“Overstimulated” or just overwhelmed?
“Autistic” or just what you consider atypical?
“Twink” or just skinny?
“Hyperfixated” or just obsessed?
Among Generation Z, words that once carried precise meanings within specific communities have become everyday slang, stripped of their context and significance.
Social media is one of the causes for this shift. People take words from communities they see online and apply it to their own lives, and with platforms such as TikTok and X rewarding quick, punchy language, Gen Z’s digital footprint makes slang spread at lightning speed. Words travel faster than their histories and meanings, and context gets lost in the process.
Take, for example, “overstimulated.” Originally, it described a specific sensory reaction, particularly in neurodivergent communities, to environments that are too loud, bright or chaotic. Although the term has existed for decades, it only grew in popularity throughout the last five years, propagated by social media and casual usage as slang. Suddenly, every person in a busy hallway or in a loud crowd is overstimulated, not overwhelmed. For neurodivergent people genuinely trying to communicate their distress, “I’m overstimulated” no longer carries the same weight; it now sounds like a mild complaint rather than a serious need for relief.
The same goes for “autistic,” which is often used as shorthand for someone who might be considered socially awkward or “quirky.” A stark contrast from a medical diagnosis. The amount of times I have heard a random peer called autistic for a simple mistake or just behaving out of the norm is too many to count. The usage not only misrepresents autism but turns it into a joke or personality trait, rather than a neurodevelopmental condition that shapes people’s lives.
The list goes on and on. “Twink,” a word rooted in queer origins that once described a specific subculture of gay man, slender, youthful and effeminate, is now applied to any skinny guy, often in a negative light, by people far outside of the gay community. No, your straight ex-boyfriend is not an “evil twink.”And yes, for most, Gen Z’s new slang is a non-issue. For neurotypical people or straight people, there are no apparent consequences. But it only appears like that because the effect of our choices are not impacting us the most.
Language is powerful because of its specificity. When we blend together whatever words we happen to hear around us without genuinely understanding what we are saying, we run the risk of not only misrepresenting ourselves but watering down the meaning of these words.
Awareness isn’t about policing every word you say, it is simply understanding and respecting the meaning of language we use on a daily basis. Before adopting a new word, we should ask: Where does this word originate from? And what do we lose when we take it away?
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