Rizz
You might remember it as unspoken rizz
This is something people said. There is no recording of it to show.
2023·Short-form and streams·funny
Slang for charm or attractiveness, and, as “rizz up”, for charming somebody.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- rizzler
- Spread in
- 2023
- Format
- Phrase
- Made by
- Popularised by the streamer Kai Cenat, whose friends were already using it
- Original title
- Probably short for charisma, though the source says that is not certain
- Origin
- No single original
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
Rizz means charm, style, the ability to attract someone — most likely a clipping of charisma. It has grammar: you can have rizz, you can rizz somebody up, you can possess unspoken rizz, which is charm requiring no words at all. It spread out of Twitch and TikTok through 2022 and was ubiquitous by 2023.
It is the cleanest recent case of the pipeline from a small streaming community to global English. Oxford University Press named it word of the year for 2023, which is itself the story: a piece of slang that most people over thirty had to have explained to them was, within a year, the officially designated word of the year in the language.
The word has stuck, unusually — most slang of this speed is gone within a season. It also produced its own backlash genre, the deliberately unfunny corporate use, and a durable joke format about whether anybody claiming rizz can be said to have it.
TimelineIn order
- Took off
Kai Cenat brings the word to his audience.1
- Picked up
The actor Tom Holland tells an interviewer he has “limited rizz”.1
- Mainstream
Oxford University Press names it word of the year.1
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · copied, redrawn and reused until the original stopped mattering · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
Where it came fromWhat we know
This spread through many posts rather than one identifiable original. No copy is held here — what it was, when it spread and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first version of this. It spread through many posts rather than from one identifiable original.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
ConnectedFollow it further
- Referred to by Brain rotPhrase · 2024
Rizz is named among the words the term brain rot is used about.
- Referred to by Aura farmingPhenomenon · 2025
Aura is described as close in meaning to rizz, without its romantic sense.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things