Gardening, Penjamins, and How TikTok is Changing Our Vocabulary

TikTok has some of the most extreme censorship ever found on a social media platform. The list of banned words and topics is extensive, but their reach expands beyond even that – you also can’t depict mature themes like smoking, nudity, violence, or certain political content. 

ByteDance, a China-based company, owns and operates the app, which is well-known in the United States.. An astonishing 1.12 billion people worldwide, with 170 million registered American accounts (over half the country), were active on the app in 2025. 

TikTok has virtually birthed its own culture, affecting all of us in the process. You’ve likely heard children saying “6-7” or “bussin.” Maybe you’ve seen an influencer filming in the wild. The slang, dances, and memes have stealthily crept their way into our daily lives, whether we want them or not. 

But unlike prior generations of internet youths, we’re not just seeing silly slang coming from TikTok – we’re also witnessing suppression of speech. 

A C*lture of C*nsor*d Sp*ech  

The top 7% of content creators on TikTok earn more than $200,000 per year. Some earn well into the millions. For other creators, the average hovers around $20,000 a year – still a significant source of income for tens of thousands of influencers. 

When you tie up most of your money in an app, you put yourself under its rules and regulations. We’ve dealt with this as a cannabis company; one day, social media platforms will permit ads about cannabis. Next, they don’t. And if your content gets demonetized because you said or did something not allowed by TikTok, you risk losing your job and a lot of money. 

Therefore, it’s really not a surprise that TikTok creators censor themselves so much. The app’s algorithm and screening tools are buggy, but they’re also strict. Some people may squeak through with a swear word or nude video, but others face a ban from the platform if they say “kill.” It’s easier not to tempt fate by violating the guidelines at all. 

And there’s another unfortunate elephant in the room when it comes to TikTok – namely, the censoring and shadowbanning of people in marginalized groups. The app is known for pushing right-wing agendas in America, Poland, and other countries, and its censorship often quietly buries the LGBTQ+ community, disabled people, or those speaking out against fascism and war. The app’s owners claim this is to prevent them from becoming victims of bullying, but it’s difficult to deny the sinister overtones. 

Why, exactly, TikTok is so strict is a matter of debate. Many attribute it to corporate reluctance to pay for ad space on an app with swearing and adult content, but on Instagram, you can find those things alongside a plethora of advertisers. Others believe it comes from China’s lack of freedom of speech and tight control over its internet. No matter the source, its impact is noticeable. 

Essentially, TikTok has built a system of control that rewards compliance and punishes deviation from the norm, whether that means toning down your language, your politics, or your identity. The app’s wide reach gives it especially powerful control: as it governs the most prominent space for digital culture with tightly enforced, invisible rules, it quietly erases the boundaries of free expression—often without anyone realizing it.

Algospeak and the Rise of Code Words 

“Algospeak” refers to the creation of a coded language to skirt around algorithms and content moderation, and it’s more prevalent on TikTok than any other social media platform. 

As TikTok exploded in popularity across the U.S. in 2019, it drew in a tsunami of new users – including plenty of adults far removed from the app’s Musical. ly-era base. Children no longer dominated it, but it still enforced strict rules on swearing and adult content.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, TikTok became the “it girl” of social media. Everyone had it. And everyone was trying to become an influencer before the market got too saturated. Naturally, it didn’t take long for algospeak to emerge from the chaos. 

Creators quickly invented their own language, replacing words and phrases like “dead,” “smoking weed,” and “sex” with “unalived,” “gardening,” and “seggs.” Their creativity soon influenced everyone on TikTok, who began speaking and writing in euphemisms.

