New study reveals slang words deemed 'most cringeworthy' by Gen Z

Embracing cringe is something we all have to do as we age as keeping up with trends becomes increasingly difficult, especially with how fast things move on social media these days.

What was cool to say yesterday is often already considered to be cringe by this morning, and everyone will reach a point where they have to accept that they're no longer down with the kids.

It's still good to keep on top of words that are considered a social faux pas by the younger generations, however, even if its purpose is to spark irritation or deliberately show your age.

Gen Z's most cringeworthy words have been revealed thanks to a new study (Getty Stock)

As shared by the Daily Mail, a new study conducted by Preply surveyed over 1,500 people in the United Kingdom to interrogate which words made them tick the most.

While its colloquial definition is broad, especially as 'Gen Alpha' has become to the more accepted term for young people now, Gen Z typically refers to anyone born between the years of 1997 and 2012 — although it's mostly applied to those on the later end of that scale.

Gen Z is arguably the first generation to grow up with the internet in full swing, especially following the popularization of social media, and that has led to the creation of a number of absurd and abstract slang terms that fizzle out as quickly as they rise to prominence.

Among these is 'skibbidi', and that's now been deemed to be the most cringeworthy word for Gen Z following the results of Preply's survey, with 37 percent of respondents shivering at the thought of the word.

Originating from a video by YouTuber DaFuq!?Boom! where a characters head emerges from a toilet, skibidi doesn't really have a meaning – much like the recent rise of '67' as the meme of the moment last year – although the Cambridge Dictionary argues that it means both 'cool' and 'bad'.

Outside of skibidi, Gen Z also hates words like 'wifey', 'holibobs', 'fri yay', 'bussin', 'bae', and 'YOLO' — and the common denominator between most of these is that they were used and popularized by millennials in the generation prior, and there are few things more cringe than the habits of people just slightly older than you.

Thanks to social media, however, the cringe cycle moves faster than ever before, as platforms like TikTok cause jokes to burn out with an incredible speed due to the sheer number of people using them at any one time.

"A phrase might start as a joke or trend within a niche community, go viral globally, and then quickly become overused," explains Yolanda Del Peso, a spokesperson for Preply.

"Once it reaches mass adoption, especially among older generations or brands, it often loses its original appeal and becomes 'cringeworthy'."