Why "Gen Z Language" Never Really Existed, and Its Implication

The easiest reading of these numbers is "Gen Z is starting to age out." But that reading is too simple, and it skips over something more important.

Membership in a language community is built through participation, not automatically conferred by birth year. Gen Z's birth-year range is also fairly wide, generally spanning the mid-1990s to the early 2010s. A 27-year-old and a 15-year-old both fall under the Gen Z demographic label, but they don't necessarily share the same feed, community, or speed of term circulation. Demographers and marketers build categories around demographic traits, while platforms, interests, and social proximity are what actually shape the communities in which language develops. Generational categories and language communities, in other words, don't always line up.

The Sunny Workplace survey itself has limitations worth noting. It's a commissioned poll released alongside a product launch, covering workers in the United States, and spanning only two generational groups. Its numbers can't be used to characterize all of Gen Z, let alone Indonesian Gen Z. What's more useful here is the mechanism the survey reveals, not its specific figures: at any given point, the same group can be simultaneously inside and outside a particular digital language. That mechanism can show up across countries, Indonesia's market included.

Why does this matter to the people using it? Because slang also serves a social function.

Drawing on the April 2026 issue of Monitor on Psychology, Zara Abrams summarized research involving Gen Z and Gen Alpha participants that found slang use can serve as a cultural marker asserting identity and reinforcing a sense of belonging. In one survey of Gen Z students she cited (Germe et al., 2025), participants viewed slang as a way to gain social acceptance, recognition, and alignment with peer groups they considered important. Abrams also noted that young people are often the primary creators of slang, since they use language both to define themselves and to distinguish their own group from outsiders.

This is where the implication for brands lies. If using certain language helps someone gain recognition from their group, while understanding of that language isn't shared by everyone, then slang can also draw a line between who counts as part of the group and who doesn't. The question, then, isn't just who belongs to a given generation, but who actually understands whom, in which community, and in what context. Understanding slang isn't just a matter of memorizing vocabulary. Brands also need to understand the community in which a term is used and the social meaning behind its use.

Language fluency isn't measured by how many words someone knows, but by how well they grasp the social rules that determine when a word gets used and what it means in a given context.

The simplest example is "delulu." Someone might know the term comes from "delusional." But that knowledge alone doesn't tell you whether "delulu" is being used sincerely or ironically, who can use it and sound natural doing so, whether it's still commonly used within the community it originated from, or at what point its use starts to read as try-hard. A definition only explains the base meaning. There's still the term's origin, its lifespan of use, its context, and the judgment of knowing when it's actually appropriate to use.

Research by Vania Aurellia Harinda Artamevia and Ninuk Sholikhah Akhiroh (2026) at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Negeri Semarang, documents these layers directly. In the slang inventory they compiled, the researchers noted "anjay" as a form that emerged after "anjir," which they describe as already outdated among millennials. The students in the study gravitated toward terms circulating on TikTok, Instagram, and chat groups, since older expressions were seen as behind the times.

One example makes the issue especially clear. The term "tenggo" originates from Indonesian work culture and means leaving work exactly on time. Among the students studied, the same word had shifted to mean leaving earlier than scheduled. A dictionary offers one definition; the community assigns a different meaning depending on context of use. A brand relying only on the dictionary definition could use the word in a way that's lexically correct but socially off. The intended audience can pick up on that gap quickly. This is exactly where slang-driven campaigns tend to misfire.

The pressure to keep up with slang comes from within the social environment itself, even if it's a mild kind of pressure. One 21-year-old informant described how, while no one is obligated to know the latest slang, within campus friend circles, someone who doesn't recognize a new term can get teased or turned into the butt of a joke. There are no adults and no brands present in that scenario. If gaps in understanding can appear even among members of the same group, outsiders need to recognize that the context of slang use can't be reduced to simply knowing or not knowing a word.

