Gen Z has been credited with a variety of things — they’re blamed for tanking the bar industry, the economic decline, and stilted interactions in public. One of these many complaints include the slang that’s emerged from the generation. With words being thrown around that supposedly sounds like gibberish, older generations are tired of not understanding the younger generation.
Many of the words in current lexicon are brushed off as absurdist humor and nonsense, which is true in some cases, but that overshadows the true origin for most of the words categorized as “Gen Z slang.” The true origin lies in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) and bigoted internet forums.
Whether Gen Z is misunderstood or pegged correctly, there’s a language problem afoot.
What’s the AAVE Dialect? And What’s an Incel Forum?
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), as defined by Britannica, is a dialect of English that is primarily spoken by Black Americans. It emerged from the South parallel to the development of the American Southern English as nonstandard English and African languages blended on plantations. A defining part of AAVE is the culture attached to it. As Black Americans developed music, religious and ceremonial practices, and recipes, AAVE adapted with it. This results in the AAVE dialect being culture-specific, meaning attempts at speaking in this dialect sounds mocking, similar to a language being butchered.
The more sordid originator, incel forums, are areas of the internet that function as echo chambers filled with misogyny, racism, and more. These forums are home to “incels” — a portmanteau of involuntary celibate, or men that hate women and can’t have sex. Recently, the largest incel internet forum doubled in size and access to this pipeline has never been easier with platforms like X, formerly known as Twitter, and the streaming platform Kick. Kick, in particular, has been propelled into the public eye due to a long streak of controversies in its very short lifespan. With its new fame came Clavicular — more on him later.
Examples of Loaded Gen Z Slang
To examine the etymology at work, here are three examples: “finna,” “nooticing,” and the “-maxxing” suffix.
“Finna” is a condensed version of “fixing to,” meaning wanting to or in the process of performing an action largely said in the American South. If AAVE is a marker of culture and lived experience, “finna” is part of that. When it’s used by non-Black people, it sounds stilted and awkward; the word sounds foreign because it’s not their dialect of English.
An indicator is the blaccent — a portmanteau of “Black” and “accent” — adopted when non-Black people attempt to use AAVE as part of Gen Z slang. It’s appropriating a culture that is not theirs, but bastardizing it in the process by butchering grammatical rules and overloading sentences. “Finna” was a victim of this in 2022, when influencer Tara Lynn proclaimed, “I finna be in the pit.” when explaining buying concert tickets. It turned into a lengthy critique of misusing AAVE. Lynn uses it wrong and therefore sounds wrong to Black people who use AAVE. She ascribes herself to a culture that is not hers.
“Nooticing” is a complicated case in knowing when a word is reclaimed or not. This term emerged first in 2022 from online Nazi spaces as a combination of incel term “coomer” — a derogatory term towards men with porn addictions — and co-opted anti-semitic dogwhistle “noticing.” It broadened to greater alt-right forums to mean remarking on a person’s perceived ethnicity, assigned sex at birth, and sexuality in a bigoted way. Interestingly, by 2023, “nooticing” became something left-leaning people used to call out bigotry, instead of perpetuating it, or even just pointing out irregularities in a topic. However, it’s still used as a dogwhistle, branching into an entire, hate-fueled campaign.
In using a hashtag as popular as #nooticing under the cover of Gen Z slang also attaches the speaker to a dangerous Internet culture that the speaker may not be part of. The intent may be reclamation when Gen Z uses the term to condemn bigotry, however, that muddies when it is used as a pejorative.
This problem extends to joking, too. Currently, the Kick streamer Clavicular — 20-year-old Braden Peters — has been on a media run. Publications like The New York Times, The Guardian, and GQ have done profiles on him. Most recently, Clavicular was interviewed by 60 Minutes Australia, one that ended abruptly when Clavicular stormed out after being grouped with incel culture. His term “looksmaxxing” and the subsequent development of “-maxxing” as a suffix became commonplace on incel forums. It’s come to mean “ruthlessly maximizing everything” from your fiber intake to the way you smell.
Many Gen Z-ers began using it ironically to poke fun at the absurdity of Clavicular. However, it backfired as the term “looksmaxxing” is at an all-time high as Clavicular goes on a press tour. Even the ironic usage of this word propelled a mascot of incel culture — and the culture itself — to the forefront of the media, further spreading this harmful ideology.
Watch What You Mean and Mean What You Say
The issue with the origins of many Gen Z slang being AAVE and incel culture is that it joins a speaker to a culture that is not theirs. One is a rich and meaningful ethnic culture that continues to evolve and the other is an acidic, bigoted spew of hate that actively harms people.
The rebranding of AAVE as Gen Z slang strips AAVE of its cultural history and origins. In rewriting history, the AAVE dialect is assimilated into the popular, White American culture, completely losing its tie to its creators. It is whitewashing of a long dialectal history that is under enough threat as is. Punishments are often levied on actual Black Americans for speaking in AAVE that are overlooked when it’s redefined as slang and not a valid way of communicating in English.
With incel originated words, Gen Z risks being grouped with individuals who despise their very being. To adopt them into the Gen Z slang lexicon means to adopt those views — whether you want to or not. Intent does not always influence impact and to a marginalized person, the use of a repurposed incel term may read as unintended condonance.
It’s important to know all of what you’re saying, not just what comes out of your mouth.