The National Gallery of Art’s deputy head of sculpture stepped behind a 16th-century urn and began to describe it to the camera.
“Chat, I’m about to buss it down Roman Empire style,” said Alison Luchs, 77, using Gen Z slang she recently learned. “Haters will say this urn is mid, but they don’t know we’ve clocked its tea.”
Luchs called the urn’s stone material “GOATED” — meaning the greatest of all time — saying the urn was “high-key valuable” and its colors “screamed big drip” — meaning it was stylish.
Walking off-camera at the end of her scripted speech, Luchs asked her colleagues: “Do you think that worked?”
Our curators stay serving. Watch til the end to hear how you can be featured in our museum…and earn $3,000 for your creativity at https://t.co/aUedHAJCIw
pic.twitter.com/GcNZ3alOO0
— National Gallery of Art (@ngadc) January 15, 2026
Luchs’s videos — she made another one in December with a 16th-century plate — have worked. The videos have received a combined 8.7 million views on Instagram and thousands of comments from people who find Luchs’s descriptions funny, informative and relatable.
“From here on out this is the only way I’ll listen to guided tours,” someone commented.
“I’m coming to the museum just to meet her,” another person wrote.
“Honestly, she ate,” a third person commented about Luchs, a Gen Z way to give high praise.
The timing coincides with a “Saturday Night Live” sketch in which Gen Z comedian Marcello Hernández translates slang for Weekend Update co-host Colin Jost, a millennial. As soon as Jost uses a slang word, Hernandez declares it dead.
Luchs, who has worked at the National Gallery of Art for 47 years, agreed to make the videos because she wanted to raise interest in the museum’s art. She never expected to slay. And based on the reaction to her videos, she has not “unalived” Gen Z slang like Jost did.
“She just has an effortless swag,” said Sydni Myers, the museum’s senior manager of social media.
Some highlights of Luchs’s career include helping set up exhibits for Italian Renaissance artists and writing a book about 15th-century Venice artwork of sea creatures. But over the summer, the museum’s social media team brainstormed an assignment for her.
Myers, 31, wanted to reach young audiences while still offering insight into the gallery’s art. When she first asked her colleagues about a baby boomer describing art with Gen Z lingo, she said, they worried the video would be cringe.
As Myers thought about who could pull the video off with confidence, she said, Luchs came to mind. Luchs is so enthusiastic about centuries-old European art that she often makes her younger colleagues interested in it, Myers said.
Myers caught Luchs as she was leaving a staff meeting and asked if she would record a video.
“Fine, as long as it brings attention to the collection,” Myers recalled Luchs responding.
Reflecting on that moment recently, Luchs said: “I’m not sure I knew what I was doing yet.”
The social media team asked Luchs which artworks she found most fascinating. They then followed up with more questions — when the pieces were made, how they were made, who created them, what people used them for and how valuable they were.
They landed on making a video about a 16th-century tin-glazed plate created by Italian ceramicist Orazio Pompei and used at lavish dinner parties. Myers and Mary King, the museum’s social media copywriter, wrote a script by pulling words from a spreadsheet they created full of Gen Z jargon.
When Luchs got the script, she searched the words’ definitions on the internet. She learned that a “rizzler” is someone who has charisma, “money-maxing sigmas” refers to successful and rich people, and “aura points” quantifies coolness.
Luchs speaks five languages: English, French, Italian, and some German and Russian. She approached grasping Gen Z parlance like she was learning another language. King coached Luchs in pronouncing the words.
“When I started at the National Gallery, I cannot say I anticipated that there would be a day where I’m sitting with a Word doc open in the office and I’m writing ‘rizzler,’” said King, 25.
Sitting beside King, Luchs laughed and added: “I love that word.”
Luchs read the script over and over until she memorized it. Then last month, she stepped onto an 8-inch platform behