I’m still fairly young and hear many women my age making certain references, using slang, or memes related to the U.S. and American culture.
Sometimes, I don’t understand the references though, as I do speak English but grew up where people did not.
My parents grew up in the US and speak English but of course, only really know the pop culture of their day.
Does anyone else (especially people who grew up somewhere else) not understand Anglophone slang or pop culture?
Even as someone who grew up in the US, I always feel left out of the cultural landscape in a lot of ways. But that’s my own fault for walking to the beat of my own drum a lot of the time. I ain’t got time to learn shitty new slang or watch brain rotting videos or use most any social media out there (despite the fact I’m doing it more than ever thanks to Lemmy and Mastodon).
You ask me to make some old, outdated reference, I definitely can. “Paranoia Paranoia, everybody’s coming to get me! Just say you never met me!” ~ Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger
Or even one that’s probably even more obscure because it’s from a children’s songs CD. “2, 4, 6, 8, Sunny Skies All Day!” ~ What I Do In The Morning (from the “Hey! It’s Franklin!” CD)
But ask me anything about recent pop culture references and slang and I’ll draw a blank. Anything from Game of Thrones outside the popular memes like that “Winter is coming!” meme and I’m lost. That horrendous sk*bidi bullshit? Absolutely no clue other than it’s 200% garbage. Ask me the latest Internet trends and best I can say is AI filth and ruination most everywhere instead of any of the social media trends that people are actually asking about.
My sister’s friend (age 14) won’t stop saying “What the skibidi” unironically. When she comes over, when I hear her videocalling/texting my sister, etc.
I genuinely don’t get it. What happened to just saying “what the hell?”
I don’t know. All I can say is it’s definitely related to the Internet causing slang to change faster than ever before. That, and the whole “censor yourself because large companies are family friendly pussies” culture that perverts the Internet. So it’s probably a combination of things like that.