Ben Percifield

Unlike professionals who develop characters and plotlines for video game studios, Lahijani specifically writes for users who play Grand Theft Auto 5 Roleplay, a multiplayer computer version of the popular console game. In this iteration of the game, players have to submit character backstories to join specific servers and play with certain users.

He’s earned $62,400 writing more than 400 character backstories for an online version of the video game Grand Theft Auto, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

In just his second full month on the platform, he made $9,700. “I never knew that writing could make me $10,000 in a month,” Lahijani, now a 19-year-old sophomore at New York’s Baruch College, tells CNBC Make It.

But then again, she said, few could have predicted the endurance of the slang word “cool” as a marker for all things generally good or fashionable. Researchers say it emerged nearly a century ago in the 1930s jazz scene, retreated from time to time over the decades, but kept coming back.

TikTok creators have gotten into the habit of coming up with substitutes for words that they worry might either affect how their videos get promoted on the site or run afoul of moderation rules.

As soon as older people start using online slang popularized by young people on TikTok, the terms “become obsolete,” said Nicole Holliday, an assistant professor of linguistics at Pomona College. “Once the parents have it, you have to move on to something else.”

The possibility of an outright ban is “a huge anxiety,” he said. “I am a full-time content creator, so I make money from the platform.”

young people are adept at “code switching,” meaning they use different language depending on who they’re with and the situations they find themselves in.