Language trends don’t age well. One day, a word feels current, witty, maybe even a little funny. Six months later, it sounds like something a brand would slap on merch and sell as “relatable.” Internet slang has a brutal shelf life, and Gen Z seems especially aware of when a phrase has crossed over from mildly amusing to extremely cringe.
According to survey results shared with VICE by language-learning app Preply, Gen Z’s most hated cringeworthy slang term right now is “6-7,” with 40 percent naming it their biggest linguistic turnoff.
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“Skibidi” followed at 38 percent, with “Sigma” in third at 32 percent. In Preply’s broader survey of 1,502 U.S. adults ages 18 to 64, “6-7” also took the top spot overall. Apparently, some phrases really do manage to annoy everyone at once.
For anyone lucky enough to have missed at least some of this, “6-7” is one of those online phrases with very little semantic content, which could be part of why people are so sick of it. The American Dialect Society described it this year as an interjection with little real meaning, tracing it to Skrilla’s “Doot Doot (6 7).” It also listed “skibidi” as a nonsense word popularized by Skibidi Toilet, which is about as dignified an origin story as you’d expect.
Gen Z’s 10 Most Hated Cringe Words
Here’s Preply’s top 10 list of the most cringe expressions in America, according to Gen Z.
- 6-7
- Skibidi
- Sorry, Not Sorry
- Pookie
- Wifey
- Rizz
- Nom Nom Nom
- Bae
- My Bad
- YOLO
What’s funny is that people hate these words and still use them. Preply found that 42 percent of Americans admit they use words they personally consider cringeworthy, but only ironically. Irony has become the social life raft for people who want to participate in a trend without fully surrendering their dignity.
Melissa Baese-Berk, a linguistics professor quoted in Preply’s materials, put it well: “Cringe isn’t really about the word itself, it’s about context and identity,” adding, “Language is one of the quickest ways we signal who we are.”
That may be why 55 percent of Gen Z said the way someone speaks affects how intelligent they seem, and 51 percent said they’ve judged someone based on the words or phrases they use.
Which, honestly, feels harsh, but not exactly shocking. Everybody says language evolves. What gets omitted is how dumb a lot of it sounds before it sounds normal.
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