Fatally flawed
Nothing makes parents feel older than listening to younger generations use slang and having no idea what they are talking about.
Fortunately, we have a guide to the top 25 Gen Z slang phrases that all parents should know.
If you’re not sure what demographic the term Gen Z even refers to, you can consider all of the youth in your life who were born after 1996.
To save you from doing the math, that means that the oldest among the Gen Z demographic will be turning 23 years old this year.
1. Cancel Culture Cancel culture is a form of online shaming to express disappointment in the views or actions of a public figure, company, or organi zat i on.
It is a way that Gen Z is using their voices on social media, often for the good.
Like with many things these days, irreparable damage can be done to someone’s reputation based on false information or rumor.
2. Extra
To be "extra" is to be unnecessarily dramatic and over the top.
3. Fam
Fam is used the way our generation may have used “bro.” This term is used for your closest of friends.
4. Glow Up
Glow up describes a makeover or transformation from bad to good in some way. If you think a new haircut makes you more attractive, you might refer to this as a “glow up.”
5. I’m Baby
Feeling helpless or not capable in a certain area of your life? You might want to try the Gen Z term “I’m baby.”
6. Stan
Stan combines the words “stalker” and “fan.” A stan is an obsessive fan of something but not on a creepy level.
7. Periodt
Periodt is a word used at the end of a sentence, meant to add emphasis to a point that has been made. It is often regarded as a more extreme or intense version of "period." It is also often preceded by the words "and that's on" to add further emphasis.
8. Woke
Woke refers to political awareness. People who are woke are not politically incorrect. They care about having an open mind and things like the earth, Black Lives Matter, and feminism.
TFW is an abbreviation for “that feeling when” as in “TFW you have a hot cup of coffee in a quiet house.”
10. Sip Tea
Sip tea is a phrase that is used when you are just sitting back and listening to the gossip as opposed to participating in it.
My support of Sen. Manny Pacquiao’s candidacy is more of a protest to traditional politicians than an expression of trust in his capability to solve this country’s perennial social problems.
I do hope he still surprises us with a gamechanging performance even as I know the likelihood of that happening in the fatally flawed structure of our democracy is extremely slim. Unless that is restructured, elections will only change actors but not the roles in the tragi-comic drama of Philippine politics.
The national drama has only two main roles: the oppressive, exploiting, plundering rulers and the oppressed, exploited and marginalized ruled. We have regularly changed actors in the past, but they continue to play the same role of self-enriching champions of the interests of big business and of big landhol di ngs.
After election, after they would have decided whose turn it is to plunder the nation and exploit its people, the sheep meekly go back to eking out a living under the most disadvantageous of circumstances. This could go on until we decide to make our democracy genuine by instituting the three essential components that it sorely lacks.
Like our democracy is not rule of the majority. We have no run-off elections in our system. Thus, our leaders get into office by simply getting the most number of votes cast which, as invariably happens, does not come close to being the majority’s votes.
Ours is not a representative democracy either. No political party represents and promotes the interests of the worker-farmer sector that happens to be the majority of the population.
Existing political parties are private clubs of the rich and fly on the wings of political ambition and economic greed.
In a representative democracy, duly accredited political parties are considered public institutions, their operations (training of members, running election campaigns etc.) funded
by government. This system gives the working class a chance of forming and running its own party with the seed money provided by government.
Finally, our elections are a universe away from being fair and free. Only the already rich and powerful can run for office, and they are able to violate every election rule in the book with impunity. They spend for campaigns like they are investing in a business that promises quick and substantial payback.
In Chile, the youth have finally united and he President has acceded to their demand for a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution that would do away with the oppressive provisions of the European colonial structure.
When will the Filipino youth move en masse to demand for a new constitution that would guarantee the three essential components of a genuine democr acy?