#44- 20 Popular Vocabulary Words and Phrases for Social Media & The Internet

Hi there! Welcome to episode #44 of The Real Life English with Gabby Podcast! In this episode, I’ll be teaching you 20 phrasal verbs, slang words and idioms all about social media and the internet. Social media and the internet is where most of our new vocabulary comes from, and so it's extremely important that you know the meanings of these words. After listening to this episode, you'll know the most popular and commonly used internet vocabulary and it'll vastly improve your English communication skills. By listening to this episode and using the Study Guide, you’ll be able to this topic confidently and be one step closer to speaking English like a native speaker.

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Study Guide includes:

• Definitions and example sentences
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• Transcript for additional practice

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Transcript

[00:00:00] In today's episode, you'll be learning 20 phrasal verbs, idioms, and slang words all about social media and the internet. You'll be learning words like doomscrolling, clout, finsta, troll, and more. Let's get to it.

Hey there, welcome to the Real Life English with Gabby podcast. I'm your host, Gabby, your fun and friendly English teacher from the one and only New York City. My goal is to teach you phrasal verbs, idioms, and slang that will help you speak English confidently and understand real American conversations.

Are you ready to improve your English skills? Let's jump right in. Let's go.

Hey, hey, hey! Greetings from New York City. Thanks so much for tuning in to episode number 44. Today's episode is all about social media and the internet. This is a [00:01:00] truly important topic.

Did you know that 63.9 percent of humans on Earth use social media? That's pretty insane. I'm not sure which social media accounts you love the most, but I think I'd have to say that YouTube and Instagram are my number ones. I love YouTube. I know that a lot of people don't really consider it to be social media—they consider it more of a search engine—but honestly, I think it should definitely be classified as social media.

What about you? What's your favorite social media platform? Aside from YouTube and Instagram, I also love TikTok and Facebook. I know that Facebook is dead to a lot of you, and sometimes my students make fun of me for still using Facebook, but Facebook groups in the United States are alive and well.

We [00:02:00] use them all the time. For example, since I'm a huge fan of Disney, my family and I try to go every one to two years to a Disney park. And so, I'm in a few Disney mom groups where everyone gives tips and tricks to travel to Disney. It's very, very helpful. I'm in so many Facebook groups. They're really awesome.

I know some countries use Facebook more than others, and I also know that older people use Facebook more than younger people. But I think Facebook is still pretty cool. I think at some point I've had almost every social media platform. I had Snapchat a few years ago because my students set up an account for me.

They were like, "You have to have Snapchat to talk to some students from certain countries." A lot of my Saudi students were using Snapchat. Snapchat was cool too.

I think that social media has a lot of [00:03:00] positives. Obviously, it's great for staying connected. For example, I keep in touch with many of my former students on social media, and it's great because I can connect with them, keep up with them, and just see how they're doing. So many of my students are getting married now, having kids, and it's really, really nice to see them doing so well. And that's only possible because of social media.

More than that, though, there is a lot of entertainment and a lot of education. After all, I started English with Gabby on Instagram back in 2020, and things grew and flourished from there. Social media is also a great place to learn about products, but honestly, one of my favorite things about social media is getting news and information.

It makes life so much easier to follow what's happening around the world [00:04:00] when you're on social media because you get the news instantaneously. I remember back in the day, we'd have to wait until the five o'clock news, or we'd have to wake up and watch the six o'clock news just to know what was going on—even the weather.

And now, technology has progressed so much that everything is basically right in our hands with our cell phones. So it's great.

However, as awesome as social media can be, it can also be a really, really toxic and poisonous place. There are a lot of keyboard warriors and trolls—these are two of our words for today.

These are people who like to say mean things, and they're brave and bold because they're behind the keyboard, behind the computer screen. It makes people say things that they would never actually say in real life.

It can also be a major distraction and source of addiction, [00:05:00] especially for young people. Honestly, I'm really glad that social media didn't exist when I was growing up. Social media didn't really make an appearance until I was in college.

Well, I mean, we had things like MySpace. I'm kind of aging myself right now. But Facebook started when I was in university—I think when I was a freshman, my first year of college, if I'm not mistaken. And it was only for college students back then.

And yeah, I'm very happy that social media was not around when I was in high school. It's very difficult for young people to balance social media—even for adults.

Despite all of this, I’ve found that with the right balance, social media can be so much fun. It's been a great addition to the world.

