145 Fun Facts About Gen Z

What does the Gen Z slang term "no cap" mean?

No lie: in Black American slang, to 'cap' has meant to brag or lie since the early 1900s, and Atlanta hip-hop carried 'no cap' into everyday speech.

Which app popularized the short-form vertical video format among Gen Z?

ByteDance bought the lip-sync app Musical.ly in 2017 and folded its users into TikTok the next summer, which is how the app arrived in the US with an audience ready-made.

What word was named Oxford's Word of the Year in 2023, largely due to Gen Z usage?

Rizz, thought to be clipped from the middle of 'charisma', was spread by streamer Kai Cenat; Oxford saw its use peak in June 2023, when actor Tom Holland said he had 'no rizz whatsoever'.

Which Billie Eilish song was the theme for a 2021 James Bond film?

No Time to Die made Eilish the youngest artist to write and record a Bond theme; released in February 2020, it won a Grammy before the pandemic-delayed film finally opened in 2021.

What does "sus" mean in Gen Z slang?

Suspicious, clipped to three letters: 'sus' is recorded from the 1930s, and Britain's 'sus law' once let police stop and search people on suspicion alone.

Which app popularized ephemeral photo messaging with streaks tracked by a flame emoji?

Snapchat marks a streak with a fire emoji once friends have swapped snaps for days in a row; in 2013 its founders reportedly turned down a $3 billion cash offer from Facebook.

Which Gen Z aesthetic romanticises tweed, old libraries, and classic literature?

Dark Academia took off on TikTok during the pandemic and turned Donna Tartt's The Secret History, a 1992 novel about murder among classics students, into a style guide for readers born after it.

Which blocky sandbox building game had its full release in November 2011?

Minecraft, Mojang's block-based sandbox, was first shared publicly in May 2009 and had its full release on 18 November 2011; Microsoft bought Mojang for $2.5 billion in 2014.

What does "bet" mean in Gen Z slang?

'Bet' signals agreement, like 'okay' or 'deal': 'Want to grab food?' 'Bet.' It appears to descend from 'You bet!', an affirmation Americans were using by the 1850s.

Which 2021 Olivia Rodrigo song broke Spotify's single-day record for a non-holiday song?

'Drivers License' set Spotify's non-holiday single-day record on its fourth day and beat it again the next day with over 17 million streams; it won Best Pop Solo Performance at the 2022 Grammys.

What Gen Z term describes someone excessively devoted to a celebrity or public figure?

Stan comes from Eminem's 2000 song about a fan whose obsession turns deadly; two decades on, 'I stan' is said with no menace at all.

What does "slay" mean when used by Gen Z?

To slay is to do something very well: the word grew up in Black, Latino and queer ballroom culture, reached cinemas in the documentary Paris Is Burning, and went mainstream when Beyoncé sang it in 2016.

Which activist born in 2003 led the 'Fridays for Future' school strikes?

Greta Thunberg, born in Stockholm on 3 January 2003, began her 'Skolstrejk för klimatet' alone outside the Swedish parliament in August 2018; her mother is opera singer Malena Ernman.

Which 2020 app prompted users to post unfiltered photos at random times?

BeReal gives everyone the same two-minute window once a day to post what they are doing; launched in France in 2020, it sat quietly until downloads surged in early 2022.

Which Lil Nas X song went viral on TikTok and became the longest-running Hot 100 #1 at the time?

'Old Town Road' held the Hot 100's number one for a then-record 19 weeks in 2019; Lil Nas X bought its beat for $30, and Billboard's removal of it from the country chart sparked a genre row.

Which gaming platform, popular with younger Gen Z, lets users create and play millions of user-made games?

Roblox creators build their games in Roblox Studio and earn the in-game currency Robux, which the Developer Exchange lets them trade in for real money.

What does "bussin" mean in Gen Z slang?

Bussin means really good, especially of food: it is tied to Black American English, and its roots are disputed, perhaps an alteration of 'bursting' or 'busting'.

What is "main character energy" in Gen Z slang?

Main character energy means living as your own life's star; it cuts both ways, since calling someone the main character can also mean they crave the centre of attention.

What Gen Z aesthetic romanticizes rural life, baking bread, and flower gardens?

Cottagecore boomed in the 2020 lockdowns as an escape for people stuck at home, and Taylor Swift's album Folklore then carried the look into the mainstream.

