Bloody hell!
Gen Z Americans are impersonating British accents at an incredible volume — and it’s all thanks to the latest UK invasion of TV shows, the Guardian reported.
Kyra Green, a 26-year-old New Yorker, credits watching the UK’s reality dating show “Love Island” as when “the accent really took over.”
“It blew the accent the f–k up, and everyone was obsessed with their cute little sayings, like ‘doing bits,’ ” Green told the publication of the British slang for getting groovy with a lover.
On Twitter, you don’t have to search deep to find someone confessing that their inner Brit has come out after watching “Ted Lasso” as well. Parents say the children’s show “Peppa Pig” is inspiring their children to speak with British linguistics.
Other young people are using Anglo accents as a nervous habit, like Asher Lieberman, a 21-year-old from Miami.
“I was on a date recently ordering something, and the name of what I wanted came out wrong when I asked for it,” he said. “So I just talked in a British accent for the rest of the order. It’s a defense mechanism, a kind of buffer from my actual personality.”
Lieberman will also ask his roommates to take out the “rubbish” in lieu of trash as a way of following up on chores in a less intense way.
“It’s me being playful. It’s the British part of me asking for something that needs to be done, not the real me.”
Jessie Brown, a 29-year-old hairstylist in Brooklyn, backed up the sentiment. “I’ve always done accents when I’m uncomfortable. Maybe my brain thinks it makes whatever weird s—t I just said more palatable.”
There’s some verbal science to this phenomenon too, according to dialect coach Amy Walker.
“We think of [British accents] as cerebral and not super emotional,” she said. “The voice can elevate something that feels a little too real in the moment.”
Still, sometimes the posh pronunciation slips out at inappropriate times on our side of the pond.
Brinton Parker, 30, a tech worker in the Bay Area, let it out when speaking to her boss about the hard times Silicon Valley is experiencing.
“I said, ‘It’s affecting me mental health, innit?’ ” she said. “And my boss was like, ‘Why did you say it like that?’ I think it adds levity to a vulnerable situation. The tougher the conversation, the more Cockney I become.”
On TikTok, a search of “fake British accent” yields a treasure trove of videos. Some have amassed over 3 million hits from the yank phonies.
In a less flattering trend, many young Americans will poke fun at British lingo — like pronouncing Harry Potter as “arry pah uh” — on social media too.
Particularly, the phrase “it’s chewsday, innit?” (it’s Tuesday, isn’t it?) gets the 1776 treatment online.