I totally respect people who don't have social media, though. I have a few friends who don't, and I meet some students who don't. It's awesome. It's very disciplined, and not having [00:06:00] social media really allows people to focus on the present. I don't think I have the ability to do that, but I really respect people who can.

All of these things that I just talked about—these are the reasons why I chose this topic. Social media is extremely popular around the world, and there's so much new vocabulary that starts on social media.

It's so important for you to know the meanings of words that you see, especially if you're going to comment on things or tell your friends about something you saw on social media. I feel like so many of our slang words originate on social media, and so it's important to be able to keep up.

I've said this pretty often on the podcast, but English is a very living language. And that's why I decided to focus the podcast on phrasal verbs, slang, and idioms.

English is always evolving, new words are always coming [00:07:00] into play and becoming popular, and it's very important for your English communication skills to have the most modern vocabulary.

In this episode, you'll be learning 20 phrasal verbs, slang words, and idioms that are commonly used in the world of social media and the internet. These will definitely help you be more confident when you speak on this topic.

Before we continue, I just want to remind you that there's a free study guide waiting for you that will help you remember everything that you learned in this episode.

Repetition is the best way to truly learn English, and so listening to the podcast, then reading the words again and practicing with them using the study guide, gives you more of a chance to remember what you learned.

The more you practice, the better your English will be, and the more confidence you'll have in your English communication skills. To get that study guide, click the [00:08:00] link in the episode description.

All right.

Now I'm going to tell you the 20 words that you're going to learn in today's episode:

Scroll through, scrolling, DM, doomscrolling, clout, go viral, a thirst trap, to break the internet, gatekeeping, main character energy, finsta, swipe up, swipe down, to come with or bring receipts, a troll, cringe, keyboard warrior, passing the vibe check, pop up, ASMR, YouTube rabbit hole, log in, log out.

Even if you've heard some of these words before and think you know the meaning, I just want you to remember that in English, many words have second, third, even fourth or fifth meanings—especially when it comes to [00:09:00] slang and phrasal verbs.

So while I'm reading the story, listen to the words, but even more so, listen to the context so that you can try and figure out the meaning of this vocabulary.

After the story, we'll go through all of the definitions, and I'll give you some more examples.

Here we go with the story.

Lina was scrolling through Instagram when she saw a DM from her best friend, Maya.

"OMG, Lina. While doomscrolling on Instagram, I saw another ridiculous post from Zara. Have you seen it?"

Lina quickly checked Zara's page. Zara was their old classmate from high school, who had become a super popular influencer, always chasing clout, and who had become famous for her perfect photos.

She had first gone viral two years ago after dating Zac Efron for a few months.

She and Zac [00:10:00] had posted a thirst trap on a beach in Maui that broke the internet.

This time, she had posted a picture in a designer dress, looking flawless. In the caption, she wrote, "Effortlessly iconic. #NoFilter."

She always pretended to have perfect skin while at the same time gatekeeping her skincare routine.

Lina rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right. No filter?" But she wasn't surprised. Zara always had main character energy throughout the time that she had known her. Just then, Maya sent another message. "Check her finsta! Someone leaked it."

Lina swiped up to see Zara's secret account, where she posted unedited, silly, goofy photos. And sure enough, someone had posted receipts with screenshots proving that Zara's no-filter post was heavily edited.

Trolls immediately flooded the comments, calling her out. "Fake! This is so cringe," one person wrote. Another, a total keyboard warrior, kept arguing with Zara's fans. "Wow, these comments are definitely passing the vibe check. People are finally calling her out for being fake," Lina wrote. "She's gonna have a tough few weeks for sure. She might even get canceled."

After that, Maya got distracted when an ad popped up for an ASMR channel. She clicked on it, hoping to escape the drama. But soon, she fell into a YouTube rabbit hole, watching people whisper and tap on objects for hours. When she finally looked at the time, it was 2 a.m.

Lina wrote, "Ugh, I can't believe I'm still awake. I need to log out and get some sleep."

Maya was also awake and still on Instagram. "Same. Well, it was an interesting day seeing everything that happened to Zara. The main lesson I hope she learned is that she needs to be her true self on social media."

Lina laughed and wrote, "Agree 100%."

The end.

Okay, now let's go through the vocabulary that you just heard. I know there were a lot of new words in that story, so let's take things slow and go through this one at a time.

