People annoyed after fake Hagmaxxing trend goes viral

There's no quicker way to feel old than diving into the world of Gen Z internet slang.

From 'rizz' to 'sus' and 'cap', it seems that the younger generation is not slowing down when it comes to inventing new words to make the rest of us feel old and confused. The latest phrase to do the rounds on social media is 'hagmaxxing'. But what on earth does hagmaxxing mean? And is it really a thing?

Unlike the previously mentioned words, which are more straightforward, hagmaxxing is a complete curveball.

Here's a hint, the word is apparently used in the dating world.

Still stuck? Don't worry, we have the answer for you. It would appear that hagmaxxing (or hagmaxxer) is a phrase which refers to age-gap relationships, more specifically, a younger man dating an older woman. Think The Idea of You or May December.

The term first began to circulate on social media, when one user shared what appeared to be a screen-grab from an article titled: 'Meet the hagmaxxers: Gen Z's new social trend of dating older women'. The headline is followed by the silhouettes of a man and a woman, with the man labelled as 20-years-old while the woman is (shock horror) 37.

The phrase has understandably caused a huge response on the social media account, as users queued up to share their frustrations that women in their late thirties were now considered 'hags'.

"The most cursed term i've ever heard," one person replied, while another added: "This happened during the fall of Rome," seemingly alluding to the idea that society is in its end times.

However, all does not appear as it seems. Typing the phrase into TikTok returns no hits, only videos related to the term 'looksmaxxing' and any Reddit thread discussing the word has only been created in the past couple of days, meaning the word has an almost non-existent digital footprint.

Typing the article's headline into Google also yields no results. Suspicious.

For those who haven't already put two and two together, hagmaxxing or hagmaxxers isn't a real term at all but instead the brainchild of message board 4Chan.

A community note has since appeared underneath the original post, saying: "This is a fake news article created as a joke on 4Chan. Searching on Google verifies no such article exists."

The community note didn't stop several people from falling for the hoax, while other users have taken the opportunity to urge others to do their research before becoming annoyed at something they see on the internet.

"This isn’t real. It was made up on 4chan," another user replied. "Believing every headline you see is boomer behaviour. Please stop."