Hi, everybody. Welcome to
www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. In today's lesson, we're going to
look at some popular culture expressions. These are words
that are very popular today; they may or may not be popular
in a few years. Right? And the reason that it's important to
understand these is because you're going to see or hear
these words a lot now, but they're not words that are very
common, or they're not words that you would see in an English
learning textbook, for example. They are words that suddenly
appear in mainstream media, or in, like, Hollywood, or in
things like that -- that basically celebrities, or
influencers, or people who are popular and have a big audience
make common. Right? So, these are not everyday words; these
are words that somebody made popular. Okay? And we're going
to... You're going to have an idea once I get going. For example: "to throw shade at
someone". Ten years ago, you would not have heard this
expression. Ten years from now, you might not hear this
expression anymore. But today, this is a very common
expression. "To throw shade" means to insult someone
publicly. But the key is that it's not a very obvious insult;
it's a very subtle or very hinted-at insult. And it's
usually celebrities at celebrities. Because who is in
the public eye? Celebrities. Everyday people, like you or me,
nobody cares what we actually say. So, nobody's listening to
us, so we can't really throw shade in public. We can do it in
private, but then it's just insult; it's not shade. Now, the main idea is that it's
shade. "Shade" means "not direct". Right? So, if... If one
musician makes a joke, but doesn't mention the... another
musician's name, but the nature of the joke everybody
understands is about that musician, then that is called
"throwing shade". The first musician could directly insult
to the second musician, but she doesn't. She says something that
everybody understands to be about the second musician, and
therefore she can't be blamed, really, for anything. Although
it usually goes back and forth both ways. Okay? So, to insult
in a very subtle but public way. "Gaslighting", this is a very
common expression. This is actually an old expression, but
it's become popular again, in the new political,
American-political situation. You'll hear it more commonly in
the US than you will other places, but "to gaslight
someone"... So, one person can "gaslight" someone or a person
can "gaslight" a whole group of people. It basically means "to
manipulate". But how? How do you manipulate people? You lie to
them, or you make them think that they... their reality is
questionable. So, if I tell you lies every
day, every day, every day, and then you question me, and I
would say: "What are you talking about? I never said that." So, I
tell you the lie, and then I deny it. And then I again, and
again, and again, until finally, you start to think that maybe
the problem is in your mind; you start to doubt yourself, you
start to think that your reality might not be 100% accurate, or
you start questioning what is actually true and what is not.
You don't know what to believe, who to believe, etcetera. So,
the person who did this to you gaslighted you or gaslit you,
and that's the whole intention of it. So, especially in the
political environment we live in today. Some politicians are
actively trying to gaslight the public; they lie to them, lie to
them, and they say: "No. I never said that." Or: "No, no, I said
the opposite. I don't know why you think this." Right? So,
they're manipulating them. And it's working, which is a scary
thing. So, that's "gaslighting". "Trigger". "Trigger" is a very
popular word now as well. When someone is triggered, it means
something got them emotionally active; it made them somehow
emotional, usually in a negative way. So, somebody said
something, and that made me very angry, and maybe it offended me.
It made me feel attacked or insulted. And then I get very
angry and I want to take some action. This is also very common
in the political landscape these days, especially in the US,
where if someone triggers someone, the... It makes them
angry, but sometimes... It's gotten to the point where the
person getting angry is getting angry about everything. Right?
So, the political right is accusing the political left of
always being triggered, which leads... Actually, I'll go... I'll skip a
few and go to this word: "snowflake". So, the political
right, started calling people on the left "snowflakes" because
"snowflakes"... Basically, "snowflake" means somebody who's
not really special. Right? He's just like everybody else. But
now it means that somebody who gets easily offended. So, a lot
of people accused the liberals in the US of being snowflakes.
It's very easy to make them upset; it's very easy to offend
them. They're always trying to be politically correct, trying
to make everybody happy, which is a little bit impossible. So,
it's gotten to the point where people on, like, on the left...
on the right, like Republicans, are actively and happily trying
to trigger the snowflakes on the left. And the problem is that
the liberals, the Democrats are starting to look a little bit
weak, because everybody thinks they are snowflakes. So, I'll give you a common
example these days. It's becoming increasingly popular
for people to say what pronoun they want to be called by. So:
"Hi. My name is Adam. I prefer 'he' and 'him'." So, like,
basically, I'm saying I'm a male, so call me by my male
pronouns. Some people say they prefer to be called "they".
People don't want to be gender... They want to be...
They don't want to be gender-binary; they want to be
neutral. So, anyways, this is one of the things that people
are talking about. If you call somebody, if somebody says:
"'He'. I want to be called 'he' or 'she'", and you call me
"they", I will be triggered, I will be angry, and I will
complain and I will be upset about it. And then you will call
me a "snowflake" because I'm getting upset about nothing
really serious. So, "snowflake" and "triggers" kind of go
together. Now, a "snub". A "snub" is
basically ignoring something or someone a little bit with the
intent of making them feel bad. So, if you think about the
Oscars, the movies or any award show -- somebody is getting a
lot of praise for their acting, or directing, or production. And
everybody thinks: "Oh, yeah, this... This actor is going to
win an Academy Award." And then the Oscar committee announces
the nominations, who is considered to be the best actor,
and they snub this actor. It means they don't include him in
the nominations. That means they ignore him; they think his, that
his performance was not very good. So, a "snub" can be
considered an insult. But mostly it means you're not included or
not considered for something, and people take offense to that
as well. I'm sure if you follow Instagram
or social media, you've probably seen "BAE" a lot. A lot of
people think that "BAE" is short for "baby". Actually, it's an
acronym: Before Anyone Else. So, basically, your special person.
