Sam Altman mocked over Gen Alpha slang slip

The OpenAI CEO got a public grammar lesson from one of his own new hires, and it was all over a single misplaced suffix.

On Saturday, Sam Altman took to X with what he likely thought was a casual, culturally fluent observation about OpenAI's products. "we still get looksmaxxed on frontend a little but we IQmog hard now," the 41-year-old CEO wrote. The post landed with a thud among those who actually speak Gen Alpha internet fluently.

Tyler Cosgrove of TBPN, a media outlet OpenAI acquired earlier this month, stepped in with a breakdown. The issue: "maxxing" describes self-improvement, not a comparison. You lookmaxx yourself. You get mogged by someone else. The correct phrasing, Cosgrove explained, would have been "we still get looksmogged on the frontend" or "we still need to looksmaxx our frontend".

The "-maxx" suffix indicates a complete commitment to something for personal benefit. Business Insider previously documented "Chinamaxxing", fully leaning into Asian lifestyle habits like tai chi and drinking hot water. The "-mog" family is a dominance comparison. To be "mogged" means to be outclassed by someone else.

One commenter also flagged that "looksmog" isn't really a word. You'd just say "mog", though Cosgrove defended "lookmogged" as useful context given the sentence structure.

Altman isn't alone. Gen Alpha internet dialect, shaped by platforms like TikTok and YouTube and referencing memes like Skibidi Toilet, evolves faster than most adults can track. Even chronically online millennials, as Altman's age group, find themselves a step behind.