meme-review
KYM Review: Slang of 2016
Editor’s Note: This article is part of Know Your Meme’s annual review series looking back at some of the most memorable and popular memes, events and people that defined the Internet culture in 2016 as we know it.
anguage is a wonderful thing. It's ever-malleable, evolving with humanity as it approaches the heights of its existence on this planet. Why, not one year ago would we have ever dreamed that everyone in every political discussion would have been called a "Cuck" by years end. Now that's beautiful.
Seriously though, 2016 sucked and a lot of the slang that came out of this year reflected that. It was the year of the Dumpster Fire. It was the year progressives were belittled away with the label "Bernie Bro." Trans people needed to come up with a term for when Facebook deleted their accounts for "not using their real name." And everyone, everywhere, all the time, needed to Stay Woke. It was exhausting and difficult. But while a lot of slang reflected deeening cultural anxieties, 2016 also brought us words like Doggo, Succ, Thicc, and if new words cute dogs, blowjobs, and asses aren't signs of positive changes in the world, then I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
Anyway, here it is fam, the most deadass lit slang of 2016.
Cuck
There were a lot of great insults and pejoratives bandied about in 2016, but none was as pervasive and hilarious as Cuck. Everyone was a cuck this year, as the only qualification to be a "cuck" was to be slightly left of the far right. Ted Cruz? Cuck. John Kasich? Definitely a cuck. Chris Christie? Probably the biggest cuck of them all. As Donald Trump ran through the Republican primary belittling literally the entire field of chumps, he began to take on an alpha-aura. He wasn't just beating these guys. He was taking their manhood.
Thus began the great American cuckhunt, as cuck-hungry conservatives rallied around Trump's candidacy. In him, they saw a man who would finally get lobbying out of politics. He would repeal Obamacare. He would build a wall between Mexico and the United States. And then, after he was elected, he has reversed his position on literally all those things. The cuckers became the cuckees. You can't cuck the Trump.
Fam
Ah, fam. Only good things precede "fam." You call someone "fam" after you say "I gotchu" or "say no more." It's the gender-inclusive update to "bro" we needed in 2016. It also became part of a few great memes, such as The Barber.
Not to get sentimental about a monosyllabic word, but "fam" is genuinely one of the best platonic nicknames. It's short for family, after all, and the general idea is that one would do anything for family. So when you're called "fam" by your buddy, it's like being told, "hey, you're part of the family, what do you need?" It's a nice, cheerful way to spread camaraderie, which the year desperately needed.
Zucked
In 2016, some of the best Weird Facebook pages disappeared without warning. It was yet another example of Zuckerberg screwing over creators, or "Zucking" them, which has been happening since the dawn of Facebook. But when he came for the memes, a new iteration of Zuck was born: "Zucc."
"Zucc," a play on Succ, became the blanket term for when mememakers and trans folk who don't go by their given name on Facebook have their accounts suddenly deleted. Zuccing was just one of the many problems Facebook faced this year, bizarrely going after meme pages and trans people when their algorithm allowed for the proliferation of fake news. For his part, Zuckerberg seemed completely unaware of the issue, as demonstrated in a notorious video where he asks, "what is Zucc?"
Thicc
Thicc is not pronounced like "thick." Rather, it is pronounced "thiiiiick" with a deep appreciation for the gloriousness of a fine butt, like this one:
Now that's thicc. "Thicc" is another pickup from African American Vernacular English that made its way to the memesphere via application to everything under the sun, including Pokemon Sun and Moon character Wicke, Spongebob's "Bubble Bass," and this couch:
Any way we can show appreciation for butts gets an A in my book, making "thicc" more than worthy of its spot on this list.
Deadass
If you grew up in the northeast quadrant of the United States around New York City, chances are you've heard Deadass in more contexts than you can count. By the working definition shown below, it's entirely possible to have a conversation like this:
1: Deadass?
2: Deadass!
3: Deadassssss.
