If you have tried talking to a child who is sliding into the tween years lately, you may have felt like you needed a translator. Gen Alpha churned out new slang throughout 2025 at a speed that left plenty of adults blinking. A simple “How was school?” can come back loaded with bruh, sigma, drama, and brainrot, all tossed in like they are perfectly normal. The gist is usually that everything was fine until someone started acting out because of something they picked up online.
Every generation has its own lingo, and it always sounds strange to outsiders. The 80s had “gnarly” and “radical,” the 90s leaned into “dope” and “fly,” and the early 2000s loved “fresh” and “tight.” Even I remember telling my parents to “chill out,” only to later be called “bruh” by my own kid. But some of today’s phrases feel less like slang and more like a shared inside joke that never ends.
One of the biggest head scratchers is “six seven,” often paired with a shoulder wiggle and hands held up, palms out, like a tiny performance. It was even labeled Dictionary.com’s word of the year for 2025, which only adds to the confusion because it still does not really mean anything. Some people connect it to a 2024 track by rapper Skrille called “Doot’Doot,” while others think it nods to NBA player LaMelo Ball and his height. The real problem is how easily it hijacks real life, since simply saying the numbers together can set off a full blown reaction, including stories of chaos when an order number 67 gets called at In-N-Out.
Then there is “get sendy,” a phrase that once belonged to extreme sports, where it meant committing fully and going for it. In the Gen Alpha version, it has drifted into cheering on questionable extremes, from reckless stunts to impulsive dares. It also spawned the extra irritating “six sendy,” which feels like slang doing a remix of itself. Even when kids mean it playfully, it can normalize the idea that going bigger is always better.
Some expressions are just bizarre. “Start digging in your butt twin” is not a literal instruction, but a random line from SpongeBob SquarePants that turned into a viral catchphrase. Kids sometimes try to attach meaning to it, like describing brainrot or total distraction, yet it mostly works as a signal that you are in on the trend. Unfortunately, the mental image is exactly as unpleasant as it sounds.
A few terms land like tiny insults. “Unc,” short for uncle, gets thrown at parents and teachers when kids think you are out of touch or trying too hard to be cool. “Aura farming” builds on the idea of “aura points” for coolness, then mocks anyone who seems to be chasing status, basically a modern spin on calling someone a poser. And “it’s not clocking to you,” popularized after a Justin Bieber moment with paparazzi in June 2025, has become a go to line when kids are annoyed and convinced you are the one not getting it.
Still, there may be a shift coming. Late 2025 brought talk of a TikTok fueled “Great Meme Reset 2026,” a push to return to the simpler meme era of 2016, complete with throwbacks like Harambe, even though TikTok was not around back then. Maybe Gen Alpha is as tired of the noise as the rest of us.
Which Gen Alpha phrase would you love to see disappear in 2026, and which ones make you laugh despite yourself? Share your picks in the comments.
