this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2025
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

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Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

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[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 72 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

Even old people will just stop using them, like “groovy”.

[–] thejoker954@lemmy.world 34 points 2 weeks ago

Dude, that's totes bogus. Get outta here with that whackness. /s

[–] WALLACE@feddit.uk 10 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

Yeah. Thankfully nobody says things like "epic fail" anymore

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[–] kelpie_returns@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (5 children)

Can't speak for anywhere but where I've lived, but I've heard groovy on the US west coast pretty recently, though not regularly. There was a niche little clique of geeks out in east Texas that'd say it pretty regularly some years ago though. Hippie activist/tabletop enthusiast type vibe, that group. Good people. Groovy, even.

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[–] EndOfLine@lemmy.world 33 points 2 weeks ago (11 children)

Yo dawg, that would be like totally tubular unless the geezers spaz out like lamo rents gettin all agro after gettin to tha crib and finding all da homies having a jammy jam in the hizzie. Ya feel me, cuz?

[–] don@lemmy.ca 11 points 2 weeks ago

Word up, homie.

[–] CuriousRefugee@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

What does lamo mean? I understood the rest, and yes, my back hurts.

[–] Laristal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Misspelled "lame-o" is my guess. Though my spelling of it is a guess as well.

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[–] ThePantser@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago

I'm 40 and I understand most of that, yup it's old person speak.

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[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 27 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] kieron115@startrek.website 9 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

One of these days I need to go and read through the Calvin and Hobbes collection I bought for my bookshelf when it was on a steep discount. I remember reading them all the time as a kid.

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[–] sangriaferret@sh.itjust.works 26 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

"cooking" in the context of doing something well has been around for a long time. Think, "now you're cooking!" Or the less common "now you're cooking with gas!"

I think it's just in more frequent use currently. It will be interesting to see if people stop using it after it goes out of fashion with the youth.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 13 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)
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[–] OrteilGenou@lemmy.world 23 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Nurse! I vibe coded in my pants again

Gyatt so Ohio, on god.

[–] MourningDove@lemmy.zip 16 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Cooking is not new slang. That shit goes back decades.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago

Yup

Phrase what's cooking? "what's up, what's going on" is attested by 1942. To cook with gas "do well, act or think correctly" is 1930s jive talk.

The expression "NOW YOU'RE COOKING WITH GAS" has bobbed up again — this time as a front page streamer on the Roper Ranger, and as the banner line in the current advertising series of the Nashville (Tenn.) Gas and Heating Company, cleverly tying gas cooking to local food products and restaurants. "Now you're cooking with gas" literally took the gas industry by the ears around December 1939 — Remember? — when it flashed forth in brilliant repartee from the radio programs of the Maxwell Coffee Hour, Jack Benny, Chase and Sanborn, Johnson Wax, Bob Hope and sundry others. [American Gas Association Monthly, vol. xxiii, 1941

[–] darkmarx@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

As an old person today, I have no clue what these words mean. Assuming cooking has nothing to do with food. I've never heard rizz. I've at least heard people use based, though I don't know its use.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 24 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

Rizz = Charisma

Based = Cool; Awesome; Good.

Cooked = Fucked (as in up, not sexually).

Cooking = Doing something (usually good, but does not necessarily have to be).

Sincerely,

A 40 year old Millennial.

[–] hypnicjerk@lemmy.world 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

'cooking' specifically implies either creativity or efficacy (or both, some novel solution that results in success)

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 12 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (4 children)

Ah but then there is the phrase "let him cook," which tends to be used when someone starts doing something that seems foolish. I would think it at least somewhat relates to "cooking." If you fail, you are "cooked."

Edit: To clarify, this phrase is commonly seen after someone says something like "hey, don't do that;" I did not mean to imply the phrase itself has an inherent good/bad connotation, merely what has been pointed out that they want to "wait and see" the results before making judgement.

[–] foggy@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This version of cook seems aligned with "hold on."

As in "it's not yet apparent that what's happening makes sense/is good."

Where's that tiktok linguist kid when ya need him.

[–] Una@europe.pub 9 points 2 weeks ago

Cooking - you are doing something good

Cooked, getting cooked - someone is messing around with you and you fall for it, kinda like this maybe could be better explanation.

"You are cooking" - you made a song, for example, and it was great song.

"You are cooked" - kinda like when you, as a child, do something bad and your parents are going to be mad when they find out — you are basically cooked.

[–] Ledivin@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago

I'd say "let him cook" is foolishness-agnostic. It could be good or bad, but it's definitely unexpected

[–] moody@lemmings.world 8 points 2 weeks ago

"Let him cook" is more like "I wanna see where this is going"

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[–] Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Based also sorta meant woke for a bit before woke

[–] kelpie_returns@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

And then it swung the other way and meant being racist pos for a wide minute, too

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[–] pelya@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

I consider 'based' an opposite of 'sour' or 'acidic'. That is, being alkaline and having high pH is considered socially desirable. Mixing based and sour personalities will naturally produce salt, that is, dried tears.

Cooking is a term for any time-consuming chemical reaction, which happens to include food preparation.

I have no chemistry-related explanation for rizz. Something to do with sparks?

[–] LadyButterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yep me too, I bet as it's young people it's mainly texted and in txt spk

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[–] j_elgato@leminal.space 12 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)
[–] OldChicoAle@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)
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[–] Zahille7@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

My 34 year-old brother says "rats!" when something bad happens. He learned from our grandpa.

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[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I'm cooking spaghetti for dinner tonight. Yes, I'm old.

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[–] expr@programming.dev 10 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Based has been around forever, it's not some new slang.

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[–] dil@lemmy.zip 10 points 2 weeks ago (15 children)

they already are in black communities, teens see tiktok comments and go wow new slang, a lot of this shit isnt new tho, like bop wasnt new but everyone acted like it was a new tiktok word, neither was thot on twitter or many others, rizz isnt new, its been around, cooking and based? not new at all

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[–] rem26_art@fedia.io 10 points 2 weeks ago

in the nursing home talking about how I rizzed up the nurses (i didn't)

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm old and "cooking" was old when I was young.

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[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They are already getting there. Hearing forty year olds say it means kids are now stopping saying it.

[–] HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

Wazzuppppp, fellow youths!

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[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 8 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

They already are, as people on here know them. Also “cooking” just seems to be shorthand for “cooking with gas”, with the same connotations and meaning, and boomers are definitely saying that.

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[–] CubitOom@infosec.pub 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] Acamon@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago

I was today years old when I relaised that "gag" in that phrase presumably means "make me vomit" not "silence me". I've spent many decades being confused about that...

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Nah, these expressions will just fall out of use. You think this is the first time people came up with funny fad expressions?

Sorry, but you ain't all dat and a bag of potato chips. Fo shizzle.

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[–] thatradomguy@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago

I haven't heard swag in a long while and so I'm not sure how many of these words will actually be used enough later on.

[–] olafurp@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Jst lk ppl used 2 txt, amirite

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[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Not really. Just look up the some slang words from 2000's you've never heard of but what everyone in my generation would've been constantly using.

Ofc some of them are still around, but most aren't.

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

Chillax n00b, cuz 2000's slang is awesomesauce, biatch!

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[–] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I'll be ambling through nursing home hallways in a threadbare robe on the way to the ol' skibidi while some orderlies with multicolor levitating hair make modem noises at each other.

That'll just be the microplastic poisoning setting in though.

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[–] pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

And their grandkids will ask "based on what?"

[–] Zozano@aussie.zone 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

And then you hit em with the "BASED ON DEEZ NUTS"

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