Viral Language

There are a few things being conflated here: general gen Z slang like "rizz"; "algospeak", or euphemisms to avoid demonetization or other disciplinary action from online platforms (e.g., "unalive" for "kill", or "S.A." for "sexual assault"); and replacing vowels with asterisks which is usually done to avoid attention from searchers for disfavored people/things, e.g., "El*n M*sk".

Even in the realm of gen Z slang, gen Z/alpha people don't generally talk as obnoxiously as depicted in the Rizzler song or the infamous Walmart ad with the bus driver. And there are certain things attributed to gen Z that I think are completely made up and then picked up and propagated by gullible journalists and marketroids. A few years back, a number of online outlets began repeating the rise of the term "cheugy" among gen Z, meaning roughly "cheesy and outdated, like something a millennial would find cool". But I could never find actual live examples of "cheugy" being used this way, either online or IRL, outside of thinkpieces about gen Z slang. I'm pretty convinced that "cheugy" is a phenomenon similar to the hoax jargon of "grunge speak" of the 1990s:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunge_speak

I think it's important to separate and clarify the different linguistic phenomena going in here, to avoid brainrot regarding how Kids These Days speak and use language.

"aura" and "brain rot" are not new, sorry.

etymonline.com on "aura":

- 1870: In spiritualism, "subtle emanation around living beings".

- 1859: "Characteristic impression" made by a personality.

- 1732: "An aroma or subtle emanation".

The hyphenated term brain-rot was used by Henry Thoreau in Walden [1854]; search for it in this Project Gutenberg copy:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/205/205-h/205-h.htm

crazy how the behaviour impacts the language and language impacts the behaviour such like a loop