Gaming & online life
Half this vocabulary came from games. So did half the friendships.
Gaming language has leaked into everything, which makes it easy to dismiss as trivial. It's worth taking seriously for a practical reason: for a lot of teenagers, the server or the Discord is where their actual social life happens.
What you'll actually hear
- he's such an npc
- bro needs to touch grass
- that's kinda sus
- we lost, i'm taking the L
Watch
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Strong4Life · 3:50
Digital Safety 101: A Parents' guide to gaming
A paediatric hospital's four-minute orientation for parents who don't game: what the platforms are, where strangers come into contact with your child, and which questions are worth asking.
What it tends to mean
Patterns worth noticing — not diagnoses.
Who they're playing with matters more than how long
Screen-time totals are the usual parental focus. The more useful question is who is on the other end of the headset, and whether your child has met them.
"NPC" aimed at a person is an insult
It means someone has no original thoughts. Used about a specific classmate rather than a stranger online, it's contempt rather than banter.
Voice chat is the unmoderated part
Text is filtered and logged. Live voice chat in games and on Discord generally isn't, which is where most of what parents worry about actually happens.
Three things you could say tonight
Low-stakes openers. The goal is a conversation, not an interrogation.
- Who are you actually playing with — school friends or people online?
- Show me the game. What's good about it?
- Has anyone ever asked you to move to a different app to chat?
The vocabulary
NPC
Someone with no original thoughts.
Touch grass
Go outside. You've been online too long.
Sus
Suspicious. Something's off.
W / L
A win and a loss.
Salty
Bitter about losing.
Clanker
A dismissive term for a robot or AI.
GOAT
Greatest Of All Time.
Based
Admirably true to yourself.
Worth recognising
Finsta
A second, private social account.
Where to get proper help
We decode the language. These organisations do the support — all independent, none affiliated with us.
- Internet MattersOnline safety guides for parents
- Common Sense MediaAge ratings and app reviews
- Thinkuknow (CEOP)Age-banded advice from the UK's child protection command
- NSPCCAdvice for parents and carers
- ChildlineFree, confidential support for under-19s
- YoungMinds (UK)Parents' helpline and mental health guides
Know the words, or test yourself.
Every term on this page has its own entry — or find out how much you're missing in two minutes.