“I’m having a Menty B.”
“I’ve been so stressy lately.”
“I’m feeling a little depressy today.”
Many Gen Z readers will recognise these terms. Language about stress, overwhelm, and mental health is increasingly abbreviated, softened, or made playful in everyday posts and conversation; a rough week becomes “stressy,” an overwhelming moment a “Menty B.” Why turn difficult emotions into slang? It isn’t that Gen Z is indifferent to mental health; shared language can make hard topics easier to raise and can connect people. But using casual terms for clinical concepts can also blur the line between everyday feelings and diagnosable conditions. This slang offers a window into how language, emotion, identity, and online culture shape one another.
From “Mental Breakdown” to “Menty B”
One pattern in Gen Z slang is shortening words into softer, less harsh versions: “mental breakdown” becomes “Menty B.” “Stressy” and “depressy” follow a similar logic, tacking a light, almost childlike ending onto an uncomfortable emotion. Slang also softens the emotional weight of what’s being said: “I’m having a Menty B” reads as less formal and less extreme than “I’m having a mental breakdown.” Research on Gen Z’s social media slang found teens use it for several communicative functions, including building intimacy and socialising (Sitohang & Ristia, 2025), echoing a broader shift in which clinical language increasingly moves into everyday, informal use (Medaris, 2024). The words may be playful, but the feelings behind them are not necessarily insignificant.
Why Does Gen Z Turn Feelings Into Jokes?
Wrapping a difficult feeling in humour can make it easier to say out loud. Calling a hard day a “Menty B” creates a little distance, letting someone name the experience without feeling weighed down by it. Research shows humour-based coping can ease perceived stress (Simione & Gnagnarella, 2023), and broader work on comedy-based mental health approaches finds they can build connectedness, hope, and a sense of empowerment, though the evidence base is still developing (Kafle et al., 2023).
There’s a social element too: saying “I’m so stressed” might prompt a friend’s “same.” Humour makes the disclosure feel less vulnerable while still signalling that something’s genuinely off. Importantly, using humour does not automatically mean avoiding the emotion. Sometimes, it is simply a more comfortable way of acknowledging it.
“You Get It”: Slang and Social Identity
Slang isn’t only about humour or trendiness; it can also signal identity and belonging. Using terms like “Menty B” or “stressy” creates rapport among those who already know what they mean. This matters especially online, where language and identity form together through social interaction. Research identifies social media as a space where teenagers represent themselves, interact with peers, and get feedback that shapes identity (Pérez-Torres, 2024), and slang specifically has been shown to build intimacy and mark who’s ‘in’ on the reference (Sitohang & Ristia, 2025). Gen Z slang, then, communicates more than an emotion; it signals relatability, humour, and membership in a digital culture. The phrase itself becomes part of the connection.
The Internet Made Language Move Faster
A phrase can travel from a private joke to the vocabulary of thousands within days. TikTok, Instagram, memes, comment sections, and group chats all give slang somewhere to be born, copied, and adopted. Gen Z’s use of TikTok is a good example. Research analysing thousands of public TikTok posts found the platform is where this generation constructs a shared identity, communicating in ways that are both entertaining and reflective (Stahl & Literat, 2023).
Mental health discussion has gained similar prominence online. A study of popular TikTok videos on depression and anxiety found that peer-experience content drew more engagement than videos made by healthcare professionals, underlining how much weight peer communication carries online (Samuel et al., 2024). The internet doesn’t just spread slang; it’s where language, identity, humour, and mental health discourse all intersect.
Is It Normalising Mental Health or Trivialising It?
This kind of language sits somewhere in between. Terms like “Menty B” can demystify mental health issues and make them feel more relatable. Wider exposure to psychological vocabulary can genuinely help people understand psychological concepts. But the growing casual use of these terms also raises concerns about generalisation and misuse. The American Psychological Association notes that mainstreaming therapeutic vocabulary makes it more accessible but also more prone to misinterpretation (Medaris, 2024), and research on psychiatric language use similarly warns that casual, generalised use can carry unintended interpretive consequences across social groups (Johnson, 2024).
