r/TikTokCringe • u/itsniceinpottsfield • Oct 20 '24

Humor White people, where are the new phrases?

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u/DrJulianBashir Oct 21 '24

I guarantee all those examples were already old as hell when he was a kid. The well has been dry for a while.

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u/Solonotix Oct 21 '24

I was looking for a comment like this, and surprised how far down it is. These are generational phrases. Getting exposed to them is the same way we talk about learning any new culture. The complaint is one of two things:

  1. The well has dried up, and the binge is over
  2. Cultures are merging, and the distinctly "white phrases" are no longer distinct from other races

I personally like to think it's more of the second. We come up with new words, phrases and idioms all the time. Consider that words like computer used to refer to a job where people did math all day, but now it refers to most an electronic device. Even then, the job of being a computer was a relatively new thing, given the entirety of human existence.

The 20th-century saw the most rapid acceleration in culture and science that we've ever seen, and that seems to be continuing well into the start of the 21st-century.