Gyatt (also commonly spelled as Gyat) is a term from African-American Vernacular English originally used in exclamation, such as "gyatt damn". In the 2020s, the word experienced a semantic shift and gained the additional meaning of "a person, usually a woman, with large and attractive buttocks and sometimes an hourglass figure".[1][2]
Everybody used to say "god damn" or "golly" but I said it weird. I'd always say "gyatt", I would never say "god damn". Chat realized that, and a way of making fun of me in 2020, they started typing "gyatt" to mock me.
— YourRAGE, "THE ONLY DEFINITION OF #GYATT 😒 #gyat #gyatttttttt" (2023)[12]
On October 2, 2023, a TikTok account under the username @ovp.9 posted a short video of a character from the online video game Fortnite "singing" to a musical parody of the 2021 song "ecstacy" by Suicidal-Idol.[13] The parody featured multiple internet culture terms, including Skibidi Toilet and rizz.[14] According to The New York Times, the parody is cited as "a key" to the popularization of Gyatt.[5]
Backronyms have been created for the term like "Girl Your Ass Is Thick", "Girl You Ate That", "Get Your Act Together", among others.[15][16]
Usage
According to Legit.ng, the term is commonly used by "guys when they see a girl, usually with a curvy body type," and can also be used to indicate enthusiasm or excitement.[17]
Gyatt is characterized in the media as a term used both by Generation Alpha and Generation Z.[18] However, some members of Generation Z have stated that they do not attribute the term to their cohort.[2] According to The Today Show, the term is used verbally and on messaging platforms such as Discord, TikTok, Twitch, Instagram, and YouTube.[7]
Reception and impact
Gyatt has been described as one of the early slang terms predominantly popularized by Generation Alpha: according to the New York Post, comments to a viral TikTok video about the term "deemed that Gen Z was out of touch regarding current lingo."[19][unreliable source?] Alongside its attribution with Generation Alpha, Gyatt has been of interest to digital marketers in consideration of the cohort's emerging consumer consumption.[20] The term was nominated for the American Dialect Society's 2023 Word of The Year.[7][21]