A dismissal for anything that disappoints expectations—not terrible, just forgettable and overhyped.
Mid is what you say when something promised excitement but delivered a shrug. It's the verbal equivalent of checking your phone during a movie that was supposed to be incredible. Not offensively bad—just forgettable, underwhelming, a waste of the hype that preceded it.
The word emerged from cannabis culture in the early 2000s as shorthand for "mid-grade"—marijuana that was neither premium nor terrible, just… adequate. For years it stayed within those circles as a neutral descriptor. Then in 2021, professional wrestler MJF hurled it as an insult during a promo: "It's called the Midwest because every single thing in it is mid!" The clip went viral, and suddenly everyone had a word for that specific disappointment when something falls short of expectations.
Mid reveals how younger generations navigate a culture of constant ranking. When everything is either "fire" or "trash," mid carves out space for honest mediocrity—the acknowledgment that not everything needs to be extraordinary. Some have even reclaimed it proudly, rejecting the exhausting pressure to optimize every experience. In a world demanding superlatives, mid is permission to be simply… fine.