Which 2020 viral game involved completing tasks on a spaceship while identifying hidden impostors?

Among Us, released by Innersloth in 2018 to little notice, exploded in 2020 when streamers played it through lockdown; its original map is a spaceship called The Skeld.

What does "understood the assignment" mean in Gen Z internet culture?

'Understood the assignment' means someone nailed it — did something perfectly; the phrase is credited to rapper Tay Money, whose 2021 track 'The Assignment' and TikTok about it sent it everywhere.

Which streaming platform became Gen Z's go-to for live gaming and later added "Just Chatting" streams?

Twitch, bought by Amazon for $970 million in 2014, was built for gaming, yet in December 2019 its non-gaming 'Just Chatting' category became the most-watched on the site for the first time.

Which informal nickname for Gen Z took off in 2018 through a 4chan Wojak meme?

Zoomer spread as mockery: the 2018 Wojak cartoon drew a Gen Z teenager with side-shaven hair and round glasses, yet by 2021 Merriam-Webster had added the nickname to its dictionary.

What does the Gen Z slang "it's giving" mean?

'It's giving' means something conveys a vibe: the phrase came out of the Black and Latino LGBTQ+ ballroom scene that grew up in 1960s and '70s New York, decades before TikTok picked it up.

Which Doja Cat song, boosted by a TikTok dance, topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 2020?

'Say So' stalled at number 5 until a Nicki Minaj remix in May 2020 pushed it to number one, the first for either rapper; Haley Sharpe's TikTok dance had made it a hit first.

Which secondhand-clothing app, a favourite of Gen Z resellers, did Etsy buy for $1.6 billion in 2021?

Depop, founded in Italy in 2011, cost Etsy $1.6 billion in 2021, when more than 90% of its users were under 26; in 2026 Etsy agreed to sell it on to eBay for $1.2 billion.

What does Gen Z mean by something "living in my head rent-free"?

You can't stop thinking of it: the image is often credited to advice columnist Ann Landers, who warned in 1990 that holding a grudge lets someone you despise 'live rent free in your head'.

Which 2016 Netflix show about 1980s kids encountering supernatural phenomena became a Gen Z touchstone?

Stranger Things was rejected 15 to 20 times before Netflix said yes: the Duffer Brothers recall executives balking at a show led by four children that was not written for children.

What Gen Z term describes someone who goes to excessive lengths for the attention of someone who doesn't reciprocate?

'Simp' was short for simpleton in the early 1900s and turned up in 1980s hip-hop lyrics, decades before TikTok's 'Simp Nation' trend revived it in late 2019.

Which June 2020 movement saw millions post a single blank square on Instagram?

#BlackoutTuesday on 2 June 2020 began with music executives Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang after George Floyd's killing; posting black squares under #BlackLivesMatter was criticised for burying protest information.

Who is an "NPC" in Gen Z slang?

An NPC is one who seems not to think for themselves: the grey-faced NPC Wojak spread in 2018 as a political insult, and in 2023 TikTok streamers such as Pinkydoll turned robotic NPC routines into paid shows.

Which K-pop group's 'Dynamite' made them the first all-South Korean act to top the US Hot 100, in 2020?

BTS recorded Dynamite entirely in English, a first for the band, and released it in August 2020 to give listeners a lift during the pandemic.

What does "vibe check" mean in Gen Z language?

A vibe check means assessing someone's mood or energy; it can be a friendly check-in on how people are feeling or a verdict, as in 'they did not pass the vibe check'.

What habit, rampant during the COVID-19 pandemic, is 'doomscrolling'?

Doomscrolling is compulsively consuming grim news feeds; the word existed before 2020, but lockdowns that left people at home refreshing pandemic updates made it a household term.

Which 1977 Fleetwood Mac song soundtracked Nathan Apodaca's viral 2020 TikTok of skateboarding while sipping juice?

Dreams drew 8.47 million US streams in a week, its most ever, after Apodaca's clip, and drummer Mick Fleetwood answered by filming his own version of it.

What does "caught in 4K" mean in Gen Z slang?

'Caught in 4K' means busted with undeniable proof; it comes from a 2019 RDCWorld comedy sketch in which a lawyer marvels at how clearly his rapper client's crimes were caught on camera.

With which two-word Gen Z retort did NZ MP Chlöe Swarbrick silence a parliamentary heckler in 2019?

