Okay, so I kept bumping into this weird collection of letters recently: idek. Saw it in a chat group I’m in, then again in some comments online. My first reaction was probably what most people’s would be – huh? Is that a typo? Did they miss a space? Maybe they meant ‘idea’? My brain was trying to autocorrect it, but nothing seemed to fit right.
I stared at it for a bit. Tried sounding it out in my head. ‘id-eck’? ‘eye-dek’? Didn’t ring any bells. It wasn’t like ‘lol’ or ‘brb’ which have been around forever and you just sort of absorb them. This one felt new, or at least new to me. It’s funny how you can feel out of the loop so quickly with this online stuff. One minute you think you know the lingo, the next you’re scratching your head over four letters.
So, after puzzling over it for longer than I probably should have, I decided to just look it up. No point guessing forever, right? I pulled up my browser, went to my usual search engine, and just typed in ‘idek meaning’. Felt a bit like giving up, but hey, that’s what search engines are for.
The Big Reveal
And bam, the answer was right there at the top. It was almost annoyingly simple. idek stands for “I don’t even know”.
Seriously. I Don’t Even Know. All that confusion for such a straightforward phrase. Looking back at where I saw it, it suddenly made perfect sense. Like when someone asked about weekend plans and the reply was “idek yet”. Or when discussing some weird movie plot point, someone just dropped an “idek” to show they were baffled too.
Here’s kind of how I see it used now that I get it:
- When you genuinely have no clue about something.
- When someone asks a question you find kind of dumb or pointless.
- Just general uncertainty, expressed quickly.
It’s wild how fast language shifts and changes, especially with texting and social media. You learn one abbreviation, and three new ones pop up. Keeping track feels like a part-time job sometimes. But, well, at least I’ve cracked this one. Added ‘idek’ to my mental dictionary. Now, what’s next? Probably some other weird acronym I’ll have to look up next week. Oh well.
