I’ve seen a lot of people saying it lately and it’s seemingly out of nowhere. I’m particularly interested because almost 10 years ago a popular Korean LoL streamer popularized the phrase in the League community and it was used in precisely the same way. Until now, I never heard anybody else say it but it really piqued my curiosity when I started seeing it again!
Did it start in a particular region or community? Slang seems like it’s changing faster than ever and it’s absolutely insane haha.
As a youth, I have no idea.
I assume it is a derivative of “for real” which has been in a heightened state of popularity for the last few years as part of Gen Z slang often mocked as “fr fr.” Granted, I work with high schoolers, and I’ve not heard just real. Then again, the slang they use is mostly the same as I used in my high school days with a few that catch me off guard like swerve or yassification that require a quick explanation.
We were using “real” and “for real” in the 1970s in the US.
i don’t know about “Real” but I’ve got another one that threw me off.
I’m middle aged, an avid skier, and I was sitting on the lift with a couple young dudes, probably 18-24, shooting shit about the awesome conditions. Now, I’ve heard “low-key”, and I know what it means and how to use it, but, I was relating a story about some gnarly line I had done that morning and they both kept parroting “hikee hikee”. It took me till several hours later sitting over a pint at the base to parse out they were saying “high-key” as a sort of qualifier for how dope my story was. Still haven’t heard it since but that was the moment I officially became an “old man”.
