IYKYK – What Does it Mean? And Why is it Everywhere on Facebook?
Do they still teach spelling in school? If they do, what "spelling" do they teach? I am pretty sure I confused you with that query but it's a legit question, I promise. What I want to know is do the words we are teaching our kids to spell in school real words or are we teaching them to read and write in Internet shorthand?
That collection of letters in the title of this article, IYKYK is becoming a popular "go-to" abbreviation? Acronym? A slang word?, I'm not sure actually which if any of those are correct. That's because the Internet has its own language and if you're not on the cutting edge of keeping things short you might be totally left out of the conversation.
Personally, I thought IYKYK was the last name of a soccer player on the Icelandic national team but I was mistaken, I was thinking of Birkir Bjarnason, the midfielder.
IYKYK is Internet verbiage for the more lengthy phrase, "if you know, you know". The problem is that a lot of us don't or at least didn't know. And that's usually the case for those of us who tend to trend on the older side of Facebook users.
You're probably seeing IYKYK used around a lot of puzzling pictures that you see posted online. The poster is using not only the curiosity of the picture to pique your interest but the unique combination of letters that looks like a soccer player from Iceland only adds to the mystery, unless "you know".
What's nice about this particular bit of Internet wisdom is that it appears to have the same meaning across all of the different social platforms. So, IYKYK on Facebook then you also know on Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter too.
So if you see the abbreviation showing up in your timeline or newsfeed just know it's something you're supposed to know but don't necessarily need to know. However, if you wanted to make a comment on the post associated with the abbreviation then you should know before you comment. Makes perfect sense, right? Like everything on the Internet, it's as clear as mud.
Now excuse me while I yeet myself on away from here periodt. Yeah, yeet and periodt are Internet slang too. Periodt is a variant of the word "period" the "t" is added to the end for extra emphasis.
We could have used an exclamation point but that's so passe and not for this generation. Yeet, by the way, means an exclamation of excitement, approval, or all-around energy, so I guess we could have wrapped up this story by saying periodt yeet. But that looks even more like an Icelandic soccer player's name.
Now if you think the language of the Internet is odd, just wait until you check out some of the names of actual towns in Louisiana. We like to just make stuff up too.
Seven Crazy Louisiana Town Names Explained