What Does Skibidi Mean? A Parent's Guide to Gen Alpha Slang

Skibidi is Gen Alpha slang with no fixed meaning: it can mean 'cool', 'bad' or 'weird', or nothing at all, and Cambridge Dictionary says it's often used with no real meaning as a joke. It comes from Skibidi Toilet, a YouTube animated series about singing toilets that started in February 2023, which is why kids find it hilarious and most adults find it baffling.

If your child's been shouting 'skibidi' at the dinner table, you're in good company. Dictionary.com says kids who use it are perplexing the adults around them, and that's half the point. Below, I'll explain the series it came from, the ways children use the word, what parents tend to worry about and whether a brand should ever touch it.

Skibidi Toilet: the YouTube series behind the word

Skibidi Toilet is an animated web series made by Alexey Gerasimov and posted on YouTube, first on his channel DaFuq!?Boom!. According to Wikipedia's background on the show, the first episode went up on 7 February 2023 and was just 11 seconds long. It showed a toilet with a man's head popping out of it, singing a song built around the word 'skibidi'.

Later episodes turned into a running war between the singing toilets and humanoid characters with cameras, speakers and TVs for heads. The series spread fast among Generation Alpha, and Wikipedia notes that many commentators saw it as that generation's first internet culture of its own. The Washington Post called it the biggest online phenomenon of the year.

From a belly-dance TikTok to singing toilets

The sound came before the toilets. Dictionary.com traces skibidi to a TikTok creator, Yasin Cengiz, who posted a video in April 2022 dancing to the song 'Dom Dom Yes Yes', which includes vocals widely heard as 'skibidi'. That clip went viral and the sound turned up in remixes and memes.

Then, in February 2023, the Skibidi Toilet videos used a mashup of that song with another track as the toilets' theme. As Dictionary.com puts it, the phrase went viral and couldn't be flushed away so easily. From there, kids took the word itself and started dropping it into everything.

Cool, bad, weird or nothing: how Gen Alpha uses skibidi

Dictionary.com describes skibidi as nonsensical slang and a 'brainrot' term that can mean everything from 'cool' to 'bad' to 'weird', or stand in for almost any word. Cambridge Dictionary lists it as a humorous slang adjective, pronounced 'SKIH-bih-dee', with the same range of meanings.

Dictionary.com also says Gen Alpha, born between 2010 and 2024, uses the word most, and that it keeps picking up new meanings as kids say it to each other. So don't look for one correct definition. The word's job is to be silly, to signal you're in on the joke and to annoy your parents a little.

Skibidi phrases kids say, decoded

Here are the most common ways it's used, based on the examples in Dictionary.com and Cambridge Dictionary:

Phrase	Roughly means	Tone
'What the skibidi?'	What on earth?	Mock shock, a clean swap for a swear word
'Skibidi toilet'	The series itself, or just a funny noise	Pure meme
'That's so skibidi'	That's cool, or that's weird	Depends on the face they pull
'Skibidi rizz'	Two slang words stacked for laughs	Showing off their slang
'Skibidi' on its own	Nothing at all	A random joke or sound effect

That last example mixes in rizz, which is charm or flirting skill. Here's what rizz means if that one's new to you as well.

A parent's guide to Skibidi Toilet

Here's what's worth knowing if you're a parent. Wikipedia notes the series doesn't appear on YouTube Kids, the app designed for children under 13, yet it's popular with primary school children. Some parenting sites have claimed the violence and odd visuals can harm young children, while The Guardian called much of that a 'moral panic'. Wired pointed out that the violence is limited to cartoonish explosions and punches, and one parent-review group rated the series suitable for ages 14 and up.

It's also worth knowing the 'brain rot' label. Wikipedia notes that many older viewers criticised the series as brain rot, while others pointed out that every generation has had its own baffling memes. That's a fair reminder before you ban the word at home: most kids are using it to be silly with their friends, not because they've been changed by a cartoon.

So it's weird rather than sinister, but it isn't made for very young children. If yours is watching, watch an episode with them. You'll get the joke, or at least see why there isn't one, and you can decide what's right for your family.

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Another word that sounds like a joke and often isn't is simp, so read the history of simp.

Made-up skibidi moments at school and at home

These are made-up examples to show how it's used, not real conversations:

'What the skibidi is this for dinner?' Mock horror at the menu.
'Your new trainers are so skibidi.' A compliment, judging by the grin.
'Skibidi skibidi skibidi', sung while walking out of the room. No meaning, just noise.
'That wasn't very skibidi of you.' Cambridge-style teasing, meaning 'that wasn't cool'.

If your child also calls themselves the main character, here's what sigma means, another word from the same corner of the internet.

Brands and skibidi: my honest verdict

My advice for brands: don't. Skibidi belongs to children, and Dictionary.com is clear that most of its users are Gen Alpha. When an adult brand uses it, it reads as trying too hard, and it can look like marketing aimed at kids, which isn't a look you want.

The exceptions are narrow. If you're a children's entertainment account, a teacher sharing a classroom joke or a parent creator talking about what your kids say, a light mention can work. Even then, I'd talk about the word rather than use it. And if you work with older teens or adults, a word like delulu will travel much better than skibidi ever will.

Frequently asked questions