I’m not surprised that “rizz” is Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year. Why? Because my generation – Gen Z – is sick of online courtship. The term, which is short for “charisma”, relates to a person’s ability to attract a romantic partner. Essentially, “rizz” means that you can playfully yet seamlessly strike up a conversation with a new love interest and flirt with them in a light-hearted, resolutely non-intense way.
“Rizz” found popularity in my generation via the Twitch streamer Kai Cenat, who began using the word in his streams in 2022. It trickled down to less successful content creators from there, particularly those in the dating genre – men with large followings of single men would coach them on how to perfect their “rizz” and successfully woo the opposite sex. In June of this year, the word went further viral after the Spider-Man star Tom Holland admitted to Buzzfeed that he had “limited rizz” and that it was much easier having met his partner Zendaya on the set of Spider-Man: Homecoming, rather than awkwardly fumbling over his words in an attempt to chat her up elsewhere.
