Whether ironically, nostalgically or embarrassingly just catching up, the jury of teens and tweens that pick the
German Youth Word of the Year chose
Fly sein.

To be fly, that is—as in the Offspring song
Pretty Fly (for a White Guy) from 1998. In all fairness, they had other contenders which included Hopfensmoothie (for a beer and one has to be sixteen to drink after all) and Tindergarten but they didn’t want to be seen as endorsing vice and it’s possible with the recent
GEMA concessions, a whole new young generation was just now introduced to that year in music.