Tier list slang is internet slang built on a ranking system borrowed from gaming culture — letter grades that sort anything from best to worst. Our tier list maker’s five default rows run S, A, B, C, D, and terms like “goated,” “mid,” and “bricked” all grew out of that grading system.
“That’s S-tier.” “It’s mid.” “He’s goated.” Tier list slang has spilled into everyday internet talk. Here is what the terms mean and where they came from.
Calling something “S-tier” means it is the absolute best — better than A. It comes straight from tier lists, where S sits above A. People now use it for anything elite: “this pizza is S-tier.” Full breakdown in what does S tier mean.
The S rank itself is often traced to the Japanese grading system used in Japanese video games, where an S above the top rank stood for something like “superb,” “special,” “superior,” or “supreme” — a step past a perfect score. Below it, the letters behave like school grades: A is great, B tier is solid, and the rare F tier is a failing mark. The full ladder is mapped in tier list letters explained and tier list ranks in order.
“Mid” means average or mediocre — squarely C-tier. It is mildly dismissive: not bad, just unremarkable. “The sequel was mid.”
On TikTok, “mid” carries more sting than plain “average” — Gen Z reaches for it when something hyped lands middle of the pack, which makes it quietly disappointing rather than outright bad.
From “GOAT” (Greatest Of All Time), “goated” is the highest praise — beyond even S-tier. “That album is goated.”
“Goated” turns the acronym into an adjective. The GOAT label started in sports, reserved for legendary, iconic careers, before Gen Z spread it across TikTok as all-purpose admiration. One warning: overusing it flattens it. If every lunch is goated, none of them are.
W = a win (good), L = a loss (bad), and bricked means a total failure — bottom of the list. These often become tier labels themselves; see creative tier names.
The set keeps growing. A “dub” is a W said out loud, “take the L” means accept a loss gracefully, “fumbled” means you had something great and lost it, and getting “ratioed” — more replies dunking on you than likes — is its own public L.
Rankers rarely stop at S. “S+,” “SS tier,” and “SSS” stack extra praise on top, and “God Tier” floats above them all. Heading the other way you get high tier, mid tier, and low tier as loose bands, with “trash tier” — or its ruder cousin “shit tier” — as the bottom tier insult of choice. “Top tier” has escaped the charts entirely; calling a diner top tier is just slang for excellent. A “Z tier” shows up occasionally as a joke rank below F, for things so bad they wrap around to memorable.
None of these labels are fixed. Rows in our text tier list maker take custom labels — type “Goated,” “Mid,” or an emoji straight into the row name. The whole vocabulary is often traced back to fighting-game forums ranking Street Fighter and Super Smash Bros characters; that story lives in the history of tier lists.
This vocabulary started in gaming communities and esports, but it jumped the fence long ago. Twitch streamers grade their chat’s takes, YouTube review videos hand out S-tiers in thumbnails, and anime fans have ranked every character roster twice. On social media it fills captions and comments; in the group chat it’s just texting — “new kebab place is S-tier” needs no explanation. That’s the tell of slang that stuck: it works in everyday conversation with people who’ve never opened a ranking chart.
Treat all of this as informal. In casual chats and streams, S-tier and goated read as fluent internet culture — as a compliment, they land. In formal writing they don’t: keep them out of school essays, cover letters, and most workplace docs, and expect older audiences to need a translation (or a slang dictionary). A decent rule: if “awesome” would feel too relaxed there, “goated” definitely is.
Tier list terms share a lane with a pile of other praise words. “Fire” and “dope” do the same job as S-tier; “peak” is the current favorite — “peak fiction” means the best a story gets, borderline legendary. “Awesome” and “top-notch” are what the same sentiment sounded like before ranking charts existed. You can even rank the words themselves — a Gen Z slang tier list makes a good board.
It means the very best — top quality. It comes from tier lists, where S is the highest rank, above A.
Mid means average or mediocre — roughly C-tier. Not terrible, just unremarkable.
Goated comes from GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) and is used as the highest possible praise, even above S-tier.
Mostly, yes. The GOAT acronym itself is older and came out of sports commentary, but “goated” as an adjective is a Gen Z habit — it spread through TikTok, gaming streams, group chats, and comment sections. Plenty of millennials use it now too, which is usually the sign a slang term has fully arrived.
Match the energy with something short — “appreciate it,” a simple “W,” or “fr” (for real) if you’re agreeing that something else is goated. There’s no formal response; keeping the casual register is the whole move. Replying “thank you kindly” to “you’re goated” is its own kind of mid.
Goating someone means hyping them up as the GOAT — publicly declaring them the greatest at whatever they just did. It’s praise aimed at a person rather than a thing: dropping goat emojis under an athlete’s highlight, or telling a friend they’re goated for pulling off a plan. The tone is admiration, sometimes with playful exaggeration.
Same root, different job in the sentence. GOAT is a noun — the Greatest Of All Time, a title you hold. Goated is the adjective built from it — a quality something has. Messi is a GOAT; his free kicks are goated. You’d never say “the goated of all time,” and that’s how you keep them straight.
A tier is a level or rank — one band in a hierarchy. In this slang, tiers are the horizontal rows of a ranking chart, ordered from best to worst, and calling something “top tier” or “low tier” borrows that structure. For how the charts themselves work, see what is a tier list.
Top tier means among the very best — the first rank. It’s the tier phrase that works outside internet culture: “top tier service” in a review just means excellent, no gaming context required. In slangier settings it does the same job as S-tier, only softer — high praise without declaring an absolute winner.
Because the ranking scale comes from Japanese games, where S sits above A as a special grade. The full story is in what does S tier mean.
Farasat is an engineer who designs websites and builds practical online tools in his spare time. He created Tier List Maker after using other ranking sites that asked for an account, stamped watermarks on downloads, or simply did not work well on a phone. He is not a professional gamer or a self-described tier-list expert — he builds and maintains this site himself, fixes issues, and adds features based on what visitors actually ask for.