Hi, everybody. Welcome to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. In
today's lesson, we're going to look at some popular culture
expressions. These are words that are very popular today;
they may or may not be popular in a few years. Right? And the
reason that it's important to understand these is because
you're going to see or hear these words a lot now, but
they're not words that are very common, or they're not words
that you would see in an English learning textbook, for example.
They are words that suddenly appear in mainstream media, or
in, like, Hollywood, or in things like that -- that
basically celebrities, or influencers, or people who are
popular and have a big audience make common. Right? So, these
are not everyday words; these are words that somebody made
popular. Okay? And we're going to... You're going to have an
idea once I get going.
For example: "to throw shade at someone". Ten years ago, you
would not have heard this expression. Ten years from now,
you might not hear this expression anymore. But today,
this is a very common expression. "To throw shade"
means to insult someone publicly. But the key is that
it's not a very obvious insult; it's a very subtle or very
hinted-at insult. And it's usually celebrities at
celebrities. Because who is in the public eye? Celebrities.
Everyday people, like you or me, nobody cares what we actually
say. So, nobody's listening to us, so we can't really throw
shade in public. We can do it in private, but then it's just
insult; it's not shade.
Now, the main idea is that it's shade. "Shade" means "not
direct". Right? So, if... If one musician makes a joke, but
doesn't mention the... another musician's name, but the nature
of the joke everybody understands is about that
musician, then that is called "throwing shade". The first
musician could directly insult to the second musician, but she
doesn't. She says something that everybody understands to be
about the second musician, and therefore she can't be blamed,
really, for anything. Although it usually goes back and forth
both ways. Okay? So, to insult in a very subtle but public way.
"Gaslighting", this is a very common expression. This is
actually an old expression, but it's become popular again, in
the new political, American-political situation.
You'll hear it more commonly in the US than you will other
places, but "to gaslight someone"... So, one person can
"gaslight" someone or a person can "gaslight" a whole group of
people. It basically means "to manipulate". But how? How do you
manipulate people? You lie to them, or you make them think
that they... their reality is questionable.
So, if I tell you lies every day, every day, every day, and
then you question me, and I would say: "What are you talking
about? I never said that." So, I tell you the lie, and then I
deny it. And then I again, and again, and again, until finally,
you start to think that maybe the problem is in your mind; you
start to doubt yourself, you start to think that your reality
might not be 100% accurate, or you start questioning what is
actually true and what is not. You don't know what to believe,
who to believe, etcetera. So, the person who did this to you
gaslighted you or gaslit you, and that's the whole intention
of it. So, especially in the political environment we live in
today. Some politicians are actively trying to gaslight the
public; they lie to them, lie to them, and they say: "No. I never
said that." Or: "No, no, I said the opposite. I don't know why
you think this." Right? So, they're manipulating them. And
it's working, which is a scary thing. So, that's "gaslighting".
"Trigger". "Trigger" is a very popular word now as well. When
someone is triggered, it means something got them emotionally
active; it made them somehow emotional, usually in a negative
way. So, somebody said something, and that made me very
angry, and maybe it offended me. It made me feel attacked or
insulted. And then I get very angry and I want to take some
action. This is also very common in the political landscape these
days, especially in the US, where if someone triggers
someone, the... It makes them angry, but sometimes... It's
gotten to the point where the person getting angry is getting
angry about everything. Right? So, the political right is
accusing the political left of always being triggered, which
leads...
Actually, I'll go... I'll skip a few and go to this word:
"snowflake". So, the political right, started calling people on
the left "snowflakes" because "snowflakes"... Basically,
"snowflake" means somebody who's not really special. Right? He's
just like everybody else. But now it means that somebody who
gets easily offended. So, a lot of people accused the liberals
in the US of being snowflakes. It's very easy to make them
upset; it's very easy to offend them. They're always trying to
be politically correct, trying to make everybody happy, which
is a little bit impossible. So, it's gotten to the point where
people on, like, on the left... on the right, like Republicans,
are actively and happily trying to trigger the snowflakes on the
left. And the problem is that the liberals, the Democrats are
starting to look a little bit weak, because everybody thinks
they are snowflakes.
So, I'll give you a common example these days. It's
becoming increasingly popular for people to say what pronoun
they want to be called by. So: "Hi. My name is Adam. I prefer
'he' and 'him'." So, like, basically, I'm saying I'm a
male, so call me by my male pronouns. Some people say they
prefer to be called "they". People don't want to be
gender... They want to be... They don't want to be
gender-binary; they want to be neutral. So, anyways, this is
one of the things that people are talking about. If you call
somebody, if somebody says: "'He'. I want to be called 'he'
or 'she'", and you call me "they", I will be triggered, I
will be angry, and I will complain and I will be upset
about it. And then you will call me a "snowflake" because I'm
getting upset about nothing really serious. So, "snowflake"
and "triggers" kind of go together.
Now, a "snub". A "snub" is basically ignoring something or
someone a little bit with the intent of making them feel bad.
So, if you think about the Oscars, the movies or any award
show -- somebody is getting a lot of praise for their acting,
or directing, or production. And everybody thinks: "Oh, yeah,
this... This actor is going to win an Academy Award." And then
the Oscar committee announces the nominations, who is
considered to be the best actor, and they snub this actor. It
means they don't include him in the nominations. That means they
ignore him; they think his, that his performance was not very
good. So, a "snub" can be considered an insult. But mostly
it means you're not included or not considered for something,
and people take offense to that as well.