'OK boomer' was Swarbrick's reply when Todd Muller interrupted her climate speech in November 2019; Muller, born in 1968, was actually Gen X, and her two-word aside made headlines around the world.

What does Gen Z call a second, private Instagram account kept for close friends only?

A finsta blends 'fake' and 'Instagram', yet the 'fake' account is the candid one: with only close friends following, owners post there what they would never put on their polished main feed.

In Gallup's US polling, which LGBTQ+ identity do Gen Z adults report most often?

Bisexual: in Gallup's 2021 polling about one in five Gen Z adults identified as LGBT and most of those said bisexual, which helped double the national figure from 2012 to 7.1%.

TikTok users and K-pop fans claimed credit for leaving which June 2020 event's 19,000-seat arena two-thirds empty?

Trump's Tulsa rally drew about 6,200 people to an arena seating 19,000 after teenagers reserved free tickets they never meant to use; his campaign had boasted of a million requests.

What 2022 term describes Gen Z workers doing no more than their job requires?

Quiet quitting involves no quitting at all: it means doing the job as written and no more, an individual echo of the old union tactic of working to rule.

In Gen Z dating slang, a partner's neither-good-nor-bad quirk is a flag of what colour?

Beige began as a put-down: TikToker @itscaito coined 'beige flag' in May 2022 for signs that someone is boring, and only later did it soften to mean a harmless quirk.

Which Gen Z term describes a romance that is more than friendship but lacks a formal label?

Situationship blends 'situation' and 'relationship': recorded since the late 2000s, it had become common enough by 2023 for Oxford to shortlist it for Word of the Year.

Which Pixar film became a crowd-sourced TikTok musical, streamed as a benefit on 1 January 2021?

Ratatouille the TikTok Musical grew from users' songs, choreography and set designs; the filmed concert, streamed on 1 January 2021, raised about $2 million for The Actors Fund and got an encore on January 10.

What does Gen Z mean by an "iPad kid"?

An iPad kid is a child raised on constant tablet screens; Gen Z aims the label at the generation after it, and one viral TikTok declared that 'Gen Z isn't allowed to raise iPad kids'.

Which company's shares did Reddit's r/WallStreetBets drive from about $17 to over $500 in January 2021?

GameStop shares went from about $17 at the start of January 2021 to over $500 pre-market on January 28, when Robinhood halted buying; short-seller Melvin Capital needed a $2.75 billion injection.

Which July 2023 X rival gained 100 million users in five days?

Threads reached 100 million sign-ups within five days of its 5 July 2023 launch by piggybacking on Instagram log-ins, beating ChatGPT's record; third-party trackers reported daily use falling sharply after the first week.

In a viral 2023 trend, women asked the men in their lives how often they think about which empire?

The Roman Empire: many of the men said they thought about it often, to the askers' surprise, and 'my Roman Empire' became slang for any subject a person keeps coming back to.

Which drink brand did YouTubers Logan Paul and KSI launch in 2022?

Prime cost about £2 a bottle, but when it reached British supermarkets teenagers queued from dawn and resellers listed bottles on eBay at many times the price.

Psychologist Jean Twenge's 2017 book about Gen Z carried which one-word title?

iGen is Twenge's label for those born from 1995 to 2012, the first generation to reach adolescence after smartphones became widespread; her subtitle calls them less rebellious, more tolerant and less happy.

What placeholder label did Pew Research use for Gen Z in 2018 before adopting 'Generation Z'?

Pew Research Center called the cohort 'post-Millennials' in its 2018 reports and announced in January 2019 that it would use 'Generation Z', the label that had won out in popular usage.

Which cusp micro-generation, born around the mid-1990s, straddles Gen Z and the generation before it?

Zillennials sit on the cusp of two generations: in one researcher's phrase, they remember life before smartphones, but not before the internet.

Who became the first Gen Z member of the US Congress after the 2022 election?

Maxwell Frost, a Florida Democrat born in 1997, won his seat at 25; he had been national organizing director of March for Our Lives and was arrested at a voting-rights rally in 2021.

Which poem did 22-year-old Amanda Gorman read at Joe Biden's 2021 inauguration?

The Hill We Climb was about half written when rioters stormed the Capitol on 6 January 2021; Gorman finished it that night, working the day's events into the poem.

