar, aka Zack Morris.
@caitlin.the.realtor Episode 1 of my daughter rating my teen hollywood heartthrobs of the 90’s. 🤦🏻‍♀️🤣 #greenscreen #90skids #90steenheartthrobs #dawsonscreek #teampacey ♬ original sound - Caitlin - Memphis, TN Realtor

Before ranking Gosselaar at a measly 2.5, her daughter says, “Why is his smile like, it looks like he's not even happy. It looks like he's fake smiling. And then like his hair, like why is that a sleek back?”

This last one seemed to hurt folks the most. “The disrespect for Zach Morris!” one person wrote. Meanwhile, another said that ranking him that low was “criminal.”

But wait, there’s more. Baudhuin did a round two, many heartthrobs inspired by viewer suggestions. See the victims below:

-Shane West from “A Walk To Remember” got a 3, primarily due to his spiky hair. Baudhuin’s daughter is clearly not a fan of 90’s hairstyles. To which her mother asks, “have you seen boy’s hair these days?” Fair point!

-Freddie Prince Jr. from “She’s all That.” Another 3.

-Joseph Gordon Levitt, as seen in his role for “10 Things I Hate About You.” Levitt got a whopping 4 or 5! Progress!

-Erik von Detten from “The Princess Diaries.” This time Baudhuin asked her daughter to “ignore the greasy hair.” Which must have worked, cause he got a 5.5, thus winning this unofficial beauty contest. Still brutal though.

@caitlin.the.realtor Part 2 of my daughter rating 90’s/early 2000’s heartthrobs. We have a sort of winner! 🎉 #greenscreen #90s #early2000s #heartthrobs #awalktoremember #princessdiariesmovie #shesallthat #10thingsihateabout ♬ original sound - Caitlin - Memphis, TN Realtor

So there you have it. Beauty trends indeed come and go for men too. And on the bright side, even if our childhood icons don’t have the Timothée Chalamet Effect, it’s nice to know that by and large the definition of heartthrob has become way more diverse and inclusive. Thanks for that Gen Z, even though your candidness is savage sometimes.

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Pop Culture

Shocked girl asks older people how they looked 'trivial' things up before Google

To no one's surprise Adelman did not like these answers.

Sarah Adelman|TikTok

Gen Zer asks what older generations did before Google

Google and smart phones have been around so long that Gen Z doesn't know a time before those things existed. They may have Googled what a card catalog was used for but plenty of them don't know the pressure we all felt having to learn the dewy decimal system while walking around the library with a card with numbers scribbled on it.

They've never experienced the frustration of having an out of date Encyclopedia collection from the thrift store that was missing books "D" and "X-Z" when you had a research assignment due. Oh, sweet tech savvy - we not me generation, doesn't understand that riding shot gun on a road trip meant you were suddenly a pirate with an Atlas map bigger than the dashboard.

Even as someone that was alive when having a rotary phone was the norm, I sometimes forget what life was like before all of the technological luxuries. It's not surprising that Gen Z is confused on how we survived back then without knowledge at our fingertips, so when one of them asked, Gen X, Xennials and elder Millennials entered the chat.

Sarah Adelman posted a video to TikTok with the caption, "pls help I was born in 1997." In the video she says she has a genuine question for older people and that's when she asks, "what did you do before you could look something up?"

Adelman gives the example of something that isn't in the dictionary or Encyclopedia. She wants to know what someone would do if there was a celebrity whose name you couldn't remember or other trivial things like that.

"Would you go to the library? Like gen..and like okay, without Google Maps, like I know that there was MapQuest but before that like genuinely what would you do? Would you just accept not knowing," the Gen Zer asks before saying she doesn't think she would be able to survive without knowing.

Unfortunately for Adelman, the older generations informed her that this is exactly what we did back in the 1900s. We simply wondered about things that popped into our heads. In fact, since we knew there was no way of knowing the name of the actor that played on "Matlock" for one episode, we didn't bother attempting to look it up. You'd either see them again in a rerun or it would come to you randomly while trying to locate a payphone.

"The name of an actor would come up to you 3 weeks later while you were eating a bowl of cereal," one person writes.

"You would just be forever annoyed by it, keep it bookmarked in the back of your mind, then realize one day that dude's name is Ray Liotta or something," another commenter says.

"Ummm. I love how you reference Mapquest. We used maps. Just maps. Good ole paper maps," someone writes.

"We just lived in blissful ignorance and then in the middle of a conversation about pretzels a week later we would just yell out the answer," one person reveals.

To no one's surprise Adelman did not like these answers. She replied to someone explaining that we simply wondered with, "I could never." The official Google account even chimed in saying, "however it worked, sounds bad."

Ehh, it wasn't so bad. We didn't know any different, but in a way Adelman had that good old fashioned pre-Google experience when she posed this question. You can watch the perplexed girl's video below:

@sarah_adelman

Pls help i was born in 1997 #90s #genz #90skids #iphone #rant #question #funny

This article originally appeared on 9.7.23

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