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2010s slang
The 2010s were when AAVE-rooted slang fully colonized mainstream English via Vine, Tumblr, and early Twitter. Lit, savage, basic, ratchet, on fleek, bae, slay, snatched — all peaked within this decade.
It was also when the meme-as-vocabulary loop accelerated: words emerged from Vines, were memed for six weeks, and ended up in Wendy's tweets. The decade closed with OK boomer, TikTok's emergence, and the early days of stan Twitter shaping the next wave.
The 2010s lexicon · 12 terms
lit
lɪt
🔥 Gen Z & TikTok
slay
sleɪ
🔥 Gen Z & TikTok
savage
ˈsæv.ɪdʒ
🔥 Gen Z & TikTok
basic
ˈbeɪ.sɪk
🔥 Gen Z & TikTok
ratchet
ˈrætʃ.ɪt
🔥 Gen Z & TikTok
finsta
ˈfɪn.stə
🌐 Internet & Memes
lowkey
ˈloʊ.kiː
🌐 Internet & Memes
highkey
ˈhaɪ.kiː
🌐 Internet & Memes
stan
/stæn/
🌐 Internet & Memes
shade
ʃeɪd
🗺️ Regional & Other
tea
tiː
🔥 Gen Z & TikTok
bussin
/bʌs.ɪn/
🔥 Gen Z & TikTok
Bottom line
The 2010s gave us the vocabulary the 2020s built on. Most 2010s peak terms (on fleek, bae) are dated now; but the structures (the AAVE → Twitter → mainstream pipeline) defined how slang has worked since.
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