Why the strange word “skibidi” was added to the famous Cambridge dictionary

The growing popularity of TikTok social media trends, combined with the increasing use of online language in everyday life, has prompted Cambridge Dictionaries to add “skibidi,” “delulu,” and “tradwife” to the list of 6,000 new words to be added to the online edition in 2024.

Cambridge Dictionary has added more web languages to its 2024 online edition. (Source: CNN)

For those who spend little time online, some of the new additions to the illustrious dictionary may seem like a kind of code. It can be difficult to understand the exact meaning of “that wasn't very skibidi rizz of you” or “You handled the situation poorly” if you are not active on a social network that is crowded with young people.

Similarly, the sentence “As Gen Z say, I've entered my 'delulu era'”?

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, “skibidi” is “a word that can have multiple meanings, such as ‘cool’ or ‘terrible’. Or it can be used without any specific meaning, mainly for joking purposes.

Meanwhile, “delulu” is a playful variation of the word “delusional,” which means “illusionary."

Origin of new words

Skibidi became an online cultural phenomenon in 2023-2024 thanks to the animated short series Skibidi Toilet created by Alexey Gerasimov and broadcast on the YouTube channel DaFuq!?Boom!.

Released in February 2023, this series depicts human heads emerging from... toilets. With content inspired by many famous video games, the series quickly created a fever among young people around the world.

In the first episodes, Skibidi Toilet also attracted attention when the toilets “sang” to the remix of the song Dom Dom Yes Yes (2022) by Bulgarian singer Biser King. This song has a phrase of the word “skibidi” repeated many times over a vibrant, catchy electronic background.

In fact, this is not the first time the nonsense syllable “skibidi” has caused a stir. Previously, in 2018, the Russian satirical band Little Big released the song “Skibidi” with a silly but quite attractive music video (MV), thereby contributing to the spread of this word in Internet culture.

“Skibidi” is now a common sight in documents, images, and merchandise related to the Skibidi Toilet series. But its popularity has come with controversy due to its association with the concept of “brain rot” – a type of content that is considered meaningless, causing “brain rot,” reflecting concerns about the unhealthy digital lifestyle of Generation Alpha. Many people even call this impact “Skibidi Toilet Syndrome.”

Apart from this, “skibidi” is mainly used in a humorous, ironic tone or to emphasize emotions. It is used flexibly as a swear word, and can be inserted anywhere to increase expression. For example: “Oh my skibidi! I didn't expect this game to be so skibidi hard”.

Lots of exciting additions

“delulu” emerged about a decade ago as a satirical way to mock overzealous K-pop fans. But recently, the term has become a common online term, replacing “delusional.”

Delulu entered the mainstream in March this year, when Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese used the phrase “they are delulu with no solulu” in a speech in Parliament , after receiving criticism from two online content creators.

“It’s not every day that you see words like ‘skibidi’ and ‘delulu’ in the Cambridge Dictionary,” Colin McIntosh, Cambridge’s vocabulary program manager, told CNN. “We only add words that we think will stick around. Internet culture is changing English, and that’s a really interesting phenomenon to see and document in the dictionary.”

In addition to some of the words listed above, the dictionary also adds “tradwife” – short for “traditional wife”, often used to refer to people who have a big influence on the internet (influencer) or praise this role.

Next is the word “broligarchy,” a combination of “bro” and “oligarchy,” which comes from a group of tech leaders who attended US President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.

The English language changes not only by creating new words, but also by adding new meanings to old words. For example, “snackable,” which originally meant an addictive food, is now used to describe highly engaging online content that is easy to watch, easy to read, or designed for quick consumption.

Meanwhile, the phrases “red flag” and “green flag” are increasingly used to refer to bad or good traits in a potential mate, rather than their original literal meaning./.

According to VNA

Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/nguyen-nhan-tu-la-skibidi-duoc-bo-sung-vao-tu-dien-cambridge-lung-danh-258610.htm