The National Gallery of Art’s deputy head of sculpture stepped behind a 16th-century urn and began to describe it to the camera.

“Chat, I’m about to buss it down Roman Empire style,” said Alison Luchs, 77, using Gen Z slang she recently learned. “Haters will say this urn is mid, but they don’t know we’ve clocked its tea.”

Luchs called the urn’s stone material “GOATED” — meaning the greatest of all time — saying the urn was “high-key valuable” and its colors “screamed big drip” — meaning it was stylish.

Walking off-camera at the end of her scripted speech, Luchs asked her colleagues: “Do you think that worked?”
Alison Luchs is the deputy head of sculpture at the National Gallery of Art, where she has worked for 47 years. In an effort to interest younger audiences in the museum’s art, she began working with the museum’s social media team to film short videos using Gen Z slang. Two of her videos have already gone viral, with a combined total of 8.7 million views on Instagram.

Luchs approached learning Gen Z lingo like learning another language, using a vocabulary spreadsheet and practicing pronunciation. A good illustration of the fact that it’s never too late to learn something new, especially if it’s fun! It flexes the brain and helps you stay young at heart.

Luchs speaks five languages: English, French, Italian, and some German and Russian. She approached, grasping Gen Z parlance like she was learning another language. When Luchs got the script, she looked up the meanings of the words on the internet. She learned that a “rizzler” is someone who has charisma, “money-maxing sigmas” refers to successful and rich people, and “aura points” quantify coolness.

This is just a great video about an urn in the Roman Empire style! https://twitter.com/i/status/2011628570129416352

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