It’s a tale as old as time. Black and brown kids will start using some new slang terms with friends. Then, those new phrases start to trickle into their tweets and Instagram captions.
Then years later — and I mean years later — their slang gets… we’ll say, “adopted”… into influencers’ hashtags and land in commercials. Eventually, the terms become labeled as “things the kids are saying these days.” And yet again, Black creativity and joy is devoured, while the people who literally created that joy aren’t even footnotes in the conversation.
But on the recent episode of SNL, Marcello Hernández broke this down so beautifully on “Weekend Update” that I was slow clapping for him in my pajamas.
“Gen Z slang is African-American slang,” he said. “Basically, Black people start saying something, then young people think it’s cool, so they start saying it. Then white people say it, and then once Elon Musk says it, it’s over.” And that’s facts (a word I had to awkwardly explain way too recently).
When he explained the “new” Gen Z slang (that’s really just Black slang) to Colin Jost, Colin asked why he wasn’t quizzing Michael Che on these popular terms. “Che knows this stuff,” Marcello told him. Just like the rest of us Black millennials who had terms like “slaps,” “bop,” and “that hits” co-opted literally as recently as the pandemic.
Then Colin tried to use what he just learned in a sentence and proceeded to kill a bunch of words, like “cap” in 2026. Bless his heart.
Black Twitter also reacted to the unexpected and refreshing props:
Marcello, of course, isn’t nearly the first person who’s tried to break down the origins of terms Black people made cool. But the refresher was super appreciated. You can watch the full clip here.
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What did you think of Marcello’s slang history lesson on SNL? Let us know in the comments!