The good thing about the dumb things that kids say today is that they don’t last long. Memes are born and die quickly in today’s world because of social media. Rather than needing to spread via human contact, person to person, a phrase like “six-seven” spreads like wildfire, but like a wildfire, most burn out quickly and have no lasting impact.

They are too quickly replaced by something else.

In fact, they burn out so quickly that they often go from popular to cringe overnight.

Want to annoy a young person?

Use a phrase that was popular six months ago as if it were still in use today. Not only will they find it cringy, but they will likely deny ever using such a word, which both you and they will know is false.

Or tell them about the genesis of a phrase they use but don’t quite understand.

“Riz,” for example, is very popular these days (but could become cringy by Wednesday). It’s short for “charisma,” and that’s precisely what it means. However, none of my students were aware of the connection between the two words, so when I pointed it out to them, they denied it.

The thought that I might know more about their youth culture than they do was appalling to them.

The thought that their new word might have its origin in a real word (and not their own innate creativity) was unthinkable.

But two of these new words and phrases that Charlie has used that I like a lot are these:

Charlie calls Elysha “a spawn point.”

If you’re not familiar with gaming, a spawn point is the place in a game where a character enters—either for the first time or following a death. It’s a term that has existed for as long as video games have existed, but I’ve never heard it used to describe a real-world situation before.

Elysha is Charlie’s spawn point:

The place where he entered the game.

I like this a lot.

Charlie also refers to boring people as NPCs, which is an acronym for “non-player character.” This acronym has existed for decades. I first encountered it when playing Dungeons & Dragons in middle school, but Charlie uses it to describe anyone lacking personality, motivation, or purpose.

I like this a lot, too.

I hope these have staying power, but it’s not likely. My generation — Gen X  — popularized words like chill, dude, gnarly, bogus, and whatever, which are still used today. We also used phrases like “going postal” and “Don’t have a cow,” which can still be heard in today’s lexicon.

Because we didn’t have the internet or social media, these things spread slowly, person to person, like a virus, and therefore, they became more entrenched in the lexicon.

We had fewer options.

Of course, we also used phrases like “Gag me with a spoon” and “Talk to the hand,” which happily died a quiet death.

But kids today are exposed to an enormous amount of information coming from an unfathomable number of sources, so they pick up and drop new language almost overnight.

What will last? I don’t know. However, I’ll do my best to keep ‘spawn point’ and ‘NPC’ in use for as long as possible.

It will likely drive my students crazy.