Internet Slang Special – English Social Media (DM, SELFIE, FOMO, TBT)

Hello and Welcome back to The Slang Podcast with me Louisa May Adams.

This show will give you the chance to hear, understand the origins and meanings of new slang and to use them immediately!

Last episode we mastered internet slang and abbreviations but this episode we will become experts on slang specifically for social media.

Even if you’ve mastered English vocabulary offline, you might find yourself scrolling through Social Media and getting pretty confused. Why do people keep asking me to DM them? Why is everyone hashtagging TBT? Let’s find out why now!

Ok so our first is the easiest and for an English learner the most useful D-M, meaning direct message or a private message with a person on social media, especially Twitter or Instagram.
So if you have found a mother tongue or fellow English learner on a group chat you may want to DM to share more conversations and discussions in english.

Ok number two is selfie S-E-L-F-I-E. This is an english phrase but appears to have permeated the rest of the world. A selfie is a self-portrait, typically taken with a digital camera or smartphone, which may be held in the hand or supported by a selfie stick.

They are often casual in nature (or made to appear casual). I’m sure all of you have taken one at some point in your life…. even if you don’t want to admit it!

So for our third, we have FOMO F-O-M-O Fear of Missing Out. It basically symbolizes the feeling of being sad or anxious that something fun is happening without you. For example if you friends are all going on holiday but you have work you may be experiencing FOMO.

For our last abbreviation today we have T-B-T meaning Throwback Thursday. If you use instagram you may have seen this once before. TBT is a hashtag used to share old pictures that are a “throwback” to the past. People use it when sharing old photos and videos of themselves for nostalgia or if they have found a selfie they took months ago and fancy a slight hit of self esteem.

So now we nearly have the all social media slang you need at your fingertips….however not all of it! Next episode we will be looking at more social media slang so stay tuned.

You can find us on our website https://theslangpodcast.com and from there you can see our transcript and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many more apps. Or head over to our facebook page https://facebook.com/theslangpodcast for updates and more slang!