If you still use this internet slang, you’re definitely a millennial — or older
BRB, millennials are reminiscing over our past youth.
It feels like every day there’s new internet slang to learn, words like “rizz,” “delulu” or “dupe.”
But people have also started to notice that a once very commonly used internet lingo, BRB — an acronym for “be right back” (or “bathroom break,” as it were) — is fading away, perhaps due to how our relationship with social media and the internet has evolved.
On December 19, a photo of an early 2000s desktop computer — atop a behemoth in-home computer desk unit indicative of the era — went viral, with the original tweet racking up 17.5 million views, 7,300 reposts and 35,000 likes.
Another user shared how they were nostalgic for the times when the internet was a “single, solitary, unmoving place instead of a terror that extends to everywhere.”
“You went to this specific spot to go to the internet. When you left the spot, you left the internet. It was a place,” they wrote, suggesting that it’s now impossible to leave the internet.
Naturally, the post made its way to TikTok, where one user wondered if there was even enough to do on that old computer to have a screen time similar to that of what people currently have on just their iPhones.
She noted that there’s a conversation to be had about how much time is spent on social media and not having to be on it all the time.
“‘Cause actually, the internet very much still is a place,” she explained. “We’ve just chosen to not separate them as much.”
One person even pointed out how this concept has changed our slang.
“We used to say brb. We don’t anymore. We live here now 😵,” they commented, referring to the abbreviation that stands for “be right back”.
People in the comment section tended to agree.
“We lived life and checked in on the Internet. Now we live on the Internet and check in on life,” someone wrote.
“There’s no such thing as brb anymore, we are always on,” another quipped in response, adding a sobbing emoji at the end.
“I miss when people weren’t so easily accessible… There’s so many avenues for people to contact you I feel like it’s just super unhealthy,” one person mentioned.