Even as a perma-online millennial, I can relate to the struggle OpenAI CEO Sam Altman faced on Saturday, when he tried and failed to use a Gen Alpha internet slang term correctly.
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“we still get looksmaxxed on frontend a little but we IQmog hard now,” 41-year-old Altman posted on X.
Tyler Cosgrove of TBPN — which just got acquired by OpenAI this month — took it upon himself to correct Altman with this explainer on X.
sam just so you know for next time this is technically incorrect usage of the “-maxx” suffix
to “looksmaxx” is to improve oneself, it’s not really a comparison between two different things (“-mogged” is a comparison however). so the correct usage here would’ve been something like:
“we still get looksmogged on frontend…”
or
“we still need to looksmaxx our frontend…”
Cosgrove is correct. There are also other uses of the “-maxx” suffix. Business Insider previously reported on the term “Chinamaxxing,” where “-maxxing” describes going full-tilt into Asian-inspired lifestyle choices like practicing tai chi at dawn and drinking hot water.
One X user weighed in on Cosgrove’s explanation, venturing that “‘Looksmog’ doesn’t exist you just say ‘mog.'”
“‘lookmogged’ maybe be needlessly repetitive in isolation but it provides useful context given the ‘IQmog’ that appears later in the sentence,” Cosgrove responded.
Anyway, Sam — don’t feel bad. Lots of Gen Alpha internet slang is nearly incomprehensible to us millennials. Who among us did not at one point ask a friend or colleague what the “youth” mean when they’re out here talking about “skibidi toilet?”
Happy weekend, Silicon Valley. Now let’s get back to work.
