I spent a weekend with Gen Alpha. I needed a translator

As a youth mental health reporter, I’d like to think that I’m up to date with what young people are saying.

Then I spent a weekend volunteering with elementary, middle and high schoolers at a youth camp.

I heard “huzz,” “larping” and “fries.” One counselor was designated “unc.” When I watched kids throw up an OK-hand gesture and say “fairs,” I had to stop to ask what all of these words meant.

Gen Alpha’s slang can feel like an entirely different variant of the English language, shaped by TikTok, memes and Twitch streamers.

Here are some of the Gen Alpha slang terms you’re likely to hear these days, and what they actually mean.

“Fairs” is a short way of saying “fair enough.” What originated as British slang spread on TikTok as a way to acknowledge something as being a valid answer or an understandable result of a situation.

“I remember one time, like, I told a girl I liked her, and she said ‘ew’” and I was like ‘fairs,’” TikToker @thakiddsam jokingly explained in a June video.

Throughout the weekend, the kids I was with used the saying in conjunction with an OK hand symbol made with the thumb and…

Original source: https://www.usatoday.com/life/