Surprisingly, Not All TikTok Abbreviations Are Mystifying

TikTok users, particularly those who don’t spend much time on the social media platform, may often feel that they need a glossary or interpreter to understand all of the abbreviations, acronyms, and other terms commonly used in TikTok posts.

Skibidi toilet, GYATT, delulu, CEO, no bones day, BBL, sigma, BBL, zesty — they keep on coming as you watch TikTok content. If you’re one of the uninitiated, they may not mean what you think they mean, or they may simply be undecipherable.

One abbreviation often heard in TikTok videos, however, is the exception.

What Does Etc Mean on TikTok?

Just as it did when you were in school, etc (more properly written as “etc.”) is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase “et cetera,” literally translated as “and the others” and generally used to mean “and other things.”

For example, a shopping list for salad might read “lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, etc,” or a summer camp might describe its available sports options as “baseball, soccer, tennis, etc”.

The phrase has been used in English speech and writing for centuries to indicate that a list continues with similar items. It’s essentially a substitute for an ellipsis (…) in written language, although neither is considered acceptable for use in academic or legal writing.

Popular use of the abbreviation is said to have soared following the release of the hit 1956 film The King and I, in which the main character, the King of Siam, used it regularly (for instance, “When I sit, you sit. When I kneel, you kneel. Et cetera, et cetera”).

As English became more colloquial over the years, the use of etc has become a handy shortcut often heard in casual speech and seen in informal writing. It was only natural that the term would quickly find its way into emails, texts, and posts on social media apps.

Since we’re talking about TikTok, though, some users have attributed a more complicated meaning to ETC. They claim it stands for “end of thinking capacity,” which describes what many people go through when they’re trying to come up with an itemized list — but can’t come up with more than a couple of examples.

So when you hear “etcetera” or see “etc” in TikTok content, it means exactly what you’d think it does. And however you define it, you’ll hear and see it all the time in TikTok posts, captions, comments, etc, etc.