First up, we have "scroll through," which is a phrasal verb, or just the verb "scroll" in this context. Scrolling through something is when you're moving through social media content without stopping for long. The main point that you remember here is that you're not stopping for long. If you stop for long, look at someone's profile, or check their other videos, we wouldn't really call it "scrolling through" or "scrolling." It's really just moving through content pretty quickly. So we scroll through a lot of posts, for example, on Instagram and TikTok, but we don't necessarily scroll through posts on YouTube, because there's longer-form content.

For example, "I was just scrolling through Instagram when I saw the funniest meme."

Next up, we have a "DM." A DM is a private message sent on social media. It stands for "direct message." Some social media platforms differentiate the names of their messaging systems. For example, Facebook has Messenger, so you send a PM (private message), but Instagram has DMs (direct messages).

For example, "He slid into my DMs to ask about my latest post."

If you remember from the previous episode on relationship slang—I believe that was for Valentine's Day 2024—I taught you the idiom "slide into someone's DMs," which is usually when someone sends you a DM in a flirtatious way, hoping to pursue some kind of relationship.

Next up, we have the expression "doom scrolling." Doom scrolling is spending an excessive amount of time reading a lot of news, particularly negative news. This is kind of what Americans are doing now because it's just bad, worse, the worst—you know, that's how life is for us.

The word "doom" usually means something terrible, like a terrible result, death, or destruction. Lots of negative meanings to the word "doom." So doom scrolling is just continuously looking at things, and most of it is negative or upsetting, and most of it is news.

For example, "I need to stop doom scrolling before bed. It just stresses me out."

Next up, we have the word "clout." Similar to the word "cloud," but "cloud" is spelled C-L-O-U-D and "clout" is spelled C-L-O-U-T. Clout is actually not slang; it's an official word, and it means influence or fame, especially on social media. But we have an expression called "clout chaser" or someone who's "chasing clout," as it's used in the story. This means somebody who always, always wants to look for influence and fame.

For example, "She's only starting drama on Instagram for clout."

Next up, we have the expression "to go viral." To go viral on social media is when a post or some kind of video spreads quickly and gets a lot of attention.

For example, "His dance video went viral and got millions of views overnight."

So for all the creators out there, going viral is a dream. That's like one of the biggest goals for content creators.

Next up, we have the expression "a thirst trap." This is a kind of post on social media that's meant to attract attention, often for likes, comments, or compliments. Most typically, a thirst trap is a picture that shows a lot of someone's body—maybe a shirtless gym pic or a picture in swimwear at the beach. It's something that's meant to get clicks and likes.

For example, "That gym selfie he took was definitely a thirst trap."

In slang, the word "thirsty" means somebody who really wants to be in a relationship, someone who wants a partner. So if we say, "Oh, he's really thirsty," that means he's desperate for a relationship. So a thirst trap is a post that people create to attract thirst or desire.

Next up, we have the expression "to break the internet." Breaking something is usually bad, but breaking the internet in this context is a good thing. This is when something online gets massive attention and becomes a huge trend or huge news.

For example, "Her outfit at the Met Gala just broke the internet."

Next up, we have the expression "gatekeeping" or "to gatekeep." This is when someone tries to control who can access certain information or trends. Imagine that someone's at a gate and this person can block who enters and who is stuck outside. This is very common when we see content creators keeping information to themselves.

For example, a woman has really beautiful skin and she's a content creator, but she doesn't want to share with anybody how her skin gets so beautiful because she doesn't want to share her secret. We call that gatekeeping. It's a very common, very trendy word that we use now when someone is not sharing information.

Next up, we have "main character energy." Main character energy is when someone is acting as if they're the most important, most interesting person in a situation. If you have someone who always wants to be the center of attention and always wants to be in the spotlight, we say this is someone who has main character energy.

For example, "She walked into the party with total main character energy."

Next up, we have the word "finsta." This is a slang term that means "fake Instagram." This is a private Instagram account that's used for close friends and often has unfiltered content. Content creators often have separate accounts that are private, where they can actually post about themselves and their families. We call this a Finsta—like a hidden or private Instagram account.

For example, "On her Finsta, she posts silly photos that she wouldn't put on her main account."

A receipt is like proof of purchase, right? [00:21:00] If you have a problem and need to return it, you bring it back with the receipt. Same thing, kind of, on the internet—slightly different because it's not for a purchase, but a receipt is proof.

So, let's say that you know your best friend's boyfriend is cheating on her. You're gonna tell her, but first, you need proof. First, you need to bring receipts. And so that's what happens a lot online.

