The term “smash” was chosen as the youth word of the year, and a journalist embarrasses himself completely while trying to use it coolly, assuming a completely wrong meaning.
What is the youth word of the year? The youth word of the year 2022 is “smash”.
Since 2008, young people or young adults have been voting for the youth word of the year every year. The chosen term or phrase should always be a word that has been frequently used by young people in that year and represents its usage.
What does “smash” mean? The expression “smash” is used in the question game “Smash or Pass.” This question game resembles the principle of dating apps like Tinder or the question game “Hot or Not.”
The player is supposed to signal with the terms “smash” or “pass” whether they find the displayed person appealing or not. While the term “pass” indicates disinterest, “smash” illustrates interest in the displayed person.
To say that one would “smash” someone means that they would “start something” with the person or engage sexually.
A journalist uses the youth word without knowing what it means
How does the journalist fail? A video circulating on Twitter shows two journalists from the “Welt” channel, which belongs to Axel Springer, discussing the youth word of the year 2022, “smash.”
While the channel displays as the definition of the word “smash” the phrase “to start something with someone,” one of the journalists assumes that “smash” means something like “hanging out.”
This assumption leads him to say that he would like to “smash” his colleague… during working hours… in the studio. The addressed colleague shortly replies: “I don’t know how to interpret that now. Smash is used as a verb and means ‘to hook up with someone’.”
The now embarrassed journalist then expresses that he did not mean that meaning and asks: “Hanging out, that’s what you say, right?” to which his colleague answers with a short “No.”
While the two journalists continue discussing the meaning of the word and the wrong interpretation, the channel displays the second place of the youth word of the year: “bodenlos”.
Here we embed a Twitter post with the video that shows the scene between the two journalists:
Vote for the youth word of the year: From “Macher” to “bodenlos”
Which words were also in the running? In the selection for the “Youth Word of the Year 2022”, some terms that also gamers or Twitch users know were included. The top 10, from which “smash” was later chosen as the youth word of the year, also included the following words:
- Gommemode
- Endlessly strong, unbeatable
- SIU(UUU)
- Exclamation when something unbelievably good/cool happens
- wild / wyld
- intense, crazy
- Digga / Diggah
- Buddy, friend
- Macher
- someone who gets things done without hesitation
- Bodenlos
- Bad, lousy, unbelievable
- Slay
- when someone looks confident, acts confidently, or does something spectacular
- Sus
- Suspicious, suspect; from the game “Among Us”
- Bre / Bro / Bruder
- Buddy, friend
What do you think about the youth word of the year 2022? Do you know “smash” or even use the term in your everyday language? Let us know here on MeinMMO in the comments!
Are you more fans of memes than the election of the youth word of the year? Then you might be interested in these 4 gaming memes and their origins:
