In a few days, 2015 will end and we’ll leave behind a stockpile of memes that are no longer funny (well, until the end of next October when the cycle starts again). We will remember this year with a sort of I-ate-too-many-cookies fondness: when llamas ran rampant; when dresses were sometimes blue, and sometimes gold. There were 50 shades of gray, but only one Carli Lloyd. There were political scandals so dull even politicians were through with them. There was Marie Kondo trying to insist that our collection of old napkin notes made us filthy. And boy, was there ever the 1989 World Tour. Did you know that Taylor Swift went on tour and brought the whole world with her?
As we ring in the New Year, let’s evaluate the lingo we leaned on for 12 months, so that we may start a new canon of words to fire off in our tweets and texts in 2016. We may keep our squads around, we may get lost in our feels, but let’s agree to find some new ways to talk about those things in public.
1. #Squadgoals: Because Tina and Amy had the final word.
2. Netflix and chill: It’s about SEX. OMG. HILARIOUS.
3. Athleisure: We get it, you like sweatpants.
4. Feels: It’s okay to have FEELINGS. The whole breadth of them.
5. Bae: At this point no one is using this word other than corporate Twitter accounts and tweens.
6. Man-bun: Also, retire them from existence.
7. Turnt: White people ruined this word.
8. Lit: See turnt.
9. Fuccboi: If everybody is a fuccboi, is anybody a fuccboi?
10. Boss bitch: We’re hoping that in 2016 we have lots more ways to describe a woman in power.
And a few we are holding on to for dear life …
1. AF: Sometimes you just are “as fuck” about things.
2. Hoverboards: Yes, nerds, we KNOW they are not technically “hovering,” but that’s what we’re calling them anyway.
3. Thirsty: Because it named a phenomenon for which there was no word previously (see: mansplaining, columbusing).