'Brain rot', Oxford's 2024 Word of the Year, was first recorded in which 1854 book?

Henry David Thoreau used 'brain-rot' in Walden (1854), asking whether anyone would cure it while England fought the potato-rot; Oxford said usage of the term rose 230% between 2023 and 2024.

Which phrase for shamelessly indulging lazy habits was Oxford's 2022 Word of the Year?

'Goblin mode' won Oxford's first public vote for Word of the Year in 2022, beating 'metaverse' and '#IStandWith', months after a doctored Julia Fox headline about 'going goblin mode' went viral.

Which Collins Dictionary 2024 Word of the Year was lifted from a Charli XCX album title?

'Brat' was Collins' 2024 Word of the Year, lifted from Charli XCX's June 2024 album; after she tweeted 'kamala IS brat', Kamala Harris's campaign restyled its Kamala HQ account in the album's green.

Whose August 2024 'How to be Demure at Work' video spawned 'very demure, very mindful'?

Jools Lebron's 17-second clip of 2 August 2024 made 'demure' Dictionary.com's Word of the Year, and she said the videos' success had let her pay for her gender transition.

Which Gen Z pejorative, coined in 2013, mocks lifestyle trends stuck in the early 2010s?

Cheugy was coined in 2013 by Beverly Hills High School student Gaby Rasson for people slightly off-trend; it went unnoticed for eight years until a 2021 TikTok and a New York Times piece spread it.

Skibidi Toilet's episodes are animated with which Valve-made tool?

Source Filmmaker let creator Alexey Gerasimov work fast: he said in 2023 that it allowed him to handle the animation, direction, writing and editing himself.

Which TikTok star, a competitive dancer long before her first video, won Dancing with the Stars in 2022?

Charli D'Amelio won season 31 with Mark Ballas, having danced since the age of three; in 2024 that training took her to Broadway, in the ensemble of & Juliet.

Which 14-year-old choreographer was revealed as the true creator of the Renegade dance?

Jalaiah Harmon made up the dance in minutes and watched bigger creators go viral with it uncredited; after a New York Times article told her story, K Camp, whose song it uses, publicly thanked her.

Which creator, who silently mocks overcomplicated life hacks, became TikTok's most-followed in 2022?

Khaby Lame, born in Dakar and raised near Turin, began posting after he was laid off from a factory job in March 2020; by June 2022 he was TikTok's most-followed creator.

MrBeast overtook which channel in June 2024 to become YouTube's most-subscribed?

T-Series, the Indian music label, took the crown from PewDiePie in April 2019 after an eight-month race in which MrBeast bought billboards for PewDiePie; MrBeast passed it himself on 2 June 2024.

Vine, the looping-video app Twitter shut down in 2017, capped clips at how many seconds?

Vine capped clips at 6 seconds, looping endlessly; Twitter bought the company for about $30 million in October 2012, four months after it was founded, and co-founder Dom Hofmann later launched Byte.

Travis Scott's 2020 virtual concert 'Astronomical' drew more than 27 million players inside which game?

Fortnite staged Astronomical five times over 23-25 April 2020, and Scott used the show to premiere his new song with Kid Cudi.

The 2014 Ice Bucket Challenge raised money to fight which disease?

The Ice Bucket Challenge raised money for ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis); popularised by ALS patients Pat Quinn and Pete Frates, it brought the ALS Association over $115 million in summer 2014.

Which company released ChatGPT, the chatbot that reached about 100 million users within two months of its 2022 launch?

OpenAI released ChatGPT on 30 November 2022; two months later it had 100 million monthly users, the fastest start any consumer app had made until another app beat it in July 2023.

Labubu, the plush-toy craze of 2024, was created by illustrator Kasing Lung, who was born where?

Kasing Lung was born in Hong Kong and raised in the Netherlands, where Nordic folklore inspired his series The Monsters; Blackpink's Lisa sparked the 2024 Labubu craze by clipping one to her bag.

Stanley's Quencher cup went viral under Terence Reilly, hired in 2020 from which footwear brand he had helped revive?

Crocs was where Terence Reilly spent seven years leading the strategy that made the clogs fashionable; at Stanley he backed influencers, and sales rose from $70 million in 2019 to about $750 million in 2023.

Who directed Barbie, the higher-grossing half of 2023's 'Barbenheimer' double bill?

