Ryan Gosling On Not Keeping Up With Gen Alpha Slang: ‘That’s Their Thing’

Ryan Gosling has opened up about whether he’s opting to stay in the loop as far as Gen Alpha slang’s concerned – and it’s a (polite and respectful) ‘no’ from him.

The Project Hail Mary star and Eva Mendes share two children together, Esmeralda, who is 11, and Amada, who is nine. So, it’s highly likely he’s come across ‘six-seven’, ‘chat’ and so on, in his time as a parent.

Talking to Parents about communicating with his tweens, and their use of today’s slang (which, for lots of kids, seems to change on a weekly basis), the actor revealed: “I don’t try to keep up with the slang. I think that’s their thing.

“I don’t think they want me to understand and I don’t need to. I let them have their thing. We wanted our ‘thing’ [when we were younger].”

In Project Hail Mary, science teacher Ryland Grace (played by Ryan), wakes up on a spaceship with no recollection of who he is or how he got there.

As his memory returns, he realises he needs to solve the riddle of what is causing the sun to die out and, per Sony Pictures, “an unexpected friendship means he may not have to do it alone”.

While Ryan and Eva tend to keep their children’s lives out of the spotlight, speaking about the new movie, Ryan said from a parenting perspective he is “grateful” to be able to make a story that’s not all doom and gloom.

“Being a dad, having two young kids, and I feel like everything is designed to scare them,” he said on the New Heights podcast.

“I was so grateful just as a father to get to make a story for my kids – maybe, not to be too lofty – for their generation, that reminds you of what we’re capable of as human beings.”

He added: “It doesn’t pretend that there’s not gonna be problems, but that we can solve them.”

While Ryan won’t be brushing up on tween slang anytime soon (he seems pretty busy right now anyway), if you do want to stay up-to-date with what your teens are talking about, and the online trends they’re following, here’s a quick rundown of some of the terms they’re using and what on earth they mean…

When Gen Alpha uses it, “mid” means mediocre or of disappointing quality. According to Merriam-Webster, “mid” serves to express that something falls short of expectations, or isn’t impressive.

“City boy, city boy” is the call of Gen Alpha currently, with TikTok creator and teacher Philip Lindsay noting kids in his class have been saying it. The teacher suggested the phrase doesn’t really mean anything and kids are just shouting it out at all opportunities – a bit like six-seven.

This is short for “uncle” – and, per Merriam-Webster, it’s “often used humorously to indicate old age” and may imply “someone is old, getting old, or acting older than their age”.

A combination of ‘lowkey’ and ‘genuinely’, which describes expressing something sincere in a casual, laid-back way, according to experts at language platform Preply.

In Gen Z and Gen Alpha speak, it means ugly.

Choppelganger is a portmanteau of ‘chopped’ (aka ugly), and ‘doppelganger’, which is a person who resembles someone else. So basically, it’s calling someone a less-attractive lookalike of someone else.

According to Gabb’s guide to teen slang, chat is quite simply used “to refer to a group of people, like friends or people in their class”.

For more teen terms, check out our ultimate guide to Gen Alpha slang.