Do you speak Gen Z? Sigma, aura and Skibidi named the fastest-growing Gen Z slang terms
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Do you know your ball knowledge from your betas? Your sigmas from your Skibidi Toilets? And, let’s be honest—do you really understand what it means to be having a ‘brat winter’?. A new study by JD Sports has revealed that terms like sigma, aura and Skibidi are among the fastest-growing slang trends among Gen Z in the UK. Drawing from Instagram, TikTok, and Google search data, the findings show what Gen Z have really been saying (and searching) this year.
The study highlights sigma, the term for a lone wolf “bad boy” type, as the most popular term, with 167 searches per 100,000 people in the UK. Following closely behind are aura (meaning charisma, attractiveness) and Skibidi (from the viral Skibidi Toilet YouTube show) each recording 75 searches per 100,000, while other terms such as brat, mid and rizz garnered 61 searches per 100,000.
London has also been named the “brat capital” of the UK, with 169 searches per 100,000 people, making it the dominant city for “bratitude”, as it were. Brat, for those who don’t know, is the term recently popularised by Charli xcx to mean messy, debauched, and generally party-oriented. To be having a brat summer or brat winter is just an extension of brat — to be channelling your inner brat for a whole season.
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Otherwise, the capital city hovered around the national average for terms like sigma (169 searches per 100,000), aura (92), and mid (92). Quite beta of us, really. In Belfast, the term sigma is apparently thriving, with 253 searches per 100,000 people, followed by Newcastle (251) and Bristol (235). Birmingham led in searches for aura, with 143 per 100,000, ahead of Newcastle (112) and Manchester (104). Meanwhile, Bristol ranked first for "Skibidi," indicating a clear Skibidi Toilet obsession in the southwest.
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