Remember when Britney Spears shaved her head and attacked a paparazzo’s SUV with an umbrella? Or when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars?
Celebrity meltdowns like these once played out on TV or in tabloids. Now, anyone can go viral for an emotional breakdown, or what Gen Z calls a “crash out.”
Search #crashout on TikTok and you’ll find videos of people screaming, having emotional outbursts or acting erratic (or pretending to) over relationships, politics, hunger, video games or shopping mishaps. Some creators even rank dramatic crash outs and lip-sync to songs that embody the “crash-out” energy.
But such content also finds empathy among social media users who leave supportive comments for their peers experiencing a hard time. Some even encourage crash outs as a way to release emotions and cope with feeling overwhelmed.
With its growing popularity, could “crash out” reflect a shift in how we talk about mental health — and even become the next word of the year? Is crashing out acceptable behavior?
What does it mean to “crash out”?
Previously, “to crash out” meant either “falling asleep from exhaustion” or “being eliminated” from a competition.
But in early 2024, the verbal phrase took a new meaning on TikTok. Now, it refers to losing control or acting irrationally, impulsively or destructively due to intense emotions, often resulting in unnecessary altercations or reckless decisions.
That kind of shift in meaning is not unusual for slang words, says Adam Cooper, an associate teaching professor and director of the linguistics program at Northeastern University.
“The expression has, in its core sense, this very physical understanding, but it’s shifted metaphorically into other domains,” Cooper says. “It’s a very visceral expression for the kind of feeling that it’s meant to describe. You very much feel what’s going on in a person’s mind as they’re experiencing this sudden wave of emotions or mental instability.”
Read more at Northeastern Global News.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
