This is the current generation

[u/Constant-Service9269]

Lying down in a feild just for your Instagram and teenage boys heckle you

[u/IBeDumbAndSlow]

Its supposed to be AAVE but if you don't really speak that way you just sound like an absolute fucking bozo

[u/VioletJones6 → u/IBeDumbAndSlow]

This is what happens when your only interaction with black people is reading the words they've typed online...

As a linguist, watching this evolution of language in real time is fascinating and not something I ever could have imagined happening at this pace.

As a person... Shit is exhausting.

[u/JabroniusHunk → u/VioletJones6]

I (white) grew up in a majority-black neighborhood, before moving to a whiter suburb in my very late teens.

I would guess that the transmission of slang from the black vernacular to the white majority is centuries old - the common use of the word "cool" goes as far back as the 30's or 40's, and comes from AAVE - but it is fascinating how much social media sped up and broadened the process. To the point where a modified (or butchered, depending on your pov) form of AAVE essentially is the Internet's vernacular.

To get philosophical and go back to a previous term: I think an inherent aspect of something being "cool" is an air of counterculture, and you can't get more countercultural - for young white people looking to rebel or stand out - than a culture whose outsider status was imposed upon it by the majority. Add to that the inherent playfulness and inventiveness in Black American speech, and it's kinda easy to see why it's appealing, even if this appeal is not always treated with grace and respect by the people appropriating it.

[u/VioletJones6 → u/JabroniusHunk]

No doubt. I always felt in previous decades that by the time new slang was became mainstream, it signaled the end of the term being considered cool. Think suburban moms talking about "bling bling" in the 2000s or white frat boys "getting crunk" after discovering Lil Jon.

But now the transmission happens instantly on social media and a phrase like "crash out" literally changes meaning from "losing your mind and making a decision that may have terrible consequences" to "getting emotional and having an outward reaction" so it can be more broadly applied to the situations middle class teens find themselves in... mostly online. Both groups of people still use it, but concept itself is completely watered down so it can be used by a wider audience.