51吃瓜

The Blue Jay

People invent slang terms all the time. They just almost never catch on, because language is organic. It doesn’t like to be forced. Then came the incredible case of聽on fleek.

On fleek聽was coined in mere seconds by a Chicago teenager, Kayla Newman. In June 2014, she, under the username Peaches Monroee, posted a super-short Vine video where she describes her “eyebrows on fleek” before going out to a party. Let the record state: Your eyebrows were very聽on fleek, Kayla. They were “perfectly done” and “flawless,” as the slang means.

The video went massively viral. Shortly after, superstar聽Ariana Grande posted her own Vine “cover” of Newman’s video, which helped spread聽on fleek into the mainstream. In fall 2014, even more high-profile instances of聽on fleek, everyone from Kim Kardashian to IHOP, helped make the slang more of a thing.

Now, we can find some pre-Newman examples of fleek. Urban Dictionary enters fleek in 2003 “for smooth, nice, sweet” and in 2009 for “awesome,” but Newman says her聽on fleek was an independent coinage (and flash of genius). The expression calls up on point and the sounds of other slang terms like crunk,听twerk, 补苍诲听werk.

Since 2014, on fleek聽has become one of the most popular internet neologisms of the 2010s, even nominated by the American Dialect Society in 2015 in its “Most Likely to Succeed” category. Although Newman’s original use has kept on fleek聽closely connected to aspects of fashion (especially brows and makeup), the solo fleek has come to describe anything as “excellent,” from Instagram influencers to Taco Bell grub.

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Viral internet content likes to burn out like so many meteors, but on fleek has, delightfully, proved its staying power. Certainly performer Cardi B gave it further fuel in her 2016 track, “On Fleek.”