As the world travels through the modern, media-filled era, trends and diction on social platforms spread like a raging fire–quick, contagious and influential. As a result, new generations must quickly adapt to understand new jokes and expressions. Schools are a window into these ever-changing trends, and Chelsea High School is no exception. CHS Students rely on slang in everyday communication; while slang has existed long before social media, phrases like pookie, delulu, or rizz gained popularity faster due to connections formed through online activity. This connection shifts into social interactions between peers, and slang becomes culture.

“I feel like it’s just been something that over time has been a part of the culture. I feel like as that happened, and social media got more popular, it kind of got immersed into our vocabulary,” junior Keegan Hill said.

Recurring words or phrases can be a bridge between the gap of years or culture, but they also have a time and a place. Sophomore Cecilia O’Rourke feels that the jokes and quotes that shape different generations could give a more negative impression, rather than positive one.

“I think it makes us seem less intelligent when we use slang. And I think it’s making the world kind of less intelligent as a whole, when we use it instead of actual words,” O’Rourke said.

Although O’Rourke finds that slang at a worldwide scale can dilute more advanced language, it can also be a resource for attachment and companionship. Sometimes slang words can be shorthand for the full word like sus means suspicious, other words are more original like drip meaning stylish or cheugy meaning old. Those words that are further disconnected to their definition serve as a special cypher.

“I think it’s a way for our generation to connect, like having our own little secret language or code, so that we can talk to each other and we can relate to each other with it,” O’Rourke said.

Not every conversation calls for an inside joke, or the newest TikTok trend, but Hill feels that when the conversation is fitting, the quality of conversation can greatly increase.

“I feel like it can be better [discussions] if used in the right way, like context and manner, and it depends on if it’s appropriate or not for what you’re talking about,” Hill said.

Each generation’s habits and traditions are different from their predecessor’s, and so is their vocabulary. While gen Z uses slang, gen alpha uses “Brain Rot,” A term popularized by the generation to label more nonsense jokes and terms like skibidi toilet or fanum tax. High schools today find themselves in an interesting environment, as two generations coexist.

“I feel like with slang, there’s more of a purpose with it and we actually can use it in our everyday word choice, but brain rot is just really stupid,” O’Rourke said.

The generational difference in schools can be drastic with adult staff and multiple generations in the student body, but the main thing that differentiates generations is the media they were exposed to.Generations come with their own personalized language created by their joint experience through the years.

“ It’s about their culture and what they were brought up with,” O’Rouke said. “So millennials, music taste is gonna be 80s and 90s music, and they can bond over that and their famous people during that time, like Britney Spears and stuff. And then Gen Z, it’s more like Benson Boone.”