Generally, "Deadass" means "seriously," and it remained one of the most consistent slang words of the 21st century in 2016, particularly when Timbs started getting big as a meme on Black Twitter. It's pretty great slang that's simple enough to understand, but a word of caution: use it wrong and you're going to How Do You Do, Fellow Kids? yourself.
Dumpster Fire
The Dumpster Fire is 2016 in a nutshell: a literal pile of garbage, lit ablaze and smelling up the entire world, and probably doing some permanent damage to the climate while it's at it. Mother Jones called "Dumpster Fire" the meme of the year, and who could blame them? Look at the below gif and tell me it doesn't sum up the entire election/year.
The one issue with calling 2016 a dumpster fire is that dumpster fires are contained and put out eventually. Not the case for 2016. No, the dumpster fire of a year rages on and seems to grow more by the day, burning everything in its path like Sherman's March (Google it). Soon they'll have to come up with a new word to describe how bad things are. What's next? Nuclear holocaust?
Yuge
Ahh, the good ol' days, when we could all laugh at how Donald Trump pronounces "huge." "It's gonna be YUGE!" we'd say to each other with a knowing wink. "Yuge" was Trump's first Bushism, one of his go-to words (along with "tremendous," "the best," etc.) when describing the future of America.
Of course, Trump isn't the only one to pronounce it "yooge." Bernie Sanders does it too, as do many who talk with a mid-twentieth century New York City dialect. But Trump's "Yooge" is a trademark, arguably the second-most well-known Trumpism behind "You're Fired." It was widely tossed around in the days when a Trump candidacy seemed like folly. Now that he's ascended to the yugest office in the United States, not so much.
Stay Woke
"Shit is happening all the time. All you need to do to see it is open your eyes. Stay Woke." So might go a phrase that was simultaneously silly and deeply serious in 2016. In many cases, terrible things were happening everywhere from the Black Lives Matter movement to the Democratic Party corruption revealed by Wikileaks. These were things that desperately needed attention and because of the never-ending shitstream that was 2016, could get washed away by our short attention spans.
But it was also applied to jokes. People joked about staying woke to The Warriors Blew a 3-1 Lead, Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams, etc. It made for a very sleepless year, as I stayed woke through every controversy, gag, and conspiracy that passed us by in 2016. After this year, we could all use a nap.
Becky
This year, Beyoncé dropped Lemonade, an epic album that featured a line many couldn't forget about a certain "Becky with the good hair" who had attracted the attention of her man. In the context of an album that seemed to be explicitly about Jay-Z's infidelity, the internet immediately started wondering who "Becky with the good hair" might be. For my money, the answer was pretty obvious:
But in all seriousness, while we never found out who the real "Becky" was, the line instantly made "Becky" a slang word for a woman whom a man cheats on. Prior to Lemonade, "Becky" had previously been slang for a generic white girl. Honestly, Becky is a fine name, but it sure did get dragged through the mud in 2016.
Daddy
Daddy culture is one of those subcultures that gives many the heebie-jeebies. The name implies a fetish that plays on the idea that the guy in a sexual encounter is banging his daughter. It's certainly a subculture many don't know a lot about and choose to ignore. However, "Daddy" wouldn't be on this list without the help of a tweet rant that spawned #Daddygate.
One Twitter user named @shanley skyrocketed to Twitter infamy when she found it necessary to eviscerate the phonies who were "appropriating daddy culture" by calling celebrities daddy or using "daddy" in a cute screen name. It's one of the greatest Twitter rants of all time, and birthed plenty of handclap-laden tweets like "DON'T APPROPRIATE TRANSFORMERS CULTURE IF YOU ARE NOT A SOLDIER IN THE FIGHT AGAINST MEGATRON," for example. #Daddygate was one of Twitter's best moments, combining bizarre, social-justice overreaction with an uncomfortable fetish many giggle about. Everyone had a good laugh about it… well, except @shanley.