Greta Gerwig's Barbie took $1.4 billion, the first film from a solo female director to pass a billion; Oppenheimer, though, won seven Oscars to Barbie's one.

Coco Gauff, born in 2004, won her first major singles title at which 2023 tournament?

Coco Gauff came from a set down to beat Aryna Sabalenka in the 2023 US Open final at 19; four years earlier, aged 15, she had knocked Venus Williams out of Wimbledon.

Which team took Caitlin Clark first overall in the 2024 WNBA draft?

The Indiana Fever took Caitlin Clark first overall after she became NCAA Division I's all-time leading scorer at Iowa; the rise in crowds and TV audiences that followed her was dubbed the 'Caitlin Clark effect'.

Zendaya won two Lead Actress Emmys for playing Rue Bennett in which HBO show?

Euphoria made Zendaya the youngest winner of the drama Lead Actress Emmy; creator Sam Levinson drew on his own teenage struggles with drug addiction in writing it.

Netflix's Heartstopper is based on a webcomic by which author?

Alice Oseman began Heartstopper online in 2016 around two characters from her 2014 novel Solitaire, and readers crowdfunded its first print edition on Kickstarter in 2018.

TikTok users reset Jenna Ortega's Wednesday dance to a sped-up version of which Lady Gaga song?

Bloody Mary was a 2011 album track until the trend sent it to radio as a single, eleven years late; in the show itself Ortega dances to The Cramps' 'Goo Goo Muck'.

How many players enter the deadly contest in Squid Game?

Squid Game's contest has 456 players; the prize is 45.6 billion won, 100 million per eliminated player, and the title comes from a Korean playground game.

What title did Netflix originally want to give Squid Game?

Netflix initially called the show 'Round Six', doubting non-Korean viewers would get the playground-game reference, and kept that title in Brazil; creator Hwang Dong-hyuk's 'Squid Game' won out elsewhere.

Which video did 'Baby Shark Dance' overtake in 2020 to become YouTube's most-viewed?

Despacito, Luis Fonsi's hit, lost the record in November 2020 to a children's song that had first gone viral in Indonesia in 2017 and spread worldwide through a dance challenge.

Sabrina Carpenter's 2024 hit 'Espresso' led which album?

Short n' Sweet takes its title from Carpenter's shortest relationships, which she said affected her the most; it won Best Pop Vocal Album at the 2025 Grammys.

Which Grammy did Chappell Roan win in 2025?

Chappell Roan won Best New Artist at the February 2025 Grammys; born Kayleigh Amstutz in Willard, Missouri, she had released 'Pink Pony Club' in 2020, been dropped by Atlantic, and gone home to work a drive-through.

Kai Cenat's 2023 Union Square giveaway of which console ended in a riot?

Kai Cenat's PlayStation 5 giveaway drew thousands to Union Square on 4 August 2023; he was charged with inciting a riot, and prosecutors dropped the case in 2024 in exchange for an apology and $57,000 in restitution.

What was Dream's breakout video series, where friends try to stop his speedrun, called?

Manhunt made Dream's name, but his solo speedrunning fared worse: in December 2020 moderators struck one of his runs from the leaderboards after finding that the game's item odds had been altered.

What is the name of Emma Chamberlain's weekly podcast, launched in 2019?

Anything Goes began in April 2019 as Stupid Genius and took its new name and format in February 2020; by then Chamberlain, still a teenager, had also launched her own coffee company.

Bella Poarch's record-setting most-liked TikTok lip-synced which song?

M to the B began as a 2016 diss track that 16-year-old Millie B recorded in a feud within Blackpool's grime scene; Poarch's August 2020 lip-sync made it the most-liked video on TikTok at the time.

March for Our Lives was organized after a 2018 school shooting in which Florida city?

The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on 14 February 2018 killed 17; students announced the march four days later, and the main DC event drew an estimated 200,000 to 800,000 people.

Who wrote The Anxious Generation, the 2024 bestseller blaming phones for teen anxiety?

Jonathan Haidt argues that smartphones and overprotective parenting 'rewired' childhood, pointing to a sudden rise in teenage anxiety and depression around 2010; he wants phones banned in schools.

Which e-cigarette brand, blamed for a wave of teen vaping, sold a 35% stake to Altria for $12.8 billion in 2018?

