Facebook serves a lot of different purposes for a lot of different people. Some use it to connect with old friends, some use it to stalk ex boy/girlfriends, (or current ones for that matter), some to show off how cute their kids/pets are, and some to keep us up to date on EXACTLY what they are doing every other minute. My personal favorite aspect of Facebook is to keep up on how teenagers communicate with one another. 

 I facebook-spy on my nieces all the time for pure entertainment. I am not all THAT un-hip and out of touch with kids’ lingo these days, but actually maybe I am.  The following is a conversation between two of my nieces and their friends about my sister’s house flooding. It is verbatim; I cut and pasted it, although I did change their names, because I don’t want them to sue me.

 Ally Spencer

MY HOUSE IS FALLING APART!!!!!!

Patrick Smith well thats not good

Amanda Spencer PATRICK the roof is flooding and im on facebook. this is most def not good.

Patrick Smith Its obvi redic, i am most def not jel

Nathan Jones thats totes redic bad

What? Seriously, does this even make sense? I know my friends and I had our own jargon when we were teenagers, but now I feel like completely out of touch thinking, “What in the world are these crazy kids saying these days?” 

Before I had my kids, I taught high school and got a kick out of it for the same reason. Teenagers are just funny creatures. One year, I had to get braces on my bottom teeth as an adult because when I was a teenager myself, I lost my retainer. The years passed and I realized my bottom teeth were askew and needed to be fixed. I bit the bullet and just got good old-fashioned braces at age 35. I was so self-conscious about my metal-mouth; even more so than when I was 14. I hoped and prayed the students wouldn’t notice, since teenagers can be relentless-especially with their teachers. I made it through my first class and nobody said a word. Oh good! They can’t see them! HUGE relief. Then, at the end of class, one of my brace face students approached me with his hand held up in the air and said, “NICE GRILL! HIGH FIVE!”  That was such a humiliating(and hilarious) moment for me.

My own kids are so young now, I feel like I am going to be so out of touch when they become teenagers. What will language morph into? How will we communicate? Will Facebook be obsolete by then? I can only imagine. It is sooooo mos def totes obvi redic!