By Scottie Andrew, CNN
Sat August 17, 2024
Kurt Cobain is pictured taping Nirvana's legendary "MTV Unplugged" performance in November 1993. A placard at the Museum of Pop Culture that apparently refers to his death by suicide with the word "unalived" has stirred controversy.
Editor’s note: If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters, please call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988 to connect with a trained counselor, or visit the 988 Lifeline website.
Kurt Cobain’s legacy looms large over the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle.
The late Nirvana frontman, a rock legend and hometown hero, remains a permanent fixture in pop culture. For many of his fans, even 30 years after his death by suicide, Cobain’s loss is still raw.
Recently, though, some visitors to the museum reported reading something that surprised them. A placard, purportedly on display in one of its exhibits, described the iconic musician’s death in the following way: “Kurt Cobain un-alived himself at 27.”
“Unalived” is a common term on TikTok, initially used as a way to get around censors on the app when discussing death. But it’s since taken on a euphemistic meaning offline, a way to talk about death and especially suicide while attempting to avoid the subject’s inherent discomfort.
The appearance of “unalived” in a popular tourist destination, especially in reference to Cobain, stunned some visitors, who shared photos of the placard as early as May. Many argued that using the term disrespected Cobain and his legacy and was used to avoid having to discuss suicide directly. Some users who found the image, which went viral on X earlier this month, even compared it to Newspeak, the simplistic, euphemistic language used in George Orwell’s dystopian classic “1984.”
The Museum of Pop Culture and its curators haven’t responded to CNN’s requests for comment.
Another user posted a photo of another sign they said was near the placard, which explained that the exhibit’s guest curator chose to use “unalived” as “a gesture of respect toward those who have tragically lost their lives due to mental health struggles.”
Adam Aleksic, a linguist who studies the way young people speak online and posts on TikTok as The Etymology Nerd, said he isn’t surprised to see “unalived” appear in a museum.
“It’s the first time we’ve seen, maybe, a formal endorsement of this (word) from a position of authority,” he said. “But kids have been using this for a while.”
Responses to censorship on TikTok, one of the most popular social media platforms among Gens Alpha and Z, have a lot to do with “unalived” making the jump from digital slang to offline language. But its entry into the lexicon is also the result of increasing sensitivity when broaching topics like suicide, said Nicole Holliday, acting associate professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley.
That’s a generational shift initiated by younger generations who grew up on TikTok and are taking new language into their classrooms and homes. In an increasingly accelerated trend cycle, it’s rare that viral slang survives more than a few weeks. (It’s likely that, if your parents have heard of it, a trend is over, Holliday said.) But if it’s made it into a museum, albeit briefly, “unalived” is likely here to stay.
The origins of ‘unalive’
The first known use of “unalive” predates the birth of TikTok by several years, appearing in a 2013 episode of the Disney XD series “Ultimate Spider-Man.” Peter Parker’s arachnid hero teams up with the wisecracking Deadpool, who tells Parker that he plans to “unalive” their foe, Taskmaster, and his acolytes.“I can’t really say the k-word out loud; it’s a weird mental tic,” Deadpool explains. Spider-Man eventually says “kill” anyway.
“Unalive” was mostly relegated to obscure memes, explains Aleksic, until TikTok users found a new function for it.
TikTok, which officially launched in the US in 2018, ballooned in popularity in early 2020. Users soon realized that videos in which they discuss death –– not an uncommon topic during the Covid-19 pandemic –– were being suppressed from their followers’ For You Pages (or #FYP on the app), Aleksic said.
Whereas on earlier social media platforms, discussing death, homicide or suicide often did not immediately result in censorship, content moderation on TikTok has been much more robust, Holliday said.
“There are a lot of people on TikTok who have great content abut supporting people who are struggling with depression or thoughts of self-harm,” Holliday said. “And so they want to keep making these videos, but they also want them to get to that audience.”
