Gen Alpha Came Up With 'TSPMO' on TikTok and It Might Take You Back to Your AOL Chatroom Days
'TSPMO' is among many acronyms on TikTok.
Published Aug. 27 2025, 11:51 a.m. ET
Leave it to users on TikTok to come up with ways to say anything they want without actually saying it. That goes for 'TSPMO' too, which has a meaning that makes total sense once you understand what each letter stands for.
The idea behind abbreviated words and phrases on the app is to be able to get away with saying some swear words without getting reported.
It's also a way to fit in everything you want to say in a text or on the screen in your video. Sometimes, a ton of text overlaid on a video is just too much. And in some cases on TikTok, less is more. There is also a limit to how many characters you can use in a comment on TikTok.
Saying things like 'TSPMO' is a way around that limit.
What does 'TSPMO' mean on TikTok?
Most social media users and even those who frequently text probably know right away that 'PMO' is an abbreviation of "pissed me off." The entire TikTok saying actually means "that s--t pissed me off."
Maybe it isn't the most clever way of getting in a phrase on the app, however, it is one way users manage to share information.
According to one user on TikTok, Philip Lindsay, known as Mr. Lindsay, a teacher who often shares middle school slang and antics, posted a video in April 2025 in which he explains the meaning behind 'TSPMO' and other abbreviated phrases that middle school kids began using at that time.
Of course, those phrases are now on TikTok too. Are we saying these kids came up with them and made them go viral? Honestly, it's possible.
"News flash," Mr. Lindsay says in his video. "Gen Alpha has discovered acronyms, and they believe they came up with them. I had a student come up to me yesterday and ask if I knew what 'tbh' and 'lol' meant, to which I responded with, 'Do not recite the dark magic to me, which I was there when it was written.'"
He then says that Gen Alpha kids are now sneaking swear words into their own abbreviations, and one of those includes 'TSPMO.' He also joked that "Gen Alphas might just be mini millennials."
Other TikTok slang is easy to understand once you get the hang of it.
Other acronyms that TikTok users, including tweens and teens, of course, are using include 'SYBAU,' which means 'shut your b---h a-- up,' and 'ICL,' which translates to 'I can't lie.'
So no, not all of them are about swearing and tricking the adults on social media and in real life into not knowing there are swear words flying around.
But for a lot of kids on TikTok, phrases like 'TSPMO' are commonplace. They might also just use 'pmo' in some instances. Like the "before time," a.k.a. the 90s and early 2000s, when the adults of today used similar slang in AOL chatrooms and through T9 texting, the new generation of technology users has their own acronyms.