Juul held 72% of the US e-cigarette market by 2018; the FDA ordered it off shelves in 2022, a court blocked the order the next day, and in 2025 the agency authorised its tobacco and menthol vapes.

Kabosu, the dog behind the Doge meme, was which breed?

Kabosu was a Shiba Inu adopted from a shelter after her puppy mill shut down; owner Atsuko Sato's 2010 blog photo became the Comic Sans-captioned meme that inspired Dogecoin in December 2013.

Juice WRLD's 2018 breakout hit is built on an interpolation of which Sting song?

Shape of My Heart, Sting's 1993 song, runs through the whole track, and its producer said Sting owned 85% of the rights; the single peaked at number two, held off by Maroon 5's 'Girls Like You'.

Which 1985 Kate Bush song hit number one in eight countries after a Netflix drama used it in 2022?

Running Up That Hill had peaked at number three in Britain in 1985; its 37-year wait for number one was a chart record, and Bush, at 63, became the oldest woman to top the UK singles chart.

Which band's 'Heat Waves' took a record 59 weeks to top the Hot 100 in 2022?

Glass Animals released Heat Waves in June 2020 to little attention; TikTok clips and a place in the game FIFA 21 kept it rising until it reached number one in March 2022.

Which author wrote the BookTok sensation It Ends with Us?

Colleen Hoover drew the novel from the abuse her mother endured; published in 2016, it became a number-one New York Times bestseller only years later.

Which 2016 craze began with a Charlotte school talent-show stunt?

Bottle flipping took off when a clip of teenager Mike Senatore landing a flip on stage went viral; the thud of endless copycat attempts soon got it banned in many schools.

Which TikTok collective did Chase Hudson and Thomas Petrou co-found in December 2019?

Hype House put its creators under one roof in a Los Angeles mansion so that they could film together and build each other's audiences faster.

A 2015 viral photo known as 'the dress' split the internet; what colours was the real garment?

Blue and black was the truth: retailer Roman Originals confirmed its royal blue lace dress, then made a one-off white and gold version for charity.

Which hit mobile game did developer Dong Nguyen pull from app stores in 2014 at the peak of its fame?

Flappy Bird was earning about $50,000 a day when Nguyen removed it, saying he felt guilty about how addictive it had become.

Which Disney-owned online world for children closed its servers in March 2017?

Club Penguin had passed 200 million registered accounts by 2013, six years after Disney agreed to pay $350 million for it.

Which Disney Channel sitcom cast Miley Cyrus as a schoolgirl with a secret life as a pop singer?

Hannah Montana also cast the star's real father, Billy Ray Cyrus, as her on-screen dad, though he was only asked to audition after she had won the part.

A 2019 Facebook joke urged millions to storm which secretive US government site?

Area 51 drew more than 2 million online pledges, yet only about 150 people reached its gates on the day and nobody got inside.

Which palm-sized toy, built around a ball bearing, became a 2017 craze that many schools banned?

Fidget spinner sales ranked among the top-selling toys at Amazon and Toys R Us in 2017, even as teachers in several countries complained it wrecked classroom order.

Moo Deng, the baby zoo animal from Thailand who became a worldwide meme in 2024, is which species?

Pygmy hippo Moo Deng got her name, which translates as 'bouncy pork', through a public poll that drew more than 20,000 votes.

Which brand's laundry pods were at the centre of a dangerous eating 'challenge' meme in early 2018?

Tide Pods were nicknamed the 'forbidden fruit' online, and in January 2018 alone more teenagers were exposed to them than in the whole of the previous year.

Which activist, shot by the Taliban for backing girls' schooling, became the youngest ever Nobel laureate?

Malala Yousafzai was 17 when she shared the 2014 Peace Prize with India's Kailash Satyarthi, and later became the youngest person to address Canada's House of Commons.

Which workplace sitcom, set at a Scranton paper company, was America's most-streamed show of 2020?

The Office racked up 57 billion minutes of US viewing in 2020, seven years after its final episode aired on NBC.

Which Nickelodeon sitcom starred Miranda Cosgrove as a Seattle teen hosting a web show from her loft?

iCarly won the Kids' Choice Award for Favorite TV Show three years in a row, from 2009 to 2011, and Paramount+ later revived it with three of its original stars.

In which Disney Channel cartoon does a pet platypus named Perry lead a double life as a secret agent?

Phineas and Ferb sends Perry out for O.W.C.A., an all-animal spy agency, to foil the inept evil scientist Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz.

