The Hallway’s Got Rizz... Can School Counselors Hear What It’s Saying?

“Rizz.” “Bet.” “Six-Seven.”

Sounds like noise... but it’s not.

In this episode of the School for School Counselors Podcast, Steph Johnson breaks down what teen slang really means, and how it maps your campus culture in ways most adults never notice. You’ll hear the neuroscience behind why slang sticks, the social psychology that makes it powerful, and how school counselors can use it to spot who’s connecting… and who’s slipping through the cracks.

If you’ve ever smiled and nodded through a phrase you didn’t understand, this one’s for you.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Hallway Noise As Social Code
• 1:41 Framing The Big Idea
• 2:25 Liminality And Shared Language
• 3:23 Slang, Identity, And Confidence
• 4:33 Brain Science Of Sticky Phrases
• 6:19 Social Media As Amplifier
• 7:12 Marco Polo For Belonging
• 8:14 When Silence Hurts
• 9:13 From Noise To Actionable Data
• 10:55 Belonging Across Halls And Hashtags
• 11:56 Your Counselor Challenge
• 12:26 Teaser And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:07

You hear it echoing off the lockers, things like Skibbity, Ohio, 6'7. No context. No explanation. It's just like a flock of caffeinated parrots squawking all over the place. I remember passing a cluster of kids on my way to cafeteria duty several months ago, around the start of the school year. And one kid kind of half yelled, 6'7 down the hallway. And the others erupted like he had just dropped the punchline of the year. And I smiled, I pretended I got it, and I kept walking. But inside, I was thinking, what on earth did that even mean? And I thought, do I ask? But then you always know a student's going to be like, you wouldn't get it. Oh, when these things start, you know, a week or two in, the teachers are talking about it in the teacher's lounge, kind of cursing about it sometimes. And then a month later, it's fading out, but it's getting replaced by something even weirder. You could ignore this stuff for sure, or you could learn to decode it. Because hidden in those nonsense phrases are early clues about connection, confidence, and campus climate. And by the end of this episode, you'll know how to listen for them like a pro. Hey school counselor, welcome back. In this episode of our new Why Do They Do That series, we're tackling one of the strangest parts of school life. The bizarre phrases students latch onto that seem to mean absolutely nothing. Uh, spoiler, they mean everything. And when you understand what they're really saying, it changes how you see your whole campus. So if you're ready for some straight talk, my friend, some clarity on your work and maybe a little bit of rebellion, you're gonna be in the right place. I'm Steph Johnson, and this is the School for School Counselors podcast. Anthropologist Victor Turner called it liminality, the threshold between one social status and another. It's the in-between space where the old rules don't apply, but the new ones aren't set yet. And for teens, that's their whole reality. They're suspended between childhood and adulthood, student and peer, family and independence. Everything is shifting. And in that liminal space, shared language becomes a lifeline. It becomes their verbal anchor in this in-between. I once heard two students repeating the same word back and forth, just changing the tone every time they said it. And it was nonsense, but they were cracking up, locked together in their own world with these strange sounds. It was like watching friendship in Morse code. And these little phrases that kids latch onto: the riz, the skibbity, the six seven, those become secret codes. They're ways to say, I'm with you, without ever having to risk vulnerability. Sociolinguist Penelope Eckert found that slang isn't random, it's a deliberate marker of affiliation. Psychologists Henri Teifel and John Turner call it social identity theory. We define ourselves by the groups that we belong to. And psychologist Paul Brown found that feeling like you're part of a linguistic in-group correlates with higher self-confidence and social comfort. So when you hear a nonsense phrase ricocheting through the hallways, what you're really hearing is a map of social connection, one that shows sometimes painfully clearly who's in and who's out. So a bizarre catchphrase isn't just an annoying trend. It is a survival ritual in the adolescent limbo. So to understand this better, let's take a peek inside the brain. Cognitive scientists call it the now or never bottleneck. Our brains can only hold a few sounds at once, so short rhythmic phrases are the ones that stick. It's why Skibity lands differently than I have a question. Our neurons love a beat. Think about the pop song that won't leave your brain or the student that hums the same TikTok sound between classes. That's the now or never bottleneck in action. Their brain is saying this rhythm feels safe, so keep it close. And you've experienced this too. That's why that carse for kids jingle still haunts you. Because brains love compact, repetitive patterns. And for teens, this effect is magnified. Their brains are pruning old pathways and craving novelty. So each new sound is like a mini reward. Neuroscientists Bunzek and Douzzell found that hearing something new activates the