Some say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this generation, posting pictures of your significant other on social media has become a prevalent way to prove your adoration. Generally shared on Mondays and Wednesdays, these still images of affection usually contain meaningless hashtags in the captions underneath them. Unfortunately, the primary hash tag integrated into these captions is the particularly ignorant #BAE.  
    While it became popular in rap songs around the early 2000’s, in 2013, it evolved into a word utilized by love struck teenagers on social media. Many assume “bae” is a clipped, ghetto term for babe, boo or baby, however; contrary to popular belief, “bae” is actually an acronym for “before anyone else”. This short form is one of the many annoying ways our generation shows someone is significant to them. Instead of expressing their affection for each other through personal conversations and charming gestures, minors communicate their feelings over the internet with repulsive pet names, such as bae. This acronym became so popular by the end of the year 2013, it was nominated for the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year, proving just how much influence the internet now has on the world. 
     While professors claim education is becoming more and more complex, twitter does not prove that to be true. Timelines are continuously filled with irrelevant and ignorant tweets. Among these constant 140 character posts, you can always find multiple messages containing the word “bae”. Young hormone filled adolescence sit on their phones all day, tweeting about their “baes”. “If bae don’t tweet about you, then bae isn’t bae”, “Oomf still my bae, even if he don’t know it” and “Taco Bell is bae forever” are just a few stereotypical tweets easily found on any uneducated girl’s twitter page. Many also make it a priority to “slide into bae’s DM’s”. By direct messaging their “bae”, they believe the person they drool over will eventually share the same feelings they do. Rainy weather will drown your timeline with sappy tweets. Childish females tweeting about the “perfect weather to cuddle with bae” flood in as soon as the first droplet of water hits the sidewalk. Although twitter has the most popular use of the insubstantial word, it can also be found on any other social media site such as Instagram, Tumblr, or Kik, as well as in a teenager’s imessages. Despite the fact they attend school every day and have been taught proper grammar, some people actually use “bae” in daily conversations. “Oh my God guys. Did you see him yesterday? He is bae”, can be heard throughout the halls of any high school. Simply put, she saw a male she found extraordinarily appealing to the eyes, unfortunately sounding like she has an IQ of five in the process.  
     Since this acronym is fairly new to the world and primarily used by the younger generations, there is a lot of confusion within the older communities. Most people over twenty-five are not acquainted with this new acronym, “before anyone else”. While twenty-five year olds have never come in contact with the acronym bae, ages forty-five and up generally stick with the social media they are most comfortable with; Facebook. As Facebook is no longer utilized by teenagers and filled with innocent family photos and shared recipes, elders may think teens are talking about the bays of a beach, or even slang for a bagel when they overhear the acronym being used, as they have no idea what is “hip” these days. With the way technology has evolved in the past decade, social media and bizarre words like “bae” have begun to appear everywhere. Boyfriend or girlfriend used to be the primary way to label someone you were fond of; therefore, there is no question as to why the older generations cannot comprehend this new “internet” word.
     While researching the acronym “bae”, it is not complicated to presume the internet has negatively affected this generation. Although most, if not all, attend school, the amount of slang words used creates an unintelligent looking community. Unfortunately, “bae” is not even among the worst of the expressions utilized by teenagers today. Even though the colloquialisms exercised these days may seem of no real value, it is imperative that you become acquainted with the unfamiliar words and sayings in order to be able to speak with kids while being capable of keeping a steady conversation.