Teens’ Text and Social Media Slang Lives Rent-Free in Parents’ Heads

When parents ask teens what rizz means, the kids think that’s sus. They’re getting salty, and you just want to yeet them. IYKYK.

Teen talk can seem like it’s in a different language. Slang and abbreviations (and so much else) seems incomprehensible. Parents don’t love having to Google every time they get a text from a teen, and they want to make sure they’re not panicking unnecessarily when they scan social media to discover their kids are pushin’ P(Opens in a new window). So Preply conducted a survey(Opens in a new window) of parents of teens to find out what’s getting lost in translation, and it came up with a handy guide to definitions.

There’s some slang that most parents get. The majority say they know the meaning of salty (70%), bougie (67%), sus (65%), bet (63%), and extra (62%). They might also be familiar with drip(Opens in a new window), since it’s the tenth most popular slang term of the year.

But when asked to define the more esoteric rizz, some parents rely on their best guess: “I think ‘rizz’ means fancy or luxurious,” and “Rizzle razzle, like something that’s dazzling.” (We worry about what would happen if someone asked those parents what they know about Livvy rizzing up Baby Gronk, the Drip King(Opens in a new window).)

(Credit: Preply)

Half of the parents surveyed say they try to stay on top of slang to keep their kids safe. So whether they’re following their kids on social media with a finsta (that’s a fake Instagram account) or checking their phones, they want to know what teens are saying. Three out of five parents say they want to be up on slang to connect better with their teens, and the same number say they have Googled a term after seeing or hearing their teen use it. 

Some parents go so far as to use slang themselves, which we imagine their kids just love. Survey respondents admit to using sus (29%), salty (25%), bet (23%), extra (23%), bougie (22%), yeet (21%), cap (20%), and bussin’ (17%), to which revelation we must add the next two on the list: oof (16%) and sheesh (14%).