Which language-learning app's green owl mascot became a meme for menacing users who skip their lessons?

Duolingo made its owl, Duo, green because co-founder Severin Hacker hates the colour, then leaned into the joke with a spoof 'Duolingo Push' video in 2019.

Which film series stars Jennifer Lawrence as an archer who volunteers to fight in her sister's place?

The Hunger Games made a star of Lawrence, who was chosen to play Katniss Everdeen after about thirty actresses had been considered for the part.

Which Marvel villain wipes out half of all life with a snap of his fingers in Avengers: Infinity War?

Thanos inspired a Reddit forum that banned half of its own subscribers in July 2018, in tribute to his plan for the universe.

Which youngest Keeping Up with the Kardashians sibling built a cosmetics brand from her 'Lip Kits'?

Kylie Jenner launched Kylie Lip Kits in 2015 and renamed the line Kylie Cosmetics a year later, having already co-designed a PacSun clothing range with her sister Kendall as a teenager.

In Rick Riordan's novels, schoolboy Percy Jackson discovers that which Greek god is his father?

Poseidon's son is hyperactive and dyslexic because Riordan first told the stories at bedtime to his own son Haley, who had ADHD and dyslexia.

Which American gymnast has moves on vault, beam and floor that officially carry her name?

Simone Biles made her first named vault so hard that judges valued it level with the Produnova, until then the most difficult vault women had competed.

Disney's Encanto, about the magically gifted Madrigal family, is set in which South American country?

Colombia became the focus after two film-maker colleagues who happened to come from there kept drawing on their own memories of its culture in early talks.

Which studio, born as a start-up inside Google, developed the augmented-reality mobile hit Pokémon Go?

Niantic built Pokémon Go's map on locations from its earlier game Ingress, and the app had been downloaded more than a billion times by early 2019.

In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Aang's loyal flying companion Appa belongs to which species?

Sky bison Appa spent a century frozen beside Aang in an iceberg near the South Pole, and early concept art had Aang shepherding a whole herd of them.

Which one-eyed yellow triangle in a top hat is the dream demon villain of Disney's Gravity Falls?

Bill Cipher is voiced by the cartoon's own creator, Alex Hirsch, and his design resembles the Eye of Providence, complete with a bow tie.

Which island-hopping online game for children was created by Diary of a Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney?

Poptropica launched in 2007 with just one island, built at Pearson's Family Education Network before Kinney became famous for his books.

Which chat app, launched in 2015 for gamers, groups its communities into spaces called 'servers'?

Discord grew out of a flop: founder Jason Citron's studio built it after its mobile battle game Fates Forever failed to sell in 2014.

Which Shanghai-based lip-sync app did ByteDance buy in 2017 and fold into its own video app a year later?

Musical.ly had passed 200 million users by May 2017, though its founders had started out trying to build an education app of short teaching videos.

Which Brooklyn teenager is the hero of the Oscar-winning animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse?

Miles Morales was created in 2011 by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli, with a look partly inspired by Donald Glover wearing Spider-Man pyjamas in the sitcom Community.

Joe Exotic, the star of Netflix's 2020 documentary hit Tiger King, ran his big-cat zoo in which US state?

Oklahoma's Wynnewood park was his from 1999 to 2018, and 34.3 million people watched the series in its first ten days as the pandemic kept them at home.

Which Dutch driver became Formula One's youngest race winner at 18, on his very first outing for Red Bull?

Max Verstappen won that Spanish Grand Prix after both Mercedes cars crashed out on the opening lap, a year after he became the sport's youngest ever starter at 17.

Which Cartoon Network series follows Finn, a boy, and Jake, a shape-shifting dog, across the Land of Ooo?

Adventure Time began as a seven-minute short that went viral online; Nickelodeon passed on it before Cartoon Network ordered a full series.

Who made Five Nights at Freddy's after his earlier game's characters were mocked as creepy animatronics?

Scott Cawthon had made a family-friendly game, Chipper & Sons Lumber Co., and turned the insult into a horror hit about a night guard in a haunted pizzeria.

In Netflix's teen drama Outer Banks, which nickname do John B and his working-class friends go by?

The Pogues are locals on the North Carolina coast who clash with rich seasonal residents nicknamed the Kooks while chasing a lost treasure tied to John B's father.

