The evolution of a viral term, according to the âLivvy rizzed up Baby Gronkâ guy.
vox.com/culture CULTURE My family and I do a thing at the end of the year when, instead of resolutions, we each choose a âword of the yearâ as a little reminder of what tone weâd like to set for the 12 months to come. Itâs silly and cute, and itâs the exact opposite of that moment in December when Oxford University Press announces its word of the year and makes us all feel 100 years old. Like its predecessors âselfieâ (2013), âtoxicâ (2018), and âgoblin modeâ (2022), this yearâs word of the year is steeped in the way young people are speaking on the internet. Introducing: rizz, short for âcharisma,â a term popularized by streamer Kai Cenat and later by TikToker Henry De Tolla, notorious for releasing one of the most cursed videos of the year, âLivvy rizzed up Baby Gronk.â For anyone who missed that extremely weird few days in June, [Constance Grady not only wrote about]( why ârizzâ is 2023âs word of the year, but she got De Tolla himself to explain it. â[Rebecca Jennings](, senior correspondent Editor's note: For ongoing coverage and analysis of the developing conflict between Israel and Hamas, [read our Vox colleagues' work here](. Rizz, the word of the year, explained [illustration of a football jock surrounded by doting girls]( Getty/CSA Images RF We aged, we decrepit, we ancients of the internet, we people over 30, hear my word and shudder, for the hour of our obsolescence is at hand. Oxford University Press has announced its word of the year for 2023. Beware, for the dread word of our doom and destruction is: ârizz.â Itâs okay, though. [I got a Gen Z-er to explain it.]( Specifically, I got the Gen Z-er who introduced me to the term. College student and TikToker Henry De Tolla had a TikTok go viral this June for its deadpan use of the phrase âLivvy rizzed up Baby Gronk,â thereby demonstrating to legions of millennials that language has moved so far past us as to become incomprehensible to our failing ears. I called him up and asked him to define ârizzâ to me. âBasically,â says De Tolla, âletâs say you think someoneâs considered out of your league. If you have rizz, you can use it to get them to date you.â In such circumstances, after you have flirted someone from out of your league right into your bed, the kids would say you have ârizzed your target up.â [So rizz is like game?]( âI would just say the younger kids, I guess, the new generation, a lot of high schoolers and early college students now say rizz,â says De Tolla, with enormous tact. Oxford University Press has chosen to remind us all of our mortality this year as part of its annual Oxford Word of the Year celebration. Each year, OUPâs language experts track the Oxford Monitor Corpus of English to see which words are being used more frequently than before or have newly entered the language. Theyâre looking for what OUP describes as âa word or expression that reflects the past twelve months in some way, having potential as a term of lasting cultural significance or providing a snapshot of social history.â [Read the full story »](
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