Memes – the language of Gen Z.
A language I am trying to learn, at least to the extent that I continue being the ‘cool’ mom and don’t get classified with the Dinosaurs.
Which is not easy for me! As an Indian I am already multilingual – the medium of instruction (English – UK), national language, state language, mother tongue and finally one foreign language. This was not easy for me; I am simply not linguistically inclined and just about passed language subjects in school.
Then once I started working, a whole new language opened up to me. English – USA. Spellings that I had taken 12 years to master were now underlined in red by the spell-checker. Humiliating. So I started doing the tightrope between the language of the commonwealth (intra-office memos) and the language of Uncle Sam (client emails).
Now I’m the mother of a teenager and I’m finding myself learn yet another language. English – Gen Z.
It’s no longer cool to be cool. Now I need to be fly.
In my youth dope referred to a banned substance. Now, I’m told, if ‘its dope’, ‘its fly’.
Memes, we were taught were metaphorically mutating social and cultural genes. A behavioural (I’m not changing the spelling, I was educated in English-UK) style. Today memes are a pictorial language that Gen Z uses to talk on social media. Hold it. They don’t talk – they tweet, they troll, they flame and they meme.
When I was a teen I had to whisper out of my mother’s earshot if I did not want her to know what I was saying. Today, that’s not a problem. I mean, it’s not like I can understand what they are saying even if I hear them.
Burn
Shots Fired
Challenge Accepted
Somebody please translate this conversation for me. And no, its not a battle scene. Well, may be the start of a meme battle. But as far as I’m concerned…
Epic Fail
Seriously dude. What’s wrong with just regular fail? Why does everything have to be epic with these kids?
I figured one thing out through – when in doubt, go with…
Hodor
#dumbass
This post is part of SoCS