Artamevia and Akhiroh use Social Identity Theory as their primary framework, supported by Pierre Bourdieu's concept of linguistic capital to explain the symbolic value of Jakarta slang in campus interactions. In their study, slang is understood as a symbolic resource that can help students gain peer recognition, social acceptance, and a sense of belonging to their group's culture. Students unfamiliar with circulating terms risk being seen as out of touch or outside their group's dominant linguistic style.

But slang use also has social limits. Not understanding a term in current use can mark someone as behind the times. Conversely, using a term without understanding the context it belongs to can also trigger a negative reaction. The issue isn't simply whether someone knows a word, but whether using that word is considered appropriate within a specific context and group. For brands, this matters when attempting to use slang that has developed within a particular community. Using it out of context can make a brand look like it's borrowing language from another group without understanding how that language actually works.

The scale of this study is small, and the researchers acknowledge that limitation themselves. They involved 20 students through interviews, qualitative questionnaires, and observation from late January to early February 2026. The researchers also state explicitly that the findings don't represent the full UNNES student body. The value of this research lies more in the mechanisms of slang use it documents than in how broadly those mechanisms apply across the wider student population.

A clearer example of hierarchy at work comes from a study by Muhammad Firdhaus, Elia Binsar Rajagukguk, and Tiara Boru Lumban Gaol (2025) in the journal Indonesia Discourse. They examine "Bahasa Anak Jaksel" — with code-switching between Indonesian and English as one of its defining traits — through the lens of Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital. The study draws on social media content analysis and focus group discussions with urban young people.

Their findings show that while this speech style is often mocked as a sign of shallowness, its use can also function as a marker of cosmopolitanism, signaling the speaker's access to international education and global networks. The researchers read the debate surrounding this style of speech as a form of anxiety over the purity of the national language colliding with the pragmatism of language use in a global context.

There is a limit worth flagging here, especially for marketers who treat speech style as a signal about their audience. The study is a sociolinguistic reading of the signals that emerge through language use, not a study of speakers' economic backgrounds. The researchers do not conclude that everyone who mixes Indonesian and English comes from a particular economic class.

Economic class, social status, cultural capital, and linguistic capital also can't be treated as interchangeable. Language relates primarily to social status, cultural capital, and linguistic capital. Using a certain kind of language can make someone appear to have access to a particular environment or set of experiences, but that doesn't in itself prove that access, nor does it indicate someone's actual economic position. Mixing Indonesian and English, therefore, can't simply be used as a proxy for purchasing power. A brand that reads it as an economic signal risks drawing conclusions the study itself doesn't support.

The assumption of a single "Gen Z language" becomes even harder to sustain once you look at the range of languages and communities within Indonesia itself.

Artamevia and Akhiroh note that the Javanese students at UNNES come from various parts of Central and East Java. One Arekan Javanese speaker they interviewed admitted to having difficulty understanding Ngapak Javanese. Javanese itself is a dialect continuum, meaning speakers from different regions don't necessarily understand each other. In situations like this, Jakarta-style slang gets used as a kind of middle ground, seen as easier for students from different regions to understand. In Semarang, this variety even has a local name: "bahasa Jabo," referring to Jabodetabek (Greater Jakarta).

The researchers mapped the language repertoires of ten Javanese-background questionnaire respondents. Six leaned predominantly toward Jakarta slang, one leaned predominantly toward regional language, and three mixed both. That sample size is far too small to describe the national picture. But the finding still shows that even within a single faculty and a fairly narrow age range, students' language use is already diverse.

The Sunny Workplace survey shows a similar pattern in a different context. Gen Z respondents who understood one term didn't necessarily understand terms used in other social spaces. Only 22% knew precisely what "boil the ocean" means, while 53% didn't recognize it at all. "Blue-sky thinking" was correctly understood by 25% of respondents. In other words, understanding one cluster of terms doesn't automatically translate into understanding another.

Language use, then, is better understood through the lens of community and context rather than age alone. Someone can be fluent in the terms used in one environment while not understanding terms common in another environment on the very same day. "Gen Z language" is, at bottom, a category built around an age bracket. In practice, the language Gen Z actually uses is shaped by their campus, their city, their platforms, and the interest-based communities they belong to. Because those communities differ, the way they use language doesn't come out uniform either.

