I really hate the ebonic-fication of language including among white zoomers.
When I was in like middle school, people would just for fun, but ironically and not as actual part of their conversation say things like fo-shizzle my nizzle.
It was a knowing thing of just a funny thing to occasionally say because it sounded funny and it was a snoop dogg thing. It wasn't a common thing, I just remember it being a thing on the school bus of people saying the various snoop dogg stuff, but otherwise that was the extent of ebonics bullcrap. Another way to say it is you had to very intentionally and knowingly say it, there was no casual or subconscious incorporation of "derizzles, and fo shizzles". It was not a part of our subconscious in any way. There really wasn't much of a different way of talking than my parents or any other adults. No real slang barriers.
Now, just all over the internet, gen Z and whoever uses slang like, "you know you're cooked when...", "on God", "bruh" "glazing" "no cap"
And it's literally a part of their language. Again, I was born in the early 90s....I really don't remember there being language that people had to go "what?" and look up to understand what we were saying. We just talked like normal people. And we used normal words like faggot and retard, staples since the 70s at least.
I remember going to camp one summer and there was a group of black people there and I didn't understand like 80% of what they said because it was so full of Ebonics. You needed a translator. It was like one step away from Jamaican. That's now bled it's way into general society it seems.
This ebonicsification of all of American demographics makes me feel a sense of hopelessness.
It makes me want to make a youtube video tutorial called "How to de-faggify your speech"
Social media. This doesn't happen without HD short form content. When millennials were growing up, TV and the internet didn't have anywhere close to that subliminal cultural soak.
I'm really glad my parents kept me away from the internet and that stuff until the right time.
I think it was like 6th grade when my dad walked me through getting an email address and that felt like a big deal, like I took a step towards maturity. That's how I communicated with my friends was through email, because while texting existed, no one wanted to do it because most people had flip phones and typing one sentence on those numpad keys took like 2 whole minutes. So we'd email.
I really wish everyone communicated through email again. I really hate texting. I know I sound like a 60 year old right now haha.
But yeah, I'm also really glad I didn't get a smart phone until way later. Didn't have one through all of high school, and there were people who had one in middle school. I had an Ipod so I could listen to music, and I had the computer at home where I'd email people so I really didn't feel like I was missing out, and when I changed schools when I moved in high school, I didn't make any friends anyways, so I never cared to have a smart phone until later, and I'm very grateful for that.
It was hard enough growing up in that time, just with myspace comparing yourself with others, without having to constantly have an addicting brain rot thing constantly in your pocket where high school drama never stops because of constant texting.
If I had a kid, I'd probably raise them practically amish when it comes to phones and tablets until they were like 9th grade.