Traveling with Gen Z on two trips to Calgary this summer opened my eyes to an entirely new vocabulary. Spending quality time with emerging adults outside of the classroom and academic setting, one receives exposure to colloquial terms that you never knew existed. Feeling out of the loop and not following the conversation, my curiosity won out and I started taking notes on my iPhone 5 (I know, I know, it’s time to upgrade) in efforts to learn this new dialect. Now, maybe many of the readers here are currently raising children and are up to date on today’s lingo or are just more “hip” than I am, but the desire to communicate effectively with Gen Z is sincere.

So, how does one studiously approach the language of Gen Z? Admittedly, my current approach has not lent itself to a wealth of academic study, rather internet searches have produced the greatest results. My language journey began with an investigation into emoji meanings in efforts to translate text messages from friends, and symbols I want to use in my calendar application. I’m fairly certain that the creative geniuses behind these cute little characters, especially the ones which come installed on the iPhone, do not come from the geographic area of the Southern United States because there are many missing from my personal vocabulary. I’m sure that I could find a way to purchase these characters if the desire was strong, but for now, I’ll just continue to use these crazy things called words in the text messages I send.

Now, I will make a confession that even someone from Gen X can appreciate the speed with which the thumbs up emoji saves me a wealth of time in my message replies; however, when significant people in your life are still using flip phones, all they receive is a little square which means I must invest the time in typing “OK.” Oh, what shall I do with all the extra time this creates in my life? Assuming I can now decode a message created solely of emojis, my students are moving on to the next visual reply of gifs. Undeniably using the cute little lamb posing its thumbs in the up position brings a smile to my face that the plain old emoji cannot seem to illicit.

Moving on from the struggle of communicating with emojis and gifs, I am now aware of how inadequate my generational vocabulary is and how much more progress I need to make. So, back to research and note taking so that when Jordan Crook uses the descriptor crunchy in a sentence, my mind will evoke a mental image of a nature loving, granola eating individual. Perhaps the person is even wearing a pair of Birkenstocks and driving an old VW van! What is really humorous for this Gen Xer is that since these trips with college students, I have now heard some of these new terms used more than once in church messages.

• Phubbing – the practice of ignoring one’s companion or companions in order to pay attention to one’s phone or other mobile device.
• Crunchy –Crunchy persons tend to be politically strongly left-leaning and may be additionally but not exclusively categorized as vegetarians, vegans, eco-tarians, conservationists, environmentalists, neo-hippies, tree huggers, nature enthusiasts, etc.
• Tea – the best kind of gossip, typically shared between friends. A bonding tool for people of all ages. Tea is usually about someone you know but can also extend to celebrities and others.
• Bougee – One who owns swag. Elite, rich. Fake Rich – derived the term Bourgeois. It is mostly used to describe people who would be considered middle class using brands like Becca or wearing fake Gucci.
• Ghosting – the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication.
• Big Facts – facts of significant size, important information

So, if you desire to be encouraging to me and boost my ego, please comment below embracing your lack of knowledge of these terms/phrases too. Thank you, Gen Zers and urban dictionaries.

Thank you, John Crist, for sharing these Christian emojis to Facebook!