I fear I have mislead you all with my post title as I have no idea how to communicate with the average high-schooler anymore. In my defense, I just wanted to grab your attention so I could then admit that I should have added "I Need To Know" first. I thought I had a good grasp on the "skill of teen talk" until social platforms like Twitter came out that literally fast forwarded the creation of new and really, really confusing acronyms due to their limited amount of characters allowed per tweet. The manufacturing of new acronyms over text was bad enough before the majority of kids realized there was a platform that they could have a whole conversation with someone else while allowing others to view the whole "discussion". I use the term 'discussion' loosely because I'm at a complete loss for what those things are that go on between two young people on there. Oh, I follow my kid on all of her social media sites, I just don't understand what the hell I'm reading sometimes! I'm hoping that discussing this out loud (yes, I know it's not really out loud) we can start making some educated guesses without exposing our lack of knowledge to too many young people...thus making my post title somewhat correct.
Remember the good ole days when acronyms had almost this unwritten three-word maximum rule? I mean who doesn't immediately get what FYI means? Just in case, it's For Your Information. But seriously don't even tell me you don't know that one. But see now that's not good enough for the average teen; kids need to make it complicated and type something like FYIAEOILY...D (for your information and eyes only I love you...duh). Okay, so I made that one up but I'm not even close to joking when it comes to what they have "shortened" in to some sort of messaging system that resembles and drunk guy trying to recite the alphabet! To be fair they have kept some simple acronyms like ILY, I love you, or IKR, which is "I know right"...but I still had to study that IKR one for a while to figure it out. For the life of me I couldn't think of what word started with a "k" that my kid was saying to me. I won't lie, I was starting to think I should punish her for some risque word she was thinking of that she took the first letter from but again I was stumped. I had no context because I had sent her a picture of it raining outside! Turns out she was agreeing with me in the way that you and I would say "yeah, I know it's terrible out there and I hope you're enjoying a nice cup of that cocoa you love so much while I'm here in school." Okay, so maybe IKR is better here. And here's a fun fact, the iPhone doesn't auto-correct that one! It for real knows that you meant to type those three letters together! Heck, it'll give you the option of keeping it like that or spelling it out even. Oh, and there's a ton more it knows...my OS (operating system...I'm not trying to be a smart ass...this time) knows how to communicate with my child better than me! "Siri, text my daughter that it's time to come home." "Kk." It makes me wonder if I were to type three letters together that meant to spell "you" but I fat-fingered "uyo" if it would give me the option to keep it like that or let me choose "ugly yo-yo offering"...which clearly I would. I mean if I wanted to say "you" wouldn't I just put the letter "u" now? Which begs me to address the fact that just a year ago it would have auto-corrected the "u" to "I" because who in the world can't type three letters that sound like one?! I wish you could hear my inner inflection as I type that...I have my eyes wide open and my frustrated-screechy face on right now. It's out of control people! I mean IOOCP!
Here's a typical conversation between two teens via social media (don't worry, I'll translate after...because I kind of can now):
Kid 1: HBD O! ILYSM!! DM me if u wanna hang l8tr QT!
Kid 2: LOL ILY2! IDK if I can yet.
Kid 1: HBU go check.
Kid 1: WYD
Kid 2: lax sry
Kid 1: kk hang?
Kid 2: dont forget the hbd glo up for ur bff
Kid 1: yeet
Translation...ish:
Kid 1: Happy Birthday Olivia! I love you so much!! Direct Message me if you would like to hang later cutie!
Kid 2: Laugh Out Loud (I don't know if it's supposed to be all capital letters or not or if that depends on how loud your laugh is) I love you too! I don't know if I can yet.
Kid 1: How about you go check.
Kid 1 (again): What are you doing?
Kid 2: (sometime later) lacrosse (game or practice we'll never know) sorry
Kid 1: Okay hang?
Kid 2: Don't forget the happy birthday age progression pictures of your best friend forever (that took an in depth explanation and a visual for me to grasp)
Kid 1: the word "yeet" can mean the following: sweet, cool, I'm on it, okay or here I come. Also, I'm fairly certain it can mean "help, I'm falling so please help me, help me now" because I've made that noise on multiple occasions and that's exactly what I said.
Writers note: I still don't know if they ever got together and hung out that day but I did see the age progression collage fly across my Twitter feed so...yeet!
There are a ton more examples of acronyms and weird words out there that I can't figure out and some I'm scared to ask about. Example? Well, FOH for instance I found out from a friend. The O is for out of, the H is for here and the F isn't for fork <ahem>. Probably my kid knows that one but I'd rather hear it from someone over the age of hers...whatever age she is (it'll get tougher over the years I know). It just feels unfair because all these kids know our tried and true acronyms PLUS their own. Honestly I feel like I'm a foreigner in my own car when I'm driving a gaggle of (that's more than three and less than 6) teenagers around. It's total BS! See?!? Tried and true!
Here's my list of acceptable acronyms and their meaning:
BRB - be right back
TTYS - talk to you soon
TTYL - talk to you later (almost interchangeable with the popular ttys but be mindful of timing)
SYS - see you soon
FYI - for your information
NM - never mind (I used to think that was just one word - I ultimately lost the "it should only be an N!" argument)
OMG - oh my God/goodness
*LOL - laugh out loud
There may be a few more but that's pretty much the ones that I can completely understand especially when there's context. I literally started typing this post the other day and in that time I've learned three new acronyms! There's also acronym-codes to alert the teen or creepy young adult living in their parents basement you're chatting with that they shouldn't respond inappropriately because your mom is standing somewhere in reading-over-your-shoulder range. I'm kinda proud my daughter told me about that one...I'm going to assume for now that she actually gave me the right intel and didn't try throwing me off course. Anyway, this post would be much too long if I kept going with all the new phrases, acronyms and codes that have come out and continue to and I'm sure if you have a kid anywhere from 12 to 18 you've heard all the ones I've mentioned plus others that I haven't come across yet. It's exhausting! And annoying...exhaustively annoying.
People, here me now - teenagers around the globe have an inside joke going and it's something that we'll never be a part of. They all understand it no matter where they live and they are getting a big kick out of having some weird language that adults don't understand. It's like they are born with this new gland...the universal language gland! Every child is now born with it so that this new form of communication doesn't need to be taught in high school so you can get a job in a new country someday. Seriously, "LOL" in America is the same in Japan (or is that ROR? KIDDING! Don't get offended OMG!).
Anyway, I don't think I helped us learn anything but I hope you know that you're not alone out there if you're feeling cold and vulnerable trying to figure out what your kid is tweeting, texting, snap chatting, blah, blah, blahing...because you're not alone, not at all; I'm struggling right there with you.
TTYL ILY
*LOL actually means LAUGHING out loud not LAUGH out loud. I just learned that before hitting the post button and I'd be remiss if I sent out bad information to you...apparently only us old people didn't know that. And yes, there is a difference between the two, I'm just not sure what it is but there you have it.
LOVE IT. ROR!!
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