Let's say a celebrity is suing another celebrity. If they post receipts—like through screenshots or conversations or something—those are proof of what they're saying.

So we say, "Oh, she brought receipts," or "He came with receipts." This means that this person has proof of what they're saying.

For example: She brought the receipts and exposed his lies with old DMs.

Next up, we have the word troll. [00:22:00]

A troll is someone who posts mean, offensive, or just annoying comments in order to provoke other people or get them upset.

I'm sure on social media you've seen people who have accounts with no picture, no nothing, and all they do is write negative comments everywhere they go.

Yeah, trolls are the worst people on the internet.

For example: Ignore the trolls in the comments—they just want attention.

I'm gonna lead right into keyboard warrior. You heard me say this before the story. Trolls are often keyboard warriors.

A keyboard warrior is someone who aggressively argues online but wouldn't do it in real life.

So, someone who’s empowered to be mean and aggressive only because they're protected—because they're far away from people.

In real life, they wouldn't say such mean or aggressive things because there's no protection, but behind the computer, they feel [00:23:00] brave. They feel like real warriors. So, trolls are often keyboard warriors.

Next up, we have the term cringe.

Cringe is something awkward or embarrassing. We say secondhand—like, "I'm embarrassed for you for posting that." And so, we typically say that something is cringe.

The original use was "something makes you cringe," like maybe you hear a sound, and it makes you cringe—you feel really uncomfortable.

But in the slang context, we say, "Oh my gosh, that's so cringe." Cringe is used as an adjective in slang.

For example: That apology video was so cringe.

Next up, we have to pass the vibe check. [00:24:00]

Okay, so first, let's go back a little bit. A vibe is a feeling, right? Positive—sending positive vibes your way, sending good thoughts, good feelings.

So, when something passes the vibe check, it means that it matches the energy or mood of a situation.

I want you to imagine that a mom posts something, okay? And all of the people in the comments are very kind and encouraging—they're passing the vibe check.

Now, if a mom posts something and everyone posts negative comments, we would say, "Oh, these comments are not passing the vibe check."

They're not kind. They're not matching the good energy that the post had.

For example: I loved reading her comments because they definitely passed the vibe check.

Next up, we have the phrasal verb pop up.

Pop up is when a notification—could be an ad or a message—suddenly appears on a screen. [00:25:00]

We used to call ads pop-ups, like, "Oh, I just got a pop-up on my computer," but we actually use it a lot now for notifications and messages.

For example: Did you see the message that just popped up on your phone? It's from your sister.

Or: That annoying ad keeps popping up while I'm trying to watch a video.

Next up, we have ASMR. This is a trend that has taken over the internet.

If you have TikTok, you'll see tons of people doing tapping. They'll make sounds that cause tingles in a person.

So, ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. That makes no sense.

Basically, though, it's an experience characterized by a combination of positive feelings and tingling on your skin.

It creates a very relaxing sensation through specific sounds. [00:26:00]

Some people who can't sleep will go and watch an ASMR video of somebody whispering and tapping, and then they'll fall asleep.

For example: She's popular for her ASMR videos because they help people sleep.

They even have ASMR with people eating—I think that's called mukbang or something like that—but ASMR has literally taken over the internet.

Next, we have the YouTube rabbit hole.

First, let's talk about what a rabbit hole is. A rabbit hole—this is an expression—is usually a complicated situation, a difficult situation that's hard to get out of.

It's something that takes you to a weird, crazy situation.

The YouTube rabbit hole is when you get lost in a series of YouTube videos because of the recommendations.

So, I'm willing to bet that most of you listening have started watching something on YouTube, and then an hour later, you're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm still on YouTube." [00:27:00]

You've just gone down the YouTube rabbit hole—because YouTube sucks you in, and you don’t know how to get out of the situation.

Sometimes these videos are beneficial, like if you're learning. But, you know, it's crazy how time can pass on YouTube without you realizing it.

Lastly, we have log in and log out.

These are phrasal verbs that mean to enter or exit an online account.

You can also say sign in and sign out as well.

For example: Make sure to log in with your school ID, and then don't forget to log out at the end of class.

There you have it! You just learned 20 awesome vocabulary words and expressions that you can use to understand social media and internet language.

I hope that you'll be able to speak with confidence now about this topic.

Well, that’s a wrap for today’s episode of Real Life English with Gabby. [00:28:00]

Be sure to download today's study guide so that you can learn how to use this vocabulary confidently.

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