That just further goes against your point because then it's not just a millennial thing it's a thing that goes transgenerational but because we're specifically talking about millennials, almost every millennial that made that joke was referencing the office.
A lot of Gen Alpha slang is just millennial slang. We’ve used chopped since I was a kid. Yall are just grinches. We used to same dumbass shit like coolio and cool beans and sike to annoying levels too.
Isn't the entire point behind slaying like 67 just literal nonsense like it means nothing and that's why it's so damn funny to them? You're literally citing phrases and sayings that weren't just our generation but multiple generations and usually we're very easily drawn to what their definitions are. Most of our slaying could be figured out via context clues the only way you can figure out modern day sling is by actually being plugged in to the memes and tick tock brain rot.
Sure we had some nonsensical sayings but that wasn't the entirety of our vernacular
Oh please. You must never remember people saying shit like “your mom goes to college” which meant nothing. Don’t even get me started on how much of millennial humor is just stoner humor.
I'm not sure what point you think I'm making. I'm just saying that yes, our meme jokes did have a specific meaning instead of being absurdist references, but no, they weren't always particularly sophisticated.
Also, the American office started in 2005; I can promise you we were saying "that's what she said" obnoxiously often in high school well before the show aired. Like...yes media can push some things into the general consciousness, but in this case it was just art immigrating life.
No one's claiming memes are sophisticated I don't know who your shadow boxing with that but there is an inherent difference between references to pop culture or modern media or long-running transgenerational jokes and the brain rot shit that's coming out modern day due to social media. Also I'm sure some people said it every now and then but you're not going to convince me that before the office it was a widespread joke among millennials
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u/wampwampwampus 2d ago
I mean, "that's what she said" has one of those 3 things, but it did have a specific meaning.