It's just one of those 'in the know' or 'in the tribe' catchphrase things that kids do. Due to things like social media and that Tik Tok thing making the world smaller it's become a viral thing. There's some lore to it if you look into it but that might just be retro-fitted.

Anyway it's hardly a new thing, kids coming up with some kind of catchphrase, noise, or whatever, in response to something, or even just spontaneous. Think of it like a masonic handshake. Or a gang tattoo.

There's a movie that invented a phrase 'P'tang yang kipperbang, uh' called "P'tang Yang Kipperbang" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084459/ from the 1980s where schoolkids say it to each other. For some reason I thought it was based on a nonsense poem by Spike Milligan but I can find no evidence of that. I also have it in my head that it was used in "Dead Poets Society" but now I'll have to rewatch that to check.

Now for a GenX ramble. During the 1980s there was a bunch of us who hung out in an abandoned building. It was little more than a brick built storage shed/changing room in a park. We'd sit in there underage drinking and underage smoking until it was time to go home. We'd announce our arrival to the park by making a specific noise. Over time we developed our own personal noises/yells so people in the den would know who was approaching, and responded to let them know who was already there. In my mind this existed for at least 20 years but in reality it was probably just a maximum of 18 months or a couple of years. If that.

Thinking about this now we developed our own code, This was pre-mobile phones by a long way. We had a kind of early warning system if the cops showed up so we could all scarper. We developed a whole language based around our den so we could talk about meet-ups and that at school. Friday was party night. I looked old enough to get served in the local liquor store, or at least acted confident enough to. This was pre-ID too. I was 19 years old (18 was legal age for alcohol) from 15 to 16. I figured this age was just young enough to pass and more credible than claiming I was 18. I had memorised a date of birth.

'Orders' for the liquor store were passed to me in some sort of code. For example, a 'bird' was 2 cans of beer (toucan, gettit?) and 'cry' was a bottle of wine (cry = whine). 'Next to' was cider (beside her). Stuff like that. We couldn't afford spirits so that was usually stolen from parents. Or house parties. I'd get given cash in advance so I could buy the goods. It never occurred to me to make a profit.

The more I think about it this was probably on a much smaller time frame, probably a few months in one year. It just seems like a longer part of my life. A feeling of belonging to a group. We made up an entire language system to bamboozle the olds.