Philologist explains why teens copy Gunwest's 'Pepe' and 'Shneyne'

Rapper Gunwest has become an unwitting linguistic trendsetter: his seemingly incoherent exclamations of «Pepe», «Vatafa», and «Shneyne» have turned into viral teen slang. His new image in general is sparking a wave of memes and debate on social media. NGS24.RU correspondent Tatiana Zarya learned what the words used by Gunwest mean and how they appeared.

Where It All Started

Several months ago, a video by a not-so-popular rapper — Gunwest (the performer«s real name is Ruslan Gominov — Ed.) — spread across TikTok. In it, he randomly utters phrases that have now become popular with teenagers: »Pepe«, »Fa«, »Vatafa«, and »Shneyne«. The clip doesn»t carry any deep meaning, but you can at least understand where one of the phrases — «Pepe» — comes from.

The rapper himself (though his speech is hard to understand — Ed.) explains that by «Pepe» he does not mean the children«s favorite Peppa Pig from the cartoon, but the frog Pepe from a 2005 comic.

Frog Pepe is an internet meme depicted as a green anthropomorphic frog. Throughout the comic, he expresses various emotions, which were later broken down into memes.

The character itself was created by American artist Matt Furie in 2005 for the comic series Boy’s Club (published in Russian as «Patsansky Klub» or «Boys» Club«), but it became popular a bit later — in 2008.

«What Peppa, what Peppa Pig? I don»t like Peppa Pig, to hell with Peppa Pig. There«s only frog Pepe,» the musician says in the video.

For the rest, his slang is a profane English expression. American rappers often don«t use the full expression but the abbreviation — WTF — which more accurately conveys Gunwest»s phrase, at least to the ear.

Also, judging by other videos of Gunwest, by the word «Shneyne» he means the brand Chanel. At the very least, he spoke about this on one of his streams, the recording of which could not be found. The rapper also explained that Chanel is one of his favorite brands.

If you are a fan of Gunwest, you«ve probably noticed that the mention of these words in the artist»s speech appeared much earlier than they «rode the wave of hype». The first voice message in the performer«s channel where he says »Vatafa« and the equally popular phrase »Fo« was published back on September 9.

Some bloggers believe that in this way Gunwest is copying the behavior of rappers Kai Angel and 9mice, who are at the origins of a movement called «Vapers».

Vapers is a youth movement whose representatives are characterized by a love for gloomy rap tracks, gothic style in clothing, and the active use of Anglicisms.

Ruslan Gominov himself explained on the show «Kstati» that his new phrases came to him in a dream and a «person in white robes» told him he must say the words «Fa», «Vatafa», and «Pepe».

«»And then I«ll tell you why it was necessary,»« the rap performer quotes the person from his dream, »«I woke up and that was it, and it just sort of took off on its own.»«

Gunwest explained that these words carry something good and bright and «only love». Artist Garik Kharlamov, in turn, promised to name a hot dog in his establishment after these phrases.

In his new songs, Gunwest imitates the style of music made by the aforementioned rappers. Along with the new phrases came the rapper«s popularity. The whole thing is that many media outlets accused him of using drugs or suffering from a mental disorder. However, the rapper himself and his representatives did not confirm such claims in any way.

Overall, the rapper is really «hype-hopping» on this topic; he even released his merch — a T-shirt with these phrases. On the website of the company that makes branded clothing, it costs 3,500 rubles (approx. $35 at current rates).

What People Are Saying Online

As mentioned earlier, along with the new phrases, rapper Gunwest got a new image — as young people now call it, he became a «nefor» (a non-conformist). Now Ruslan (the performer«s real name — Ed.) dresses in accordance with the »Vaper« movement, in gothic style, mainly in black clothing. In addition, he periodically paints his face with makeup and styles his hair in ponytails or something resembling hedgehog spikes.

Other celebrities: bloggers, actors, musicians, evaluate such changes negatively and sometimes even mock them. At the very least, on the show «Chto bylo dal»she« (»What Happened Next«), where Gunwest was a guest, the hosts repeatedly pointed out his appearance while cracking not-so-pleasant jokes (though, to be honest, that»s the point of the show — Ed.).

Furthermore, even his fans did not appreciate his new image, especially the change in his speech. Many leave skeptical comments under his videos on TikTok.

«He used to be cool,» writes a user with the nickname Islam under one of the rapper«s videos.

«While watching this, I became 15 years dumber,» adds a user with the nickname skaylating.

«Ugh, how horrible he»s become,« writes a user with the nickname Dobryy Charodey (»Kind Sorcerer«).

Others ask what language the musician is speaking, wonder if he«s okay, and one commenter even notes that it»s morally hard to listen to.

And even on the show «Kstati» («By the Way»), where hosts Denis Dorokhov, Garik Kharlamov, and Azamat Musagaliev were quite bewildered by his image and speech when Gunwest entered the frame.

Nevertheless, Krasnoyarsk teenagers actively use these words, and quite frequently, especially when commenting on traffic jams. NGS24.RU correspondents have noted this more than once.

People are also making songs with the performer«s phrases using artificial intelligence, breaking down Gunwest»s image into memes, and quoting him on social media.

Why It Became Popular — A Philologist«s Opinion

When adults hear such words from their teenage children, they immediately think the child has almost gone crazy, but that«s not the case at all. According to Yekaterina Kudryavtseva, associate professor at the Department of Russian Language, Literature and Speech Communication of the Institute of Philology and Language Communication at Siberian Federal University (SFU), teenagers use slang as another way of self-expression; they want to show that they are »not like everyone else«.

«Youth is a macro-group that speaks a sort of special language. Actually, it»s not a special language; they simply use certain specific words that others don«t use. There is a common reason [why they do this] — the desire to separate their own from outsiders, to have their own kind of corporate language, unlike the language of others — adults, for example,» she says.

Slang is not a new phenomenon; only the words used change. In their time, as recalled by the NGS24.RU correspondent, one such phrase was «Eshkere» («What»s up?«), which was introduced in 2017 by rapper Ivan Dremin, better known as Face* (recognized as a foreign agent media in Russia in 2022). Now only those who were teenagers at the time and used that phrase themselves remember it.

«Researchers say the lifespan of jargon and youth slang is about 20–25 years. After that, most words disappear, and new ones come, but some linger,» says the expert.

Some words considered jargon or slang even remain in dictionaries, for example, words like «chuvak» («dude»), «klevyy» («cool»), and so on — in their time, even they were considered slang. Every decade has its own trends, for example, in the 2000s, expressions like «shnurki v stakane» («shoelaces in a glass» — meaning parents), «kashтан» («chestnut» — meaning a good person), «koresh» («pal») were in fashion, but as we can observe, perhaps only the third word has survived in modern speech.

According to the expert, such words can be actively used for two reasons:

• Slang is fashionable; often the overwhelming majority of youth use such words;

• Saving speech effort — mainly used in written speech («Thx» instead of «Thanks», «NP» instead of «No problem», and so on);

But not all slang words stick around for long; some remain only for certain local groups and don«t spread beyond them. As the philologist explains, many factors influence this.

«The reason can be very, very arbitrary, and it»s very difficult to say why. Of course, a word must have some meaning that for some reason will be in demand, like with the word «chuvak» («dude»), which made it into dictionaries. Or even euphony can play a role — how aesthetically the word sounds, how well it is perceived. But these are very subjective points,« the teacher explains.

Earlier, NGS24.RU published an article about the words recognized as «Word of the Year 2025». The honorable first place was taken by the word «Zoomer», and you can read about the others in this article.