Kai Cenat’s Rizz beats Taylor Swift fans to 2023 word of the year
Twitch: Kai CenatRizz, the word made popular by Twitch star Kai Cenat, has won the honor of being crowned as 2023’s Word of the Year by Oxford University Press. Yes, seriously.
As streaming and content creation has become a genuine career path for some online personalities as they’ve managed to create massive followings across a number of different platforms.
Naturally, these communities create their own in-jokes and phrases to reference during streams and videos. You can’t tune into an xQc stream without hearing multiple references about ‘The Juice,’ for example.
Kai Cenat and the AMP crew have managed to take things a step further though. They’ve popularized the word ‘Rizz’ over the last year or two – a shortened take on charisma and how people have personalities when trying to chat someone up.
Rizz beats Taylor Swift’s Swifties to word of the year
The word has spread so much over the last year or so that, thanks to Merriam-Webster, its even ended up in the dictionary alongside similar phrases like Simp, NGL, and Bussin.
On top of all that, Rizz has even been named as the word of the year for 2023 by Oxford University Press.
The popular phrase managed to beat out other breakout phrases like Parasocial, Swiftie – yes, referring to Taylor Swift fans, Beige Flag, and Situationship. All of which we’ve seen rise on social media platforms like X and TikTok.
Casper Grathwohl, president at Oxford Languages, credited Rizz as a “prevailing mood of 2023, where more of us opening ourselves up after a challenging few years and finding confidence in who we are,” according to the BBC.
It follows last year’s winner, Goblin Mode, as another popular internet phrase becoming a part of everyday life – and it’ll be interesting to see what wins next year too.