If language is understood as part of social and cultural capital, there are three practical things brands need to keep in mind.

Segmentation needs to look at community, not just generation. The question "how do I talk like Gen Z" assumes Gen Z shares a single language pattern. In reality, two 22-year-olds can have entirely different language habits because their platforms, interests, cities, and friend circles differ. The more relevant question is which community you're trying to reach and how language is actually used within that community. A brief that names "Gen Z" as the target, without more, still hasn't defined the audience it's actually trying to reach.

Social listening needs to read context, not just vocabulary. Conversation volume can show how often a term appears, but appearance isn't the same as understanding or actual use. The Sunny survey illustrates that gap directly: "skibidi" is well-known enough to have been built as a feature into an office translation product, yet three-quarters of Gen Z respondents said they either didn't fully understand the term or wouldn't use it. A team watching only a trend graph might see that term climbing. But what also needs watching is who's using it, toward whom, in what context, and whether the term is still in active use within the community it came from. It's not uncommon for a term to get picked up by brands right around the time its use in the originating community has already started to fade.

People inside the community need to be brought in as sources of cultural understanding, not just distribution channels. Creators, community managers, micro-influencers, and active consumers within a given community hold knowledge that doesn't always show up on a dashboard. They understand the context a term is used in, how its meaning shifts, and the social boundaries that are hard to capture from conversation data alone. If they're only positioned as a distribution channel, brands risk losing the most valuable part of that collaboration. Their knowledge is most useful when brought in before a campaign launches, while strategy and messaging direction can still be adjusted.

Ultimately, brands don't need a Gen Z dictionary. What they need is the ability to understand language, context, and the community in which that language is used — in short, cultural fluency.

Knowing what a piece of slang means isn't the same as understanding how it's actually used within the community that uses it. The gap between the two shows how linguistic capital operates, including within Gen Z itself. Understanding of slang is built through interaction with a community, while not knowing a term — or using it out of context — tends to surface through jokes among friends or the sense that someone sounds like they're trying too hard.

Four out of ten Gen Z workers in the Sunny survey didn't know what "Ohio" means, one of the terms associated with the generation after them. This finding shows that closeness in age doesn't automatically mean shared understanding of digital language. Naming Gen Z as the target in a marketing brief, then, still isn't enough to specify which language or which community a brand actually wants to reach.

Brands can start from a different question. Not just what slang Gen Z is currently using, but which community they actually want to understand, and what makes a message genuinely relevant to the people within it. The meaning of a word can be looked up in seconds. Understanding the context of its use requires actually observing the community that uses it.

Sources

Abrams, Z. (2026, April 1). The psychology of why we use slang. Monitor on Psychology, 57(3). Accessed 10 September 2026, from https://www.apa.org/monitor/2026/04-05/psychology-slang-identity-belonging

Artamevia, V. A. H., & Akhiroh, N. S. (2026). Jakartan slang as a generational identity marker and the reduced use of Javanese in peer interaction among Generation Z students at Universitas Negeri Semarang. SINTHOP: Media Kajian Pendidikan, Agama, Sosial dan Budaya, 5(1), 82–98. https://doi.org/10.69548/sinthop.v5.i1.100.82-98

Firdhaus, M., Rajagukguk, E. B., & Lumban Gaol, T. B. (2025). Indo-slang and identity performance: The sociolinguistics of 'Bahasa Anak Jaksel' as a marker of neoliberal class distinction. Indonesia Discourse, 2(2), 241–264. https://doi.org/10.15294/indi.v2i2.43174

Sunny Workplace. (2026, July 30). 3 in 4 Boomers don't know what "delulu" means; Sunny Workplace's new AI translator decodes it [Press release]. PR Newswire. Accessed 10 September 2026, from https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/3-in-4-boomers-dont-know-what-delulu-means-sunny-workplaces-new-ai-translator-decodes-it-302839206.html