8 Slang Words You Forgot About

The bread and butter of our middle school lingo

Thinking back, there are a lot of slang terms that lived and died in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Revisiting these words makes me cringe, and I’m glad they didn’t stick around, but some of these words were so popular that they made it into the Merriam-Webster dictionary!

Many of these words seemingly sprung up out of nowhere and are hard to trace its origin. I guess that’s the beauty of slang: it shows up unannounced and fades away without a word.

Disclaimer: I did not include “rawr” or “rawr xd” because I will include it in a different post about emo culture during this time, so be on the lookout for that!

Swag

• I think we can all agree that “swag” was THE word of our childhood. Swag can mean “free promotional items” or be used to describe someone as “cool, confident.” There are many different stories about how the word became common, but most can agree that the modern usage for “free stuff” came from the 1960s and was an acronym for “Stuff We All Get.” The other definition of swag became popularized by Jay-Z when he used it in a rap song. This version of “swag” is the shortened form of the word “swagger.”
• Remember when everything had “swag” printed on it? Well, so did I and boy am I happy that I never bought one of those shirts.

Scrub

• Whenever I think of this word, I think of the TLC song “No Scrubs” hahaha. Scrub means someone who is “second-rate” or “not cool.” Surprisingly, this word’s usage with the same meaning dates back to the 1500s. Throughout the years, the definition has shifted from meaning “someone with no talent” to “an underclassman” to even “someone who’s poor.” Despite the changes in meaning, it boils down to being a word that’s used as an insult.

Bae

• Bae, a word that is used as a term of endearment for your significant other. Apparently, “bae” is an acronym for “before anyone else,” but some people say it’s a shortened form of the word “babe.” Genius traces the usage of the word “bae” in songs back to 2005 but became fully ingrained in the mainstream in 2014. With the insane popularity of Vine, vines like “You Got A Bae? Or Nah?” helped cement “bae” in the cringe-y slang words hall of fame.
• I always thought this word was cringe-y as heck. I never understood why people called inanimate objects “bae” or the spin-offs people created like the word “baecation.” At this point, I’m just glad this term is dead.

Yolo

• This is a term that we all know very well, but I decided to really drive home the nostalgia. Yolo stands for “You Only Live Once” and was popularized by the rapper Drake. This was what people used to justify sometimes questionable, gutsy actions before “do it for the vine” was a thing. Yolo was the word that got screamed throughout the halls at school, summer camps, or any other large gathering of tweens.
• More than pushing young kids to do things for no reason except that you only live once, yolo was the biggest offender of merch during this time. I honestly believe that yolo was printed on more shirts, sweatshirts, hats, and phone cases than swag.

Noob

• Ah, noob. A word I actually used a lot. Noob is a word used to describe someone who is new and, therefore, probably bad at something, particularly video games. This word is short for “newbie.” The earliest mention of the word “newbie” can be found in 1988 on an online forum, but as the years progressed, “newbie” became “noob,” which became “n00b.” During the mid-2000s, this term became a very popular insult in video games like Call of Duty.

Fleek

• Fleek was another strange word meaning something looked good or stylish. This word originated from a Vine made in 2014 by Peaches Monroee. The most common phrase using this word was “eyebrows were on fleek,” which means to compliment someone’s eyebrows. The expression “on fleek” can be viewed as almost synonymous to “on point.” According to Peaches Monroee herself, “fleek” was a word she came up with on the spot.
• I honestly can’t believe we were using this word during middle school: a time when NONE of our eyebrows looked good. I mean, my eyebrows still aren’t “on fleek” but our middle school minds definitely didn’t know enough about what good eyebrows looked like.

Dope

• No, we’re not talking about the drugs, we’re talking about the adjective which means something is “cool, excellent.” Dope originally meant “stupid” like Dopey from Snow White, which then shifted to mean drugs. By the 1980s, rappers started to use “dope” in a positive connotation.
• This word is something I still hear once in a while. Unlike the other words, I don’t think this one has that cringe-factor that the others have. However, I do think that when you think of this word nowadays, it’s more associated with doping and doping scandals in sports.

Ship

• This is some of that fandom lingo that was popular during our tween years. I know I unlocked some deep and repressed memories with this word. The word is derived from “relationshipper,” and it means you think two fictional characters from a book, show, movie, etc. or two people in real life, would make a great couple. One of the first instances “ship” was used was in the Star Trek fandom during the mid-1970s when fans shipped Kirk and Spock. One notable ship in more modern times is Harry and Hermione from the Harry Potter series.
• Y’all I bet this word brought back some memories. Don’t be shy. I know you had a fan account or wrote fanfictions for your ships. Especially you multifandom people… Y’all went hard on Tumblr.

Thanks for reading! As you guys can probably tell from my retelling of these words, I have a very low cringe tolerance. A lot of things make me cringe. What words did you use the most? Did I miss anything? Tune in next time for more nostalgia.

Keep Dreaming,

Rachelle

About the Author: Rachelle Cha is a sophomore at Rutgers University studying Computer Science and Statistics. Her favorite piece of nostalgia is the Tamagotchi!