You will do something for this person before anyone else. So,
it could be baby, your baby, but it's basically your boyfriend or
girlfriend, the... Or your lover. Doesn't... depends on the
situation. "Before Anyone Else" is the actual expression. "Ghost". This is actually a
verb: "to ghost". So, "to ghost" means, for example, in a
party... If you're at a party and you leave without saying:
"Goodbye" to anybody, like, nobody knows that you left.
Suddenly, they realize you're not there -- that means you
ghosted; you left quietly without telling anybody. Or on a
conversation, on a telephone conversation, someone calls you
and your friend picks up and you say: "Hello?" You say...
Somebody says: "Yeah. Can I talk to Bill?" And Bill is standing
right here. It means I'm not here. Right? So, they say: "Oh,
I'm sorry. Bill's not here. Can he call you back?" So that Bill
is ghosting the person on the phone. That's another use of it. And if you have a relationship
with someone, you're talking or texting, whatever, and then
suddenly one person just stops communication; never writes
back, never calls -- just stops any communication. So. that,
also, is called "ghosting". That's a common expression these
days. Another thing to keep in mind
about most of these expressions, like, for example: "BAE", and
"ghost", and things like that -- young people use it more than
the older generations. "Trigger", "snowflake", and
"gaslighting" -- these are just more of political words and
expressions, so everybody's using them. But a lot of the
pop-culture words originate or come with... from young people. Now, then an example here is the
word "woke". This is actually an old word, but it has a
resurgence. Basically, it's a word that's become popular and
then sort of disappears, nobody uses it; and then it comes back
to be popular, and maybe disappears again. So, this is
basically, like, now the third time that it's become popular.
"Woke" means aware; socially aware of discrimination or
injustice, especially when it comes to, like, racial
discrimination. If you think you're being discriminated
against, or if you notice that there's a lot of discrimination
against people of color; Black people, Latinos, etcetera - then
you are "woke". And generally, if you're going
to be woke, you're probably also going to be "triggered". Right?
I'm actually going to say "triggered" when we're talking
about a person or describing a person. "To trigger" means to
make someone triggered. And if someone is woke, they can be
easily upset; they can be easily triggered by seeing how, let's
say, police treat a certain segment of the population, or
how the government treats them, or how anybody. Like, any one
area the population treats another area of the population,
especially as the world is becoming... There's a lot more
White supremacy, and populism, and all these things. People are
becoming more woke. Okay? On a more light tone, we have
"GOAT". "GOAT" is also an acronym; it's not the animal, it
means: Greatest Of All Time. Greatest Of All Time. So, it
started... The conversation started, I think. It became more
and more popular when there was a question: "Who is the GOAT?
LeBron James or Michael Jordan? Who is the greatest basketball
player of all time?" And after they started, then: "Okay, who's
the GOAT in hockey? Who's the GOAT in soccer? Who's the goat
in football?" And then it started to go outside of sports
altogether: "Who's the GOAT president? Who's the GOAT
businessman?" All these things. So: "Who's the best? The best of
the best. The Greatest Of All Time." And it's used quite a lot
these days. "Goals". "Goals", basically
means "goals"; it's exactly what it says, but it's very commonly
used when people talk about what they want to achieve. And you'll
see this a lot on social media. Right? Somebody puts a picture
of a happy couple and they're doing something fun, and in the
comments, you'll see: "Oh, couple goals". Or they're...
They have very nice body; body goals, or vacation goals, or
whatever goals. So, whenever people see something that they
think is really good and they want for themselves, instead of
actually working towards it, they'll just say: "Oh, body
goals, couple goals. I want to be like them." So, that's
actually what it means: "I want to be like", and whatever you're
talking about. And notice that it's not "goal"; it's always
"goals". "Body goals, vacation goals, couple goals". A very
common word these days, especially on social media. "To binge". "To binge" means to
do a lot of something in a very short time. So, for example, if
you... If you like the Friends... The TV show, Friends,
for example and you... You want... You don't have much
time, but you want to see all of the shows, one day you will
start and you will watch one after the other, after the
other. And after a day or two, you've seen the entire series.
You binged on the show. It's also commonly used for when we
talk about drinking alcohol, and especially young people at
university, and they have parties and they binge drink.
So, we can also use it as an adjective. "Binge drinking"
means drinking a lot; a huge quantity in a short time, which
is very dangerous when it comes to alcohol. You can get very
sick; you can even die from alcohol poisoning. But doing
anything in a huge quantity in a short time is called "binging". And "meme". "Meme" should be
more or less popular; common to a lot of people, but just in
case: A "meme" is a very popular picture, or expression, or movie
scene, or... Or piece of music that becomes so popular that
people take it and manipulate it into other situations. So, if
you have a movie scene and it's really funny or really strange,
people will take that scene and they will Photoshop it or they
will add text, change the text to fit it to other situations.
And you'll see this a lot in, like, Twitter or Instagram.
People take a situation and everybody makes a different
version of it to make fun of it. Because it's so popular,
everyone recognizes the picture, or the text, or whatever it is.
So, that's called a "meme". And it's usually pictures of people
in different situations, but it doesn't have to be that. Okay? Now, the main thing to remember,
here, is that these words may go out of fashion; people may stop
using them. But for now, for the foreseeable future, it's good
for you to understand what... What they mean and how they're
used. But, anyway, if you're not sure
about the explanations I gave, please go to www.engvid.com. In
the comment section, you can ask me all the questions you have.
There's also a quiz you can take to make sure you understand how
these words are used. And that's it. I hope you liked the video.
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soon. Until then, see you. Bye-bye.