Which Nintendo series had a 2020 stay-at-home hit that sends players to Tom Nook's deserted island?

Animal Crossing: New Horizons sold over 50 million copies, a success credited partly to arriving just as stay-at-home orders spread around the world.

Which animal-shaped silicone bracelets were banned from many classrooms during a 2010 playground craze?

Silly Bandz came from Robert Croak, a distributor of Livestrong wristbands, who spotted shaped rubber bands on a business trip and made them bigger and thicker as a toy.

Which fast-fashion giant, founded in Nanjing as ZZKKO, became famous for huge online clothing 'hauls'?

Shein was the world's largest online-only fashion firm by October 2020, helped by videos of shoppers showing off bulk orders to their followers.

Which author wrote both To All the Boys I've Loved Before and The Summer I Turned Pretty?

Jenny Han adapted The Summer I Turned Pretty for Prime Video herself, while her story of Lara Jean's accidentally mailed love letters became a Netflix film trilogy.

Which whipped drink craze of 2020 is credited to a café owner in Macau?

Dalgona coffee got its name on a TV show in January 2020, when South Korean actor Jung Il-woo said the drink tasted like the toffee; most versions contain none of it.

Which fried-chicken chain's new sandwich went viral and sold out across the US in August 2019?

Popeyes launched it to rival Chick-fil-A's signature sandwich, and nearly every big fast-food chain, from McDonald's to Wendy's, piled in with a reply.

Which French forward became the second teenager, after Pelé, to score in a men's World Cup final?

Kylian Mbappé did it as France won the 2018 tournament, where he was named Best Young Player; his move to Paris Saint-Germain had made him the most expensive teenager ever.

Kahoot, the classroom quiz game students play on their phones, was founded in which country?

Norway is where the idea began: Kahoot grew out of 'Lecture Quiz' prototypes that Alf Inge Wang built at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 2006.

Which snowboarder won Olympic halfpipe gold at 17, then became the first woman to win it twice?

Chloe Kim was too young to enter the 2014 Sochi Games, yet that same winter she took X Games silver behind Kelly Clark.

Which streamer, real name Tyler Blevins, became the first esports player on the cover of ESPN The Magazine?

Ninja first competed in Halo 3 tournaments, then broke into the mainstream in March 2018 when 635,000 people watched him play Fortnite live with the rapper Drake.

Which Italian-founded teen clothing brand drew a backlash for selling most clothes in only one size?

Brandy Melville was founded in Italy by Silvio Marsan in the early 1980s, but found its following only after opening beside the UCLA campus in 2009.

Which Finnish studio made Angry Birds, the slingshot mobile game series that reached cinemas in 2016?

Rovio spun its birds into cinema releases, television and theme parks, and the studio itself later became a subsidiary of Sega.

Which emoji, Oxford's Word of the Year for 2015, did Gen Z later write off as something older people use?

Face with Tears of Joy fell out of favour in the early 2020s, when younger users swapped it for the skull emoji and kept the old one mainly for ironic use.

Gen Z's letter follows on from Generation X, a label popularised by which Canadian author's 1991 novel?

Douglas Coupland trained as a sculptor before Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture became a surprise bestseller; it was rejected in Canada before a US publisher took it.

What was the real name of Grumpy Cat, the internet-famous feline with a permanent scowl?

Tardar Sauce owed her scowl to an underbite and feline dwarfism rather than a bad mood, and was born at her owner's home in Morristown, Arizona.

Kyle Giersdorf, who won $3 million at 16 at the 2019 Fortnite World Cup, plays under which nickname?

Bugha is a pet name his grandfather gave him as a child; soon after the win, police were sent to his home by a hoax call while he was streaming.

András Arató, the stock-photo model behind the 'Hide the Pain Harold' meme, comes from which country?

Hungary's András Arató is a retired electrical engineer, born in Kőszeg in 1945, who returned to modelling for adverts after revealing his identity.

Which 1990s game hero lent his name to the first Skylanders game, played with toy figures on a portal?

Spyro headlined Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure in 2011, and Activision had sold more than 30 million of the toy figures by the following March.

Which story-sharing app first hosted After, the Harry Styles fan fiction published as a novel in 2014?

Wattpad was where Anna Todd posted the story under the pen name Imaginator1D before Simon & Schuster's Gallery Books turned it into a printed novel.