I'm sure if you follow Instagram or social media, you've probably
seen "BAE" a lot. A lot of people think that "BAE" is short
for "baby". Actually, it's an acronym: Before Anyone Else. So,
basically, your special person. You will do something for this
person before anyone else. So, it could be baby, your baby, but
it's basically your boyfriend or girlfriend, the... Or your
lover. Doesn't... depends on the situation. "Before Anyone Else"
is the actual expression.
"Ghost". This is actually a verb: "to ghost". So, "to ghost"
means, for example, in a party... If you're at a party
and you leave without saying: "Goodbye" to anybody, like,
nobody knows that you left. Suddenly, they realize you're
not there -- that means you ghosted; you left quietly
without telling anybody. Or on a conversation, on a telephone
conversation, someone calls you and your friend picks up and you
say: "Hello?" You say... Somebody says: "Yeah. Can I talk
to Bill?" And Bill is standing right here. It means I'm not
here. Right? So, they say: "Oh, I'm sorry. Bill's not here. Can
he call you back?" So that Bill is ghosting the person on the
phone. That's another use of it.
And if you have a relationship with someone, you're talking or
texting, whatever, and then suddenly one person just stops
communication; never writes back, never calls -- just stops
any communication. So. that, also, is called "ghosting".
That's a common expression these days.
Another thing to keep in mind about most of these expressions,
like, for example: "BAE", and "ghost", and things like that --
young people use it more than the older generations.
"Trigger", "snowflake", and "gaslighting" -- these are just
more of political words and expressions, so everybody's
using them. But a lot of the pop-culture words originate or
come with... from young people.
Now, then an example here is the word "woke". This is actually an
old word, but it has a resurgence. Basically, it's a
word that's become popular and then sort of disappears, nobody
uses it; and then it comes back to be popular, and maybe
disappears again. So, this is basically, like, now the third
time that it's become popular. "Woke" means aware; socially
aware of discrimination or injustice, especially when it
comes to, like, racial discrimination. If you think
you're being discriminated against, or if you notice that
there's a lot of discrimination against people of color; Black
people, Latinos, etcetera - then you are "woke".
And generally, if you're going to be woke, you're probably also
going to be "triggered". Right? I'm actually going to say
"triggered" when we're talking about a person or describing a
person. "To trigger" means to make someone triggered. And if
someone is woke, they can be easily upset; they can be easily
triggered by seeing how, let's say, police treat a certain
segment of the population, or how the government treats them,
or how anybody. Like, any one area the population treats
another area of the population, especially as the world is
becoming... There's a lot more White supremacy, and populism,
and all these things. People are becoming more woke. Okay?
On a more light tone, we have "GOAT". "GOAT" is also an
acronym; it's not the animal, it means: Greatest Of All Time.
Greatest Of All Time. So, it started... The conversation
started, I think. It became more and more popular when there was
a question: "Who is the GOAT? LeBron James or Michael Jordan?
Who is the greatest basketball player of all time?" And after
they started, then: "Okay, who's the GOAT in hockey? Who's the
GOAT in soccer? Who's the goat in football?" And then it
started to go outside of sports altogether: "Who's the GOAT
president? Who's the GOAT businessman?" All these things.
So: "Who's the best? The best of the best. The Greatest Of All
Time." And it's used quite a lot these days.
"Goals". "Goals", basically means "goals"; it's exactly what
it says, but it's very commonly used when people talk about what
they want to achieve. And you'll see this a lot on social media.
Right? Somebody puts a picture of a happy couple and they're
doing something fun, and in the comments, you'll see: "Oh,
couple goals". Or they're... They have very nice body; body
goals, or vacation goals, or whatever goals. So, whenever
people see something that they think is really good and they
want for themselves, instead of actually working towards it,
they'll just say: "Oh, body goals, couple goals. I want to
be like them." So, that's actually what it means: "I want
to be like", and whatever you're talking about. And notice that
it's not "goal"; it's always "goals". "Body goals, vacation
goals, couple goals". A very common word these days,
especially on social media.
"To binge". "To binge" means to do a lot of something in a very
short time. So, for example, if you... If you like the
Friends... The TV show, Friends, for example and you... You
want... You don't have much time, but you want to see all of
the shows, one day you will start and you will watch one
after the other, after the other. And after a day or two,
you've seen the entire series. You binged on the show. It's
also commonly used for when we talk about drinking alcohol, and
especially young people at university, and they have
parties and they binge drink. So, we can also use it as an
adjective. "Binge drinking" means drinking a lot; a huge
quantity in a short time, which is very dangerous when it comes
to alcohol. You can get very sick; you can even die from
alcohol poisoning. But doing anything in a huge quantity in a
short time is called "binging".
And "meme". "Meme" should be more or less popular; common to
a lot of people, but just in case: A "meme" is a very popular
picture, or expression, or movie scene, or... Or piece of music
that becomes so popular that people take it and manipulate it
into other situations. So, if you have a movie scene and it's
really funny or really strange, people will take that scene and
they will Photoshop it or they will add text, change the text
to fit it to other situations. And you'll see this a lot in,
like, Twitter or Instagram. People take a situation and
everybody makes a different version of it to make fun of it.
Because it's so popular, everyone recognizes the picture,
or the text, or whatever it is. So, that's called a "meme". And
it's usually pictures of people in different situations, but it
doesn't have to be that. Okay?
Now, the main thing to remember, here, is that these words may go
out of fashion; people may stop using them. But for now, for the
foreseeable future, it's good for you to understand what...
What they mean and how they're used.
But, anyway, if you're not sure about the explanations I gave,
please go to www.engvid.com. In the comment section, you can ask
me all the questions you have. There's also a quiz you can take
to make sure you understand how these words are used. And that's
it. I hope you liked the video. It's... I hope it was
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interesting lessons for you soon. Until then, see you.
Bye-bye.