Users got crafty, inventing a new word that easily implied the sensitive subject without getting flagged. So, if they were talking about death, homicide or suicide in their videos, many TikTok users began to write “unalived” in their captions and in-video text.
In 2021, it became the “default term for talking about suicide” on TikTok, Holliday said.
“Unalived” is perhaps the most famous term from algospeak, an internet-native slang that uses euphemisms or misspelled words to avoid censors or algorithmic flags that would otherwise bury or demonetize their content. Other popular algospeak phrases include “seggs” for sex or “SA” for sexual assault, both commonly found on TikTok, Holliday said.
How ‘unalived’ is used differently offline
Gen Alpha, kids born no earlier than 2010 who grew up on TikTok, is starting to use “unalived” offline to discuss suicide or killing in any context, said Aleksic, who has interviewed school staff about the new language their young students use for a book he’s writing.In his interviews, teachers have reported reading essays from students about “Hamlet” or “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” that use “unalived” to describe the protagonists’ deaths, he said. Some guidance counselors told him that their students prefer “unalived” to other terms for death.
“The function of ‘unalive’ has superseded its initial algospeak origins,” Aleksic said. “At this point, the kids using it in middle schools aren’t using it to avoid being banned. It’s really taken on a life of its own as a way for kids to feel comfortable expressing topics about death.”
Aleksic pointed out that there are countless popular euphemisms for death in the English language, including “passed away,” “deceased” and “lost (one’s) life.” Euphemisms are softer, more passive words that stand in for terms that are considered harsh or inappropriate in most situations.
“The (euphemizing) of death is a continuous ritual, because we’re always afraid to talk about death, and we’re always seeking new, comfortable ways to get around to that point,” he said.
Suicide, especially, is a contentious topic, because of the fear of contagion when it’s portrayed inappropriately. Media reports and the language used to describe it have continually evolved to become more sensitive, Holliday said. “Died by suicide” is now widely considered the appropriate term when reporting someone’s death in that manner, Holliday noted, though just a few years ago, the common language around suicide was much blunter.
“By censoring the word ‘suicide,’ actually what TikTok is doing is making it seem like it’s a more powerful word,” Holiday said.
Why ‘unalived’ has riled people up
The outrage around the placard purportedly at the museum centers around its use of “unalived” in reference to Cobain. Apparently, the museum responded to the controversy: A user who visited the museum this month after photos of it started circulating online shared a photo of what they said was an updated placard, changed to “Kurt Cobain died by suicide.”It’s understandable that the use of “unalived” has offended people, Aleksic and Holliday said. Suicide is an extremely sensitive subject about which people have strong feelings. Cobain is also a beloved public figure whose death by suicide was widely publicized.
It’s also true that, in his music, Cobain wrote starkly about depression, death and sexual assault around the same time that political correctness (or PC) was entering the public consciousness.
But language is constantly changing, often in ways we don’t notice until we bump into a turn of phrase that throws us, said Holliday.
When linguists investigate whether a slang word will survive its initial burst of virality, they look at its function, Holliday said: Does it have a use that differentiates it from synonyms? “Unalived” does, she said.
And young people are already using “unalived” in a different way than how it was originally used on TikTok (and ironically more in line with the reason Deadpool used it). It’s cyclical: A new term trickles into public conversation, a change spurred by young people, and confusion or disapproval ignites among older generations who don’t see the new term’s value, Holliday said.
“Inasmuch as there was some outrage about this, this is chapter 800 in ‘Kids these days are too sensitive,’” she said. “So the language frequently becomes a proxy for whatever people don’t like about the culture changing.”
Aleksic and Holliday both said they wouldn’t make value judgments on the Museum of Pop Culture’s purported use of “unalived.” But even though the word apparently no longer appears in the museum, “unalived” isn’t going anywhere, both linguists said.
“It’s at least three years old,” Holliday said of “unalive’s” lifespan on TikTok. “That is forever on the Internet. Once things stick around that long, I would argue that they’re part of the lexicon.”
