Seriously? and other words

Reading some urban fiction yesterday I noticed the word thirsty came up several times describing someone who either crushing on someone else or heavily pursuing someone who had no interest in them.  It got me thinking about word meanings. Thirst is a biological function that tells your body you are lacking something essential to the human condition, in this case water/fluid. Given how much of the body is made up of water and that you can live over twice as long without food as you can without water thirst obviously serves an important purpose.

Now using that word and applying it to someone seeking (however awkwardly) another thing essential to the human condition, companionship/love/affection, seems to me to have been done almost intentionally. I think it reflects the current western society's obsession with independence by degrading the express of need for someone else. While I'm pretty sure no one was sitting around thinking about that kind of connotation I've noticed that words that have been purported often make an underlying statement.  When I was younger "seriously" was used to denote the dubious nature of whatever was being commented on, "right" was used as a verbal eye roll which indicates anything but agreement, and "awesome" was used with such casualness that nothing actually was awesome.

I've often wondered who creates trends in slang, I mean exactly who came up with the word thot? I know I'm getting old when I look at people in their teens and twenties like they are speaking another language. Which may be part of the point. By changing language to insider speak it creates a verbal perimeter around groups giving a definitive insider/outsider status. This is of course done in all kinds of groups not just in a younger vs older generation thing.