same reward centers as sugar. So when a kid hears a weird new phrase, it's like popping a Skittle, instant dopamine. And because novelty feels good, they repeat it. Each repetition refreshes that Skittle reward cycle. So it's not immaturity, it's neurobiology with a sense of humor. And it's something that we as adults like to think we've outgrown until we're the ones quoting the office for the 50th time. Now, toss social media into the mix, and now you've got rocket fuel on the verbal bonfire. Media scholar Lamore Schiefman found that just joining a trend online gives the brain a dopamine bump. Participation is the whole point. So when you hear a TikTok phrase in the hallway, you're not just hearing noise. You're hearing a student translate their online identity into the real world. They're testing if it fits, if anyone's watching, and maybe to see if it earns a laugh. For school counselors, this is not trivial. It's a peek at how students are managing the constant performance pressure of adolescents. That quiet, relentless need to prove I belong somewhere. So by now, these little outbursts should sound less like nonsense to you and more like a game of Marco Polo. Picture the end of the school day. The bells just rung, the hallway's a cacophony of noise. One student lingers, shouts something kind of half silly and half brave, and no one answers. So they shout it again, louder this time, and wait for someone to call back. Each echo that they get back is proof. Okay, I'm not alone. Psychologist Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary say that belonging isn't a want, it's a basic human need. And researchers Alan and Loeb found that lonely adolescents often test for connection this way. Tiny social experiments sprinkle throughout the day to see who echoes back. And honestly, we never really outgrow this. Every cryptic text we drop into a group chat hoping that someone gets it or asks us about it, that's adult Marco Polo. We're all just calling out in the void, hoping to get that polo back. But you and I know that for some students, the silence is deafening. A former student once told me, no one even tries to loot me in. She sat sideways in a chair, hoodie pulled up over her hands, staring at the floor, and when she finally looked up at me, the tears were already there. And then she said, You start to feel invisible. Isolation is a very slow poison. Baumeister's research shows that it erodes motivation, engagement, and even sense of safety. Belonging is one of our strongest buffers against student depression and dropout. So that's where we come in. If we stop hearing weird lingo as noise and start hearing it as data, we can intervene earlier. Listen for the dominant phrases. Notice who starts them and who never joins in. When a quiet student suddenly repeats one, that's not random. That's a kid testing connection. So your smile or a quick polo back through your sheesh or no cap can confirm that they're seen. And sometimes the joke shifts from funny to cutting faster than you'd think. When you see a phrase become exclusion, step in early. And for the students who stay silent week after week, don't assume they're just indifferent to all of this. Linguistic quiet can mean a student is experiencing anxiety, or perhaps they're masking. And that's your cue to lean in. So this isn't just about kindness, it's about prevention. And by translating this crazy talk into what it really is, which is connection seeking, we can hear the whispers before we get the cries for help. Twenty-five years ago, researcher Karen Osterman found that belonging was the hidden variable in almost every student outcome, academic, social, and emotional. And it's still true today. Only now, belonging is built in hallways and hashtags. It happens in group chats and gaming servers, and in slang that expires faster than the milk in your refrigerator. Remember that hallway from the start? The echoes bouncing off the lockers, the words that made no sense. Now you know exactly what they were saying. So the next time you hear wild nonsense ricochanging through your campus, try hearing it differently. It's not just silliness. It's like a sacred smoke signal, an awkward anthem of adolescence. Behind those words, if you listen closely enough, you'll hear the oldest whisper there ever was. See me, know me, and let me belong. So, school counselor, here's your challenge for this week. Find that one ridiculous buzzword that's sweeping your campus. Notice who's shouting it, who's laughing, and who's hanging back. And if you catch a kid who's never joined in suddenly throwing one out, give them a grin, give them a nod, maybe a little no-cap. Because that tiny moment of recognition might be their polo. And your answer might be the proof they've been looking for to prove that they matter. Even if you have no idea what the things you're saying even mean. Hey, next time on the podcast, we're gonna decode another student mystery. Why are kids spending hours trying to mirror a stranger's TikTok choreography? Spoiler, it's not just for fun. The science of embodied cognition might help explain it. Make sure you've hit the subscribe button so you don't miss it. And until then, I'm Steph, helping you hear the whispers of belonging behind the weirdest words. Skibbity bop, friends. See you next time. Take care.