23 words the cool kids know — and how to have a better jawline (or not): Jan Risher

According to all sources, my 9-year-old nephew Sam Risher has the rizz.

So much so, friends call him "the Rizzler." He says he can't help it. He's just got it. 

In case you missed the 2023 word of the year as deemed by Oxford University Press, "rizz" means having "style, charm or attractiveness."

Sam has the rizz. There's no denying that. Even his twin and his 12-year-old brother acknowledge it.

The word "rizz" was chosen from a short list of eight words, which included Swiftie, beige flag and situationship — interesting words but not nearly as interesting as the ones I learned this week in conversations with teens and preteens.

In the last year, Sam, his twin brother, Henry, and their older brother Will, 12, who live in Olive Branch, Mississippi, have taken time to teach me words the cool kids are saying — cap, bet, alpha and more. Having this newfound vocabulary made me want to corroborate it with others — a quest which led me to the most entertaining phone conversations I've had in a long time.

In total, I spoke with eight teenage and preteen young men — every one a delight, full of charm and laughter. They all had rizz. 

Maverick Hobbs, 15, turned out to be a wealth of information. He will be a junior at Liberty Magnet School this fall in Baton Rouge. He not only knew the definitions of the words my nephews taught me, Maverick knew a lot about their etymology. 

"Most of these words are things my friends and I say ironically," he said. "There are certainly people who say them for real, but I am not one of them."

Long pause.

"My mom is listening, and she thought that was funny what I just said," Maverick said. 

I agreed with his mother. 

Middle school boys seem to be at the nexus of the words I spent an afternoon and evening discussing. Once the fellows reach high school, they appear to be too cool to use the words earnestly. 

The list of words and definitions I compiled includes:

Alpha — The best, a leader, exerts masculine energy.

Sus — Suspect, suspicious, weird, something's up. Maverick explained that the word became big in 2020 due to a game called "Among Us."

Bet — For sure; example: "Want to go with me to the game?" a friend asks. "Bet," other friend answers.

Cap — That's a lie.

No cap — The truth.

You ate — You look good. 

Left no crumbs — You're doing great.

Gyat — This word should be pronounced expressively, and, according to all eight sources, it means "a large rump," the terminology 17-year-old Andrew Crochet of Lafayette used to explain to me. Maverick says the word has been a thing for a while.

Say less — "That just means, 'I get you.' Like if you needed a favor, someone would say, 'Say less' to confirm they can help," said Andrew, who is also quite the expert on what he says is called brainrot humor, which is a sub-genre of TikTok. "I don't use a lot of them," he said with kindness but still managed to convey a certain level of disdain.

Skibidi — Bad or wacky; Maverick had lots of details on this one. 

"I'm well-versed in the history of this word," Maverick said. "Yes, there's Skibidi toilet, the YouTube thing that blew it up, but it originally came from a Russian or Polish grown man who went to restaurants and would jump his belly up and down as they played a song in the background that had the word skibidi in it."

Andrew, who will be a senior this fall at the Episcopal School of Acadiana, has strong feelings on skibidi. 

"I'm a camp counselor. I can't hear it anymore. You know what a meme is, right?" Andrew said, as he proceeded to explain to me what a meme was. "We have banned skibidi and rizz at camp. They can't say it anymore." 

Rizz — Short for charisma. 

Ohio — Jackie Epps, 11, from his home in Walnut Creek, California, explained to me that the expression "Ohio" is "kind of old." Even still, he persevered and explained its usage.

"Someone just randomly started this meme about things being really weird in Ohio," he said. "They have a ton of monsters there."

His twin brother, Nonie, and Maverick agree with Jackie on its meaning, but they're not sure how it started either.

"Weird stuff happens in Ohio," Maverick said.

It's important to note that Maverick's mother, Harmony Hobbs, had originally texted me that her son might be able to help me on my quest to understand these words.

She said, "Ask him about 'Skibidi, Ohio.'"

So I said to Maverick, "You mom says to ask you about 'Skibidi, Ohio."

Long pause. 

"Just my mom says that," he said, with no further comment.

PTSO — May mean "pictures to show off," but it also may mean something else. Either way, it means that one is looking good and has on a sharp outfit. "I would call that a serve," Andrew explained. "Which is gay slang from the '80s that means, 'You look great,' or 'You're doing it right.' That's a great thing about TikTok. They steal everything."

Fanum tax — A streamer named Fanum who lives in a house with a bunch of internet celebrities who livestream much of their lives will come into a room and take part of someone else's food and call it the Fanum tax. "Now it just means basically to take someone's food," said Andrew.

Yeet — To throw something (must also be pronounced expressively). "That's an old one. It's been around for a while. Early internet," Maverick said. "OK, early for me — maybe 10 years. It got popular from Fortnite. It was a sound they made as an exclamation. It's really old." 

No kizzy — Truth. Facts. "Pretty much means the same as 'no cap.' You don't say kizzy by itself. You say, 'No kizzy,' Maverick explained. 

On God — To tell the truth. "The same as 'No cap.' You say it if you're really telling the truth. It's like you swear," Nonie Epps said.

On my mother — Maverick explained that it means, "On my mother's life."

His mother was listening to our conversation in the background. Another long pause.

"I didn't say I say it," he said to his mother. "I said people say it."

Bussin' — Really good 

Aura — "You can have a positive aura or a negative aura. You can lose aura and gain aura," 11-year-old Jackie told me. 

Press — "If someone presses you, it's not that they're being aggressive, it's like you're verbally pushing someone. Someone is all upset. 'She's so press that I danced with her boyfriend at the homecoming," Andrew explained. 

Sigma — Maverick explained that the use of this word comes from other Greek letters, but, for reasons unknown, Generation Alpha has decided that sigma is the top dog. Nonie Epps, 11, explained that it means "good-looking and you have a good jawline."

Mewing — Nonie and his twin brother Jackie explained this as a technique to improve one's jawline — something more important than I had previously realized.

"You press your tongue to the roof of your mouth as hard as you can for as long as you can. People say that it's scientifically proven to improve your better jawline," Jackie explained to me.

I had no idea that jawlines were a big thing. Clearly, I was in the dark.

The internet tells me that mewing was named after Mike and John Mew, controversial British orthodontists who created the technique as a part of a practice called "orthotropics." The internet also says that the exercise, sorry Jackie, is not scientifically proven to improve one's jawline.

Late in our conversation, Jackie and Nonie told me about Livvy Dunne, explaining to me who she was. Never in their wildest imaginations could I have known who she was, much less seen or met her. They explained, along with Andrew, that part of the fun was just stringing any of the words together, often including LSU gymnast and adolescent-boy icon Livvy Dunne in the mix.  

Example: Livvy Dunne rizz skibidi sigma Ohio. 

No one knows what the series of words actually means, but I must agree that it is seriously fun to say.