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There are just moments when you feel terribly old.
For example, when a hashtag that only consists of mysterious sequences of letters goes viral on Twitter or Instagram.
You may be able to deduce what “btw” or a simple “k” stand for.
If not: "btw" stands for "by the way", so
just
by the way
and "k" for "kay" as a short form of
okay
to signal that everything is fine.
It gets trickier, however, when a “#fyp” appears under a TikTok clip or a “dm me” appears in the caption on Instagram.
What is it all supposed to mean?
At least now it will become clear to you: The times when you lively
typed
"afk" ("away from keyboard", German:
not on the keyboard
) in your ICQ status or when you heard a funny anecdote from your friends with "rofl" ( "rolling on the floor laughing", German:
laughing rolling on the floor
) or "xD" (you react to laughter Smiley) are gone.
Generation Z now determines the tone on the Internet and the platforms they use.
These are mainly TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and also Twitch, a live streaming portal that is particularly popular with gamers.
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But, dear Boomers and Millennials, we don't want to keep you tortured for too long and finally enlighten you so that you can find your way around TikTok and Co. better in the future.
idk
Source: Unsplash.com/Lucas Sankey
Chatting when someone replies simply with "idk" is the for "I do not know", so
I do not know
.
Often the expression is also used melancholy when someone feels down but cannot really explain why they are feeling that way.
tbh
Source: Unsplash.com/Persnickety Prints
In times of fake news, honesty seems to be a particularly valuable asset.
Accordingly, often sets the current youth the "tbh" abbreviation for "to be honest" (German:
to be honest
) a.
With the abbreviation, the sender underlines that he means his message very seriously and that it is important to him.
fyp
Source: Getty Images / Drew Angerer
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For anyone who saw the light of day before 1998, these three letters should just be strung together arbitrarily.
In reality, "fyp" means something like "for you page" (German:
Für-dich-Seite
) and became particularly popular on the social media app TikTok.
Users add the hashtag to their clips so that they are clicked and shared as often as possible.
Because on the for-you-page, every TikTok user sees the clips of the users he is following and the content recommended for him as soon as he opens the app.
dm
Source: Unsplash.com/Eril Lucatero
Has nothing to do with the well-known German drugstore chain.
The “direct message”, or “dm” for short, has probably also come across the elderly among us by now.
Instead of writing openly in comments, you can contact such a user privately.
rl
Anyone who spends a lot of time on social media knows what we're talking about here.
How someone presents themselves online rarely has anything to do with reality.
Therefore, “rl” emerged as a popular hashtag for “real life”, that is, what is going on in
real life
.
Many beauty influencers on Instagram use the hashtag to draw attention to the fact that pictures do not necessarily reflect reality.
In the gaming scene, the term is used in a similar way to the abbreviation “ooc” for “out of character” (German:
not in the role
) in order to distance oneself from fictional game events.
Influencers who decide to do the annual digital detox also coined the abbreviation “rl”.
partly
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There are things that people have given less thought to in the past: for example, how some content might be received by outsiders - especially if it contains physical or psychological violence or is of a sexual nature.
The hashtag “#tw” is intended to protect sensitive users from potentially traumatizing posts with a “trigger warning”.
nvm
Source: Unsplash.com/Kev Costello
The youth of today are often accused of not caring about anything.
Almost as a statement of self-irony, the acronym "nvm" since for "never mind", that is the German counterpart to
matter
be considered.
If you don't want to think about something any further or want to signal to the other person that everything is okay and he or she shouldn't ponder any further, just write “nvm” and that's good.
Kurt Cobain and his band Nirvana understood this as early as 1991.
fyi
Source: Getty Images / Craig Brewer
Yes, today's internet world is mainly shaped by the English language, and so the three letters “fyi” have crept into the current portfolio of Generation Z.
That stands for "for your information", which in German with
your information
seems a bit wooden and very formal.
Not only can three letters be typed faster, they are also much more casual when you want to inform about an appointment or an important finding.
pov
Source: Unsplash.com/Jake Young
How one perceives world events and moments is a highly individual matter.
If the call “pov”, short for “point of view”, can be found under a post or in an Instagram story, it is about your view of things on a topic.
The user should look at the content from his perspective.
oomf
Source: Unsplash.com/Chris J. Davis
Sounds like an embarrassing band name, but it stands for “one of my followers” (German:
one of my subscribers
) and you will find it primarily on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.
The combination of letters is mainly used as a hashtag when you publicly refer to the post or a message from a follower, but at the same time want to maintain the anonymity of the user.
This happens especially when it comes to something embarrassing or negative.
According to the Urban Dictionary, the abbreviation can also be used onomatopoeically: Then "oomf" is modeled on the sound someone makes when they see a particularly attractive person.