Mackenzie Shields:

The internet can be a horrific place where the human conscience falls away, released by the comfort of anonymity. With almost no concrete ramifications for anything said on the internet, some individuals find themselves unashamed to reveal their deepest secrets. Admittances of not wearing underwear, frequent nose picking or using the same bath towel without washing it for months would receive little response. This can be a horrifying phenomenon. Just turn to YikYak; with a five minute scrolling session, you will learn more than you have ever desired to know about anyone on this campus.

But every once in a while, the internet creates something magical. The anonymity, the chaos and the humor all condense into the creation of a new image, a new joke or a new word.

Enter “rizz.”

Rizz has many synonyms: game, charm and allurement, to name a few. In fact, I recently learned from copy editor Ethan Semeraro, though he profoundly disagrees with my evaluation of the word, that rizz is simply a shortened version of “charisma.”

However, rizz has unique denotations. All of these synonyms seem to denote to most of Generation Z that the person is physically attractive. But rizz, arguably, is more of an action than a state of being. It can be obtained, and it can be learned.

In addition, unlike some of its counterparts, rizz is a multi-functioning word: it can serve as a noun and a verb. You can rizz someone up, or you can have rizz; whichever part of speech suits the sentence does the job.

Rizz comes with companion vocabulary. “W” and “L” are important adjectives when using the word as a noun. Simply short for “win” and “loss,” an individual who has L rizz is not doing so well in that department.

Rizz is a funny word. It sounds goofy, it comes from a word that some may need to double check the meaning of in a dictionary app and it serves a multitude of purposes.

To use the word rizz without it sounding disingenuous, the individual must have some degree of rizz themselves. To use it in a sentence, the context in which it is used is crucial to consider and who knows context better than an individual with W rizz themselves?

In response to my co-worker’s evaluation of the word rizz, I offer you this question for consideration: does Semeraro simply not have enough rizz to understand the specific contexts in which the word is funny?

Rizz is a hilarious word when used sparingly and correctly. May the rizzening be upon you all.

Ethan Semeraro:

The neologism ‘rizz’ has been circling social media since approximately 2021, yet despite its popularity, the term is ridiculous, inadequate and without a precise meaning.

‘Rizz’ is definitively a word, but a nebulous one at that; the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “romantic appeal or charm” and that it originates from the word “charisma.” However, when one compares this definition to that of charisma, “a special magnetic charm or appeal,” one finds the definitions are nearly identical, demonstrating that ‘rizz’ does not have a different meaning and is nothing more than a shortening of charisma.

The internet discourse on ‘rizz’ is even less precise and it is not clear that the people using the term even know that it is ‘charisma’ at its heart. The phrase that someone “has rizz” puts emphasis on ‘rizz’ as a skill, versus being charismatic, which is not an action but rather a manner of being perceived, and incorrectly assumes that one who “has rizz” is viewed as “having rizz” by everyone. This weakens ‘rizz’ as a term; even charisma is situational at best and subjective at worst. What one person finds as magnetic sociality can be perceived by another as untoward and awkward. Even the approximate dictionary definition of ‘rizz’ highlights its ambiguity with one word: appeal. For something to be based on appeal, there is no accounting for taste and therefore no way to ‘improve’ as if it were a skill.

‘Rizz’ is ridiculous; it has grown out of a shortening of charisma into something much more confusing. ‘Rizz’ should be retired. Anyone who “has rizz” should be called charming, charismatic or well-spoken instead.

Photo by: Mizuno K via Pexels