How TikTok and Social Media Create New Words
Imagine learning English for years, finally becoming fluent, opening TikTok and reading:
“Bro is delulu. This is giving main character energy. The comments are sending me. No cap.”
Congratulations. Apparently, you need to learn English again.
Gen Z didn't invent slang, of course. Every generation has created words that made the generation before them wonder what exactly happened to the language.
The difference now is speed. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, gaming communities, memes, and group chats can take a word that barely anyone was using and put it in front of millions of people almost overnight. Delulu. Rizz. Brainrot. It's giving. Rage bait. Some survive. Some change meaning. Some become painfully uncool approximately five minutes after a brand uses them in an ad.
And somewhere in the middle of all this, translators and localization teams are expected to keep up. Because translating internet slang isn't as simple as finding the same word in another language. Sometimes there isn't one. Sometimes the joke is only funny because of a particular meme. Sometimes translating it literally makes absolutely no sense.
And sometimes, by the time you've figured it out, the internet has already moved on to the next one. For an industry built around making content work across languages and cultures, that's where things get interesting.
Slang Travels Fast, Meaning Doesn't Always Follow
Internet slang rarely stays in one corner of the internet for long.
A phrase can start inside a gaming community, explode on TikTok, appear in Instagram comments, cross into everyday conversations and suddenly show up in a client's campaign brief. Sometimes all within a few months.
And that's not a bad thing. Slang is creative. It gives communities their own way of expressing humor, reactions, emotions and shared experiences. Gen Z happens to be particularly good at giving us phrases that communicate an entire situation in two words. “It's giving.” Giving what?
Apparently, context will let you know.
But for brands creating content for international audiences, this fast-moving language creates an interesting challenge. A phrase that feels natural to one audience might mean very little to another. And even when another language has its own slang for the same idea, simply replacing one expression with another doesn't guarantee the same tone.
Imagine a brand wants to localize a campaign using “main character energy.”
A literal translation might explain the words perfectly while completely missing why people use the phrase. The translator first needs to understand the reference, the tone, whether it's sincere or ironic, who the audience is and whether people in the target market would say anything similar.
The same applies to dubbing. A character saying “no cap” shouldn't sound like someone reading a dictionary definition of “I am being completely truthful.” The meaning survived. The character definitely didn't.
That's why clients using internet slang need to think beyond individual words. Where did the expression come from? Who actually uses it? What does it communicate in this particular context? And what would give another audience that same reaction?
Slang can make content feel current, personal and genuinely connected to an audience. But once that content crosses a language barrier, the slang has to make the journey too.
Should Brands Use Internet Slang?
Yes.
But please don't force it. Internet slang can make a brand sound current, relatable and aware of the culture its audience is actually participating in. Used well, it can make marketing feel less like a company speaking at people and more like a brand that understands how they communicate.
Used badly? “Hello, fellow Gen Z customers. Our new product has rizz. No cap.”
And just like that, everyone has left the room.
The problem isn't brands using slang. It's using slang because it's trending, without understanding who uses it, what it means, or whether it fits the brand's voice in the first place.
The same becomes even more important when content is localized.
A trendy English phrase shouldn't automatically survive just because the campaign is moving into another language. Maybe the target audience already uses the English expression. Maybe they have their own equivalent. Maybe there's a completely different local joke that creates the same effect. And sometimes, the best decision is to leave the slang behind entirely.
That's where translators, copywriters, voice actors and localization teams need room to work with the idea behind the expression, not just the expression itself.
For clients, that means providing context matters more than ever. Who is speaking? Who are they speaking to? Is the line supposed to be funny, sarcastic, cool, ironic or deliberately ridiculous? Is the slang central to the character or campaign, or is it there because someone saw it trending last Tuesday?
The goal isn’t to make every brand sound like Gen Z, but it’s more up to make sure that when a brand does speak their language, it knows what it's saying.
Conclusion
Language has never stood still. Every generation creates expressions, borrows words, changes meanings and eventually leaves future generations wondering why anyone ever spoke like that.
Social media simply gave that process a much faster internet connection. Today, a phrase can go from an inside joke to global slang in weeks. Tomorrow, it might appear in an ad, a game, a YouTube video or a script that needs to be dubbed into ten languages.
And suddenly, someone has to figure out what “it's giving” is actually giving. For brands, that's both a challenge and an opportunity. Internet slang can make content feel incredibly close to the people it's meant for but only when the language, audience and context actually belong together.
For localization teams, it also makes the work much more interesting, especially when the hardest part isn’t the translation but figuring out what on earth they meant in the first place.
And considering the speed of the internet, we'd better figure it out quickly.
There's probably a new word trending already.