It’s giving gyatt: Unpacking Gen Alpha’s favourite viral internet slang trend

By Charlie Sawyer

Published Aug 15, 2024 at 12:20 PM

Reading time: 3 minutes

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Image courtesy of YouTube

From Skibidi Toilet and AI-generated crying cats to Roblox’s Lana lore and Pose 38, Gen Alpha has a unique dictionary that could stump even the most chronically online of Gen Zers. Long gone are the days of explaining “slay” to cringe millennials. Now, our TikTok FYPs and X feeds are dominated by iPad kids revelling in their collective smugness and new catalogue of catchphrases.

But considering that SCREENSHOT was one of the first publications to not only understand but master the term rizz, alongside all of the word’s potential uses and broader social implications, I feel it’s only fitting that I now attempt to give you all a lesson on Gen Alpha’s newest lingo. Introducing gyatt (or gyat), a word that once I’ve explained it to you, you’ll likely be surprised we didn’t first hear it back in 2014 when Nicki Minaj released ‘Anaconda’. You’re also probably wondering why it’s now such a big thing among 14-year-olds.

If you look at Google Trends, gyatt has been on the rise for the past 18 months, hitting a peak in December 2023. This spike and the term’s ability to morph depending on the circumstance made it a more than appropriate next subject for a SCREENSHOT deep dive.

According to Urban Dictionary, the official meaning of the word gyatt is an exclamatory statement when you see someone, typically a woman, with a big butt or “fat booty.” The acronym stands for “goddam your ass thick.”

However, we should also consult the slang master himself, @slangmandavidburke, whose lingo breakdown explains how the teens he interacts with in his live streams often use gyatt also just to mean ‘the greatest’ or ‘goddam’.

First popularised on Twitch in 2022, gyatt began increasing in use after well-known American video creator and streamer YourRAGE began using it to describe physically attractive women who would pop up in his chat—specifically women who had hourglass figures and were overtly voluptuous. Fellow streamer Kai Cenat soon started using the term in his own live streams, further hyping up the term.

Not long after this, TikTok began filling up with videos of people using the hashtag #gyatt when they would post thirst traps.

Then, the word was completely co-opted by Gen Alphas online.

The thing is, gyatt isn’t even a new word. It’s actually been around for a really long time, having first originated in Black and specifically Jamaican communities.

And, as is extremely common nowadays, these types of slang words, once popularised, ultimately end up being used by different groups in many strange and unique ways. For example, on TikTok, as shown by the Daily Dot, phrases such as “I’ve gyatt to meet your dad,” “this is so gyat damn cute,” “in gyat we trust,” and “you gyat the moves,” have all been used by netizens.

Indeed, this transformation of the original usage of the term reiterates and re-emphasises the fact that all too often words that come from African American Vernacular English (AAVE) or Black English are used out of context after gaining popularity online.

Level 10 gyatt simply means a gyatt that is 10/10, a top-tier gyatt. Having a level 10 gyatt would definitely win you some serious aura points, if you know what I mean.

One of my favourite finds along this journey of understanding Gen Alpha slang has to be when I stumbled across a Quora post titled: My 8-year-old daughter tells me I have a ‘level nine gyatt’. What does this mean? Should I be concerned?

There is also a song called ‘Level 10 Gyatt’ by the artist LilBoogerBoy that is currently available on Apple Music.

While we’re on the topic of Gen Alpha’s favourite artists and bops right now, we should also definitely talk about real wayne’s track ‘Sticking out Your Gyat for the Rizzler (Fanum Tax)’. Released in 2023, the song’s music video currently has an insane 3.8 million views.

This track takes inspiration from a song by SUICIDAL-IDOL called ‘Ecstasy’. It quickly prompted a TikTok trend that focused on the lyrics “sticking out your tongue for the picture.”

Practically overnight there were thousands of videos of netizens using the trending audio for their videos:

The Gen Alpha remix of this song also mentions the words “Fanum Tax” which is internet slang for theft of food between friends. I know, they have a phrase for everything now.

Gen Alpha slang will forever be a partial mystery to me. That being said, it is interesting (and quite fun) to immerse yourself in a world where words like gyatt and Skibidi Toilet exist. Give me one second, I just need to go and create a Discord account real quick.