Some common algospeak words you may have encountered include: 

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• “Corn” – porn 
• “Spicy accountant” – sex worker 
• “Penjamins” – weed vape 
• “Ahh” – ass 
• “Le$bean” – lesbian 
• “Grape” – rape 
• “Going camping” – getting an abortion 
• “Kermit sewer slide” – commit suicide 
• “Ouid” – weed 

Countless other words don’t have replacements and are simply forbidden. Users of the app have reported warnings or bans for using non-swear words like weird, jerk, dense, thick, bean, dumb, melon, sexy, kiss, non-binary, explode, and many more.  

READ: Cannabis Sign Language: Promoting a More Inclusive Industry

This is just the tip of the iceberg; other phrases, emojis, and even hand gestures are used as replacements for banned words on the app. To make it even more confusing, the slang is constantly evolving as the content moderation system catches on and outlaws the most common euphemisms. For example, many people have already moved on from “unalived” to other options like “perished” or “ceased to be.”

For a while, these words stayed on TikTok. Now, they’re everywhere. 

TikTok Slang IRL  

Instagram was one of the first apps to begin adopting algospeak, largely due to the sharing of TikTok videos on its Reels platform. Soon after, it infiltrated Facebook, YouTube, and Reddit, slowly but surely creeping into every corner of the internet. 

At first, it was fairly innocuous – an “ahh” here, a “Penjamin Franklin” there. It was easy to ignore, for a while, brushing them off as high-school kids merely repeating what they see on TikTok. Unfortunately, it didn’t stay that way, mutating into a near-staple of culture both online and off. I’ve heard people use “grape” and “unalive” in regular conversation, seeming almost fearful of saying the real thing. People self-censor on platforms that don’t ban swearing (like Reddit), typing out dr*gs or s*x in forums where it’s completely acceptable to discuss such topics. 

Algospeak may seem harmless. After all, it’s just some censored words, right? But when you dive in, the ugly truth lying beneath these words begins to take shape.  

In the Harry Potter series, many of the characters are afraid to say the name of the villainous wizard Voldemort. If they even hear it, they may scream, run away, or pale in fright. It becomes a widespread social stigma, encouraged by the villain, to the point where simply speaking “Voldemort” results in the characters being hunted. The phenomenon is summed up succinctly by wise wizard Dumbledore, who says, “Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself.” 

While only a plot point in a children’s book, it speaks to our lives now more than ever. It’s starting to feel taboo to type or say many of the words censored by TikTok, particularly those related to dark topics like death or assault. 

But refusing to use those words doesn’t help anybody – in fact, it can actually make it more challenging for people with trauma to speak out about what has happened to them and find support. It makes it harder to censor tags that may be triggering, as you can’t just block “suicide” – you have to block “sewer slide,” “unalived,” “s*ic*de,” and countless other variations. 

Purity culture and conservative values are on the rise, and self-censorship only threatens to contribute to those causes. An increasing number of young people are disgusted by mentions of sex online. They reject nuance in conversation, adhering to increasingly black-and-white worldviews and political sides. Trad wives, the manosphere, and anti-LBGTQ+ sentiments are gaining traction – and it all stems from algorithms. 

Our hyper-connected world allows us to transform language faster than ever before in human history. It’s up to us to make sure it’s a language that works for us, rather than corporations profiting off of our content. 

Final Thoughts 

TikTok algospeak certainly has its problems, and it will likely continue to bleed into our lives further as long as the app is around. It’s certainly more than a little worrying that a massive corporation from another country can affect our speech and writing on this level. 

Perhaps, though, there is a bright side: some people find Gen Z’s refusal to back down to content moderation a sign of rebellion. When one word gets banned, another emerges. Young people are routinely creating and innovating new ways to talk about topics that TikTok would rather we ignore, and they’re doing it successfully. The app stays flooded with content about sex, weed, abortion, LGBTQ+ people, and political news, despite facing the strictest moderation ever enforced. 

Would it be better if we didn’t have to resort to algospeak? Absolutely. But TikTok, for better or worse, isn’t going anywhere. And in times when we are pushed to conform and avoid certain topics, it’s comforting to know that language will always find a way forward.