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Abbreviations you should know

LOL was yesterday. Other abbreviations have long dominated the Internet. The cryptic codes mostly have their home on TikTok and Instagram. We'll help you decipher ten of the most common acronyms.

There are moments when you feel terribly old. For example, when a hashtag that only consists of mysterious sequences of letters goes viral on Twitter or Instagram.

You may be able to deduce what “btw” or a simple “k” stand for. If not: "btw" stands for "by the way" and "k" for "kay" as a short form of okay to signal that everything is fine. However, it gets trickier when a “#fyp” appears under a TikTok clip or “dm me” appears in the caption on Instagram.

What is all this supposed to mean? At least now you will realize: the times when you still happily typed “afk” (“away from keyboard” ) in your ICQ status or when you answered a funny anecdote from your buddies with “rofl” ("rolling on the floor laughing" or "xD" (for the laughing smiley) are finally over. Gen Z is now setting the tone of the web and the platforms they use. These are above all TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and also Twitch, a live streaming portal that is particularly popular with gamers.

But, dear Boomers and Millennials, we don't want to keep you in suspense for too long and finally enlighten you so that you can find your way around TikTok and Co. better in the future.

idk

In the chat, if someone simply responds with "idk", it stands for "I don't know ". The term is also often used in a melancholic way, when someone feels down but can't really explain why they're feeling that way.

tbh

In times of fake news, honesty seems to be a particularly valuable asset. Accordingly, the current youth often uses the abbreviation "tbh" for "to be honest ". With the abbreviation, the sender emphasizes that he is very serious about his message and that it is important to him.

myp

For anyone who saw the light of day before 1998, these three letters should simply be strung together at random. In reality, "fyp" means something like "for you page" and became particularly popular on the social media app TikTok. Users add the hashtag to their clips so that they are clicked and shared as often as possible. Because on the for-you page, every TikTok user sees the clips of the users they follow and content recommended for them as soon as they open the app.

dm

Has nothing to do with the well-known German drugstore chain. The "direct message", or "dm" for short, may well have come across the older ones among us by now. Instead of writing openly in comments, you can contact a user privately.

rl

Anyone who spends a lot of time on social media knows what we're talking about here. How someone presents themselves online rarely has anything to do with reality. Therefore, "rl" blossomed as a popular hashtag for "real life", i.e. what goes on in real life. On Instagram, many beauty influencers use the hashtag to draw attention to the fact that pictures do not necessarily reflect reality. In the gaming scene, the term is used similar to the abbreviation "ooc" for "out of character" (German: not in the role) to distance oneself from the fictional gameplay. Influencers who decide to have their annual digital detox also helped coin the abbreviation "rl".

tw

There are things that have been given less thought in the past: for example, how some content might be received by outsiders - especially if it contains physical or psychological violence or is of a sexual nature. The hashtag "#tw" is intended to protect sensitive users from potentially traumatizing posts with a "trigger warning".

nvm

Today's youth are often accused of not caring. The acronym "nvm" for "nevermind", i.e. the German equivalent of does not matter, can almost be seen as a statement of self-mockery. If you don't want to think about something further or want to signal to the other person that everything is fine again and he or she shouldn't brood further, just write "nvm" for a short time, and that's it. Kurt Cobain and his band Nirvana understood that back in 1991.

fyi

Yes, today's online world is mainly shaped by the English language, and that's how the three letters "fyi" have crept into the common portfolio of Generation Z. This stands for "for your information", which in German sounds a bit wooden and very formal. Not only can three letters be typed faster, they are also much more casual when you want to inform about an appointment or important information.

pov

How you perceive world events and moments is a highly individual thing. If the call "pov", short for "point of view", can be found under a post or in an Instagram story, it is about your view of things on a topic. The user should view the content from their perspective.

uncle

Sounds like an embarrassing band name, but it stands for "one of my followers" (English: one of my subscribers) and you'll see it primarily on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. The combination of letters is mainly used as a hashtag when you want to publicly refer to a post or a message from a follower, but at the same time want to keep the user anonymous. This is especially true when it comes to something embarrassing or negative.

According to the Urban Dictionary, however, the abbreviation can also be used onomatopoeic: "oomf" is then based on the sound that someone makes when they see a particularly attractive person.