This TikTok trend parodies famous songs with cringe Gen Z slang
Do you what skibidi means? What about gyatt? Rizzler? Baby Gronk rizzing up Livvy?
I pray you don't. I hope you are blessedly offline, enjoying the sunshine with your unpoisoned brain. To be honest, I'm only up to speed so I could somewhat effectively write this article.
I feel like this whole paragraph should be a footnote but here goes. "Skibidi" is a reference to a meme born from absurdist humor and a random song. "Gyatt" is technically slang for loudly saying "goddamn" but also shorthand for a man expressing his approval of a woman's butt on TikTok. "Rizzler" is a pun on rizz and the Riddler, basically saying the person is great at attracting people. And here's a whole article explaining Baby Gronk and Livvy.
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ANYWAY: These phrases and many more have become a new TikTok trend. Or rather, they've helped create the trend, which parodies famous tracks and rewrites them in absurd TikTok meme slang. It's like TikTok is cosplaying Weird Al Yankovic except the songs are insincere and purposefully cringe. Musically inclined TikTokkers are shoehorning phrases they know are pretty nonsensical into these songs — and the results are, well, interesting.
The trend is a creative way to turn the mirror on TikTok itself, showing how silly the verbiage of the platform can be. Here are some recent examples of the trend.
You've got a Hall and Oates version.
The Beatles get their turn.
New right-wing folk hero Oliver Anthony got parodied, too.
The trend has seemingly gotten very popular. This "Hey Ya" parody racked up more than three million freaking views, for instance, even as the person doing it seemed to be disgusted with the product they put out.
It is interesting to see young TikTokkers think about the sort of slang that takes off on the platform. Like any other generation, sometimes you look back at things you said and find them to be cringe or strange. It just happens in real time for young people on TikTok.
To be honest, I only understand about half the references, at best, in most of these parody songs. I'm more online than most, so if your FYP becomes covers of popular songs that are seemingly transfused with lyrics written by a babbling madman — at least now you know what's happening.
Topics TikTok
Tim Marcin is an Associate Editor on the culture team at Mashable, where he mostly digs into the weird parts of the internet. You'll also see some coverage of memes, tech, sports, trends, and the occasional hot take. You can find him on Bluesky (sometimes), Instagram (infrequently), or eating Buffalo wings (as often as possible).
