From “Gnarly” to “No Cap”: A Generational Roast of Teen Slang

Generations have one universal truth: every group of teens invents slang that the previous generation promptly labels “cringe”. 

Once upon a time, Gen Xers were the original cool kids, coining words like “rad,” “gnarly,” and “bodacious” on beaches and skate ramps. 

Millennials took that torch with terms like “on fleek” and “YOLO,” while Gen Z threw their hands in the air with “no cap,” “slay,” and a whole dictionary of scrolling thumb emojis. 

Let’s dive into this linguistic soap opera, spice it with a dash of sarcasm, and laugh at how each generation thinks the last one was hopelessly out of touch. 

I myself am a Boomer and was completely lost in years past when trying to understand my own teen back then. 

Finally I found an online dictionary that cross-referenced slang! It was like Rosetta Stone for Generation gaps.🙃

Gen X: The First Gnarly Rebels

Gen X (born mid-1960s–early ’80s) came of age blasting MTV on those new-fangled cable boxes. 

They fused surfer slang and punk-rock rebellion into every sentence. You’d hear Gen Xers say stuff like, “That movie was totally rad!” or “Dude, that wave is gnarly!” 

Their style was two inches of gel on hair and a thumbs-up emoji carved into every VHS tape label. 

In Gen X lingo, “rad” (radical) and “gnarly” (dangerously awesome) meant something was extreme–think skateboards clattering and hair metal blaring.

And if millennials (or anyone younger) dared use those words today? 

Gen X would roll their eyes so hard it’d register as an earthquake. 

“Okay, Millennial, put down the avocado toast and step away from the old surf shack—that’s so gnarly!” they’d scoff. 

Ironically, Gen X invented “old man yelling at cloud” memes long before the internet, targeting Boomers—but now they’re totally “boomer-adjacent” themselves. 

At least Gen X can console themselves that “groovy” went out with bell-bottoms. (Or can they? 😜)

Millennials: #OnFleek and YOLO

Enter Millennials (born early ’80s–mid ’90s), raised on dial-up, Myspace, and a healthy dose of reality TV. 

They inherited Gen X’s angst and turned it into hashtags. 

These kids dropped “#YOLO” (You Only Live Once) to justify impulsive purchases at the mall, and “on fleek” to describe eyebrows so perfect they deserved their own reality show. 

“Sorry, Gen X, but your sneakers are so not on fleek,” a Millennial might joke.

Millennials also spammed their vocab with acronyms: “LOL,” “OMG,” and “SMH” became as common as coffee runs. 

If something was “lit,” it was fire (sometimes literally—look up old photos of dance clubs). 

Millennials even had a brief fling with “savage” when complimenting a friend’s humiliating tweet comeback. 

They loved saying “I’m literally dead” for anything mildly surprising, ensuring their parents thought zombies were everywhere.

For all their quirks, Millennials cringed hard at Gen Z’s antics: “No cap?” “And I oop?” “Bruh?” they’d mimic and then promptly block. 

They insist Gen X doesn’t get that “this avocado toast lifestyle is how we pay rent!” 

To be fair, Gen X hears “YOLO” and probably starts Googling for hospitals.

Gen Z: Slay All Day (But Seriously, No Cap)

Now onto Gen Z (born late ’90s–2012), the supreme masters of Internet slang. 

They waltzed in with TikTok, Snapchat filters, and a vocabulary that changes by the minute. 

Gen Z gave us “no cap” (I swear I’m being honest), “slay” (you crushed it), “sus” (suspicious), “bet” (sure thing), and even full sentences made of emojis (“*🍔✔️” might mean “Burger = yes” in some secret code).

“Gen X called something ‘rad’ when they saw a cool skateboard. Meanwhile, we say ‘yeet’ when we fling a watermelon across the yard,” a Gen Z teenager might quip. 

They also use “fam,” “GOAT,” and “big yikes” like others use articles of clothing. 

If Millennials coined “pinterest mom,” Gen Z owns “TikTok teen” and doesn’t bother pinning things – they make them virally dance instead.

And when Gen Z hears older folks try out “on fleek” or “totally tubular,” it’s instant cringe. 

They’ll snap back with “Okay boomer” even if you’re a Gen X with a textbook from 1985. 

(Gen Z famously lumps everyone older than them into "Boomer" territory, which really sends Gen Xers into a moral panic: “I’m not a boomer, but I still use email!” they cry.)

Future Slang: Emojis, Algorithms, and “Quantum Queen”

What about the kiddos born today—Gen Alpha (2010s) and beyond? They’ll have slang that seems like it was cooked up in a sci-fi novel. 

Picture this: instead of saying something is awesome, future teens might call it “++groovy”, inserting a power symbol before a word because in their VR world, reality is open-source. 

Archaic words like “LOL” will be replaced by a single 😂 emoji on steroids.

Or imagine them using AI as slang inspiration: “Bro, that party last night was totally GPT, I can’t even,” implying generative-AI levels of unpredictability. 

Emoji-as-words will become the norm, so “💙🚀✨” might translate to “I love that space-chic style.” 

Abbreviations will get so outlandish that writing “TTYLBRBOMG” (Talk to you later, be right back, oh my Gatorade) isn’t out of the question.

A fictional Generation Alpha teen might complain, “Dad keeps saying ‘neon vibes.’ As if! Emojis are the real neon. Plus, 'yeet' is so last tiktok.” 

Or survey future tweens: 

“My little cousin rolled her eyes when I said ‘slept on’ – apparently it’s too 2018. Now it’s all about the quantum update: if something’s hyped, you just send the algorithm an actual thumbs-up in binary.”

Just for fun, here are some mock quotes from 2035:

• “She complimented me on my ‘futuristic drip’ by sending a hologram of a fire emoji. No filter needed!” – Charlie, 15, via BrainBook (the friendly AI clone of Facebook).

• “We won’t just say something is true; we’ll literally program a subroutine to verify it. I told my mom that I ‘no cap 2.0’ mean I’m on the next level of honesty. She’s still buffering.” – Sky, 12, posting on QuantumGram.

No matter how bizarre future slang gets—whether teens speak in emoji hieroglyphics or robot whirrs—they’ll definitely think Gen Z’s “periodt” and Gen X’s “radical” are the height of cringe. 

And you can bet each generation will have one more thing in common: a good old-fashioned laugh at their parents’ expense.

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#OKBoomerista