HGs (Slang)
Submission 696
Part of a series on AAVE / African American Vernacular English. [View Related Entries]
Related Explainer: What Does 'HGS' And 'HG' Mean On TikTok? The Viral Slang Term Meaning 'Home Girls' And Its Origin Explained
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About • Origin • Spread • Various Examples • Search Interest • External References • Recent Images • Recent Videos |
About
HGs is an AAVE slang term and abbreviation for "home girls," meaning a group of female friends. Memes referencing HGs originally surfaced on TikTok in 2024. Many of the HGs memes in 2024 used the Henry Danger meme format that spread in September of that year. A definition for HGs was first added to Urban Dictionary in 2020 and gained viral usage on Twitter / X the same year.
Origin
A definition for "HG" that meant "home girls" was first added to Urban Dictonary[1] on January 9th, 2004, by user sum person. The definition gained over 200 likes in 20 years. On April 7th, 2020, Urban Dictionary user Oraxwills added a definition for "hgs" that meant "home girls," gaining over 40 likes in four years (shown below).
Viral usage of HGs also surfaced in 2020. For instance, the first known viral usage of HGs was a quote tweet shared by X[2][3] user @sw33tky on January 19th, 2020, that captioned a video of a boy staring, "my hgs : bitch you won’t / me:" The tweet received over 3,500 likes in four years (shown below).
Prior to 2020, the usage of "HGs" also meant "house guests" among fans of the reality TV show Big Brother.[4]
Spread
Going into the 2020s, usage of HGs continued to go viral. For instance, on January 31st, 2023, X[5] user @llesleyperez tweeted, "he said 'me or the parties' i was so sad shakin ass w my hgs," gaining over 2,300 likes in a year (shown below).
Viral usage of the slang term later spread to TikTok. For instance, on October 11th, 2023, TikToker[6] @lov3charlee posted a video with a text caption reading, "when my hgs threw a party cause I finally left him alone but the uber he called me is outside," receiving over 266,700 plays and 71,400 likes in 11 months (shown below).
Usage of HGs continued to spread on X and TikTok in 2024. For instance, on June 20th, 2024, X[7] user @sh4niaaa tweeted an image of rapper Young Thug captioned, "'How bad you lying for your hgs' / Me," receiving over 40,000 likes in three months (shown below).
On May 22nd, 2024, TikToker[8] @liltrayskii2.0 posted a video with a caption reading, "Describe your hgs," in which he's seen lip dubbing a voice that asks, "Y'all ever just met a dumb hoe? Just do everything dumb?" Over four months, the video received over 1.1 million plays and 223,100 likes (shown below).
In September 2024, usage of HGs became increasingly common in Henry Danger memes on TikTok. For instance, on September 14th, TikToker[9] @lundonnn._ posted a video that captioned a scene from Henry Danger, "me and my hgs taking turns trolling people off text now," receiving over 332,400 plays and 105,600 likes in four days (shown below).
Various Examples
Search Interest
External References
[3] X (via Internet Archive) – @sw33tky
[4] X – @JunDishes
[5] X – @llesleyperez
[6] TikTok – @lov3charlee
[8] TikTok – @liltrayskii2.0
[9] TikTok – @lundonnn._
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