A linguist has revealed the popular slang term that he predicts will go out of style any day.
Adam Aleksic, who goes by @etymologynerd on TikTok, made the prediction back in mid-April.
‘I’m calling it now,’ he began a one-minute explanation on the matter.
His prediction: that ‘straight white girls’ would cease to use a very popular term – which describes ‘basically anything cool, pretty, awesome,’ per Urban Dictionary – in roughly one month’s time.
But fans of the popular phrase should not fear for their vocabulary, because Adam says there is already a new word coming into fashion that will replace it.
Adam Aleksic, who goes by @etymologynerd on TikTok , made the prediction back in mid-April
The term that’s on the outs, he said, is ‘slay’ – which according to Urban Dictionary, means ‘basically anything cool, pretty, awesome’
The term that’s on the outs? ‘Slay.’
In its place, Adam forecasted that phrase ‘I’m gagged’ would replace ‘slay’ as an expression of endearment or general admiration.
‘We have one month until the straight white girls start saying “I’m gagged” instead of “slay,” he began.
‘There’s a lot of evidence that the word is currently trending in the gay community, the same way that “slay” was trending in early 2022 before it became viral,’ Adam described.
With this, he displayed graphs showing the recent uptick of Google search terms ‘gagged meaning’ and ‘gagged slang.’
‘And part of this is from the Nicki Minaj Gag City memes,’ Adam pointed out, referencing the all-pink ‘Gag City’ imagery originally ideated as part of the marketing push for Nick Minaj’s new album Pink Friday 2.
Nicki’s fanbase rolled with the concept, proliferating AI-generated memes illustrating various sights from within the fictional Gag City, as Mashable reported.
‘We’re also seeing an increase in the interjections “gag” and “I’m gagged” as a reaction to something exciting in a way that’s only going to accelerate,’ Adam continued.
In place of slay, Adam predicted that ‘gagged’ as a term of endearment or admiration is about to go truly mainstream
He further acknowledged that the fictional ‘Gag City’ – AI-generated imagery of which was central to the marketing of Nicki Minaj’s new album – aided the term’s recent surge in usage
‘And if we know anything about how language spreads on social media, it’s that straight white girls adopt what gay and Black people are saying, and then everyone else adopts what straight white girls are saying,’ he elaborated.
‘That’s exactly what happened with the word “slay,” “serve,” “tea,” and “mother.”
‘They all came from the ballroom scene in the late 1980s, became viral and Tik Tok, and then all of a sudden, everybody started saying it.
‘But “slay” is starting to fall out of fashion now, precisely because everyone’s saying it,’ he went on.
The original appeal of ‘slay’ and similar terms was that it ‘signaled in-group status to gay communities,’ Adam highlighted.
‘But now it’s lost that exclusivity, especially in those communities.
‘This is also why the word “gag” is now trending. It’s the new way to signal queer excitement now that “slay” has been appropriated by everyone else.
‘And it’s going to be taken too, because we’re in a never-ending cycle of marginalized groups creating slang as a tool of power to build community and shared identity and then other people taking that slang to capitalize on its perceived coolness,’ he concluded.
Some claimed they’d been saying ‘gagged’ for years – while others chimed in to say they’d indeed been hearing people say ‘gagged’ more frequently
Thousands took to the comments, expressing a variety of reactions to Adam’s take – with many claiming they’d been saying ‘gagged’ for years, and others confirming they in fact had been hearing people say ‘gagged’ more frequently as of late.
In spite of the power dynamics Adam described at play in the rise of a term or phrase with origins in the once deeply marginalized ballroom scene, most seemed thrilled at the prospect of ‘gagged’ being more widely used.
‘You have gagged me with this analysis,’ one wrote.
‘Ive been using gag since like 2019 lol,’ a second insisted.
‘Ye it’s already a thing where I live,’ a third echoed.
‘A straight white man said that to me and I was gagged after that’, a fourth claimed.
‘Someone in my chorus class said this to me … it actually took me by such a shock,’ admitted a fifth.
‘I thought it was already mainstream?!’ another questioned, to which Adam responded: ‘maybe in your social circle, but not in the population at large.’
Yet another seemed oddly vindicated at the inevitably of ‘gagged’ going truly mainstream, writing: ‘I HAVE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS THANK YOU.’