The issue surfaces when clinical terms stop being descriptive. Saying “I’m so depressed” after bad news means something very different from clinical depression; the same slippage happens when any stressful moment gets labelled “trauma.” The answer isn’t to strip out humour or slang. Context matters: a joke among friends might just signal momentary overwhelm, while using clinical language to downplay someone’s real struggle can be damaging. The problem lies in achieving a balance in which discussions about mental health stay accessible while avoiding trivialising actual psychological issues.
When “Depressy” Isn’t Depression
It’s important to separate feeling from clinical illness. Feeling sad after an argument, or low after a hard week, doesn’t necessarily mean someone has depression. Yet mental-health language is regularly used outside any clinical context. Research shows psychological language gets interpreted through social context and stereotypes (Johnson, 2024), and this blurring shows up clearly on platforms like TikTok, where peer-experience videos on depression and anxiety consistently outperform professional content (Samuel et al., 2024). That doesn’t make every use of the slang harmful; “depressy” can simply be a light way to say you’re feeling down. What matters is keeping a clear line between emotion and clinical disorder. A feeling can be real without the diagnosis being the same.
When Humour Opens the Conversation
Humour can make space for hard conversations, though it isn’t automatically constructive. Comedy-based interventions have been shown to build connectedness, hope, identity, and empowerment, even as researchers call for more evidence (Kafle et al., 2023). This tracks with findings that humour-based coping weakens the link between avoidance and perceived stress, easing distress in the moment without necessarily resolving what’s underneath it (Simione & Gnagnarella, 2023).
A funny post about anxiety, burnout, or overwhelm often lands as “that’s exactly how I feel,” which is part of why humour lowers the barrier to talking about it at all. But humour has limits. It can help someone notice an emotion without helping them understand or work through it, and issues that are constantly joked about can end up simply ignored. Humour can be an entry point into these conversations, but it shouldn’t replace them; sometimes it’s only the opening line.
The Words We Use Matter
Gen Z slang isn’t just a linguistic shift; it shows how humour, identity, online community, and emotion all shape the language of mental well-being. Terms like “Menty B” let people share hard feelings and connect with others. Still, the humour shouldn’t undercut the seriousness of what someone might actually be going through. The goal isn’t to drain the fun from this language, but to let humour and genuine concern coexist.
References +
- Stahl, C. C., & Literat, I. (2023). #GenZ on TikTok: the collective online self-Portrait of the social media generation. Journal of Youth Studies, 26(7), 925–946. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2022.2053671
- Johnson, A. L. (2024). Psychotic white men and bipolar black women? Racialised and gendered implications of mental health terminology. Social Science & Medicine, 352, 117015. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117015
- Kafle, E., Papastavrou Brooks, C., Chawner, D., Foye, U., Declercq, D., & Brooks, H. (2023). “Beyond laughter”: A systematic review to understand how interventions utilise comedy for individuals experiencing mental health problems. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1161703. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1161703
- Medaris, A. (2024, September 1). How to harness the power of therapy-speak. Monitor on Psychology, 55(6). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2024/09/therapy-speak
- Pérez-Torres, V. (2024). Social media: A digital social mirror for identity development during adolescence. Current Psychology, 43, 22170–22180. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024- 05980-z
- Samuel, L., Kuijpers, K., & Bleakley, A. (2024). TherapyTok for depression and anxiety: A quantitative content analysis of high engagement TikTok videos. Journal of Adolescent Health, 74(6), 1184–1190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2024.02.002
- Simione, L., & Gnagnarella, C. (2023). Humour coping reduces the positive relationship between avoidance coping strategies and perceived stress: A moderation analysis. Behavioral Sciences, 13(2), 179. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs13020179
- Devita Pingkan Sitohang, & Bernieke Anggita Ristia. (2025). A Semantic Analysis of Slang Words Used by Gen Z on Social Media. Young Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 1(2), 141–150. https://doi.org/10.66867/yjssh.v1i2.147
