Have you ever been to a kiki? If you live in Florida or Hawaii, maybe you have. The rest of us, probably not.
According to a post on Crossword Solver about slang words in the USA, kiki is the most popular slang word among members of Gen-Z (those born between about 1997 and 2012) in Florida or Hawaii.
The Urban Dictionary defines kiki as:
A party including good music and good friends, held for the express purpose of calming nerves, reducing anxiety and stress and generally fighting ennui. May involve locked doors, tea and salacious gossip.
Sounds like fun! More details about the origin of this word.
Another slang word popular with Gen-Z that I’ve never heard of is finna, which apparently is an abbreviation of “fixing to” and means “going to” or “about to or in the process of doing something”. For example “I’m finna go da’ sto” (I’m going to go to the store) [source]. More details about the origin of this word.
Then there’s poggers, which is apparently popular in California and Iowa and means:
A twitch emote typically used to express enthusiasm, enthrawlment or other sophisticated emotions of happiness and dopamine.
Other definitions include: “a word to describe excitement, joy, or to hype”, “A word to describe something as good” and “something/someone that you find absolutely amazing” [source]. The related word pog is apparently “used as an exclamation of approval, especially in video game chat” and means “excellent, cool, awesome” [source].
An emote is “A term used in MMORPG’s such as World of Warcraft which describes an action your character can perform which is usually accompanied by sound and sometimes even an animation”. Examples include /poke, /cheer, /moo and /insult [source].
Have you heard/read any of these words? Do you use any of them?
I see “finna” means “fixing to” which is a southern US expression I grew up with meaning “preparing to”. There is an old joke about the boss who asked an older worker of his what he and his wife were doing for the summer. He replied ,” We’re repairing to go on vacation.”The boss told him it was supposed to be “prepare” and not “repair” as “prepare” means “to get ready” while “repair” means “to fix”. The old man said, “Yes, like I said, we’re fixing to go on vacation.”
“Finna” is everywhere. It was the African American version of “fixin’ to.”
Kiki actually originated in the gay community, meaning a meetup between queer friends. From what I’ve heard, the name comes from the sound of giggling, which makes sense given languages like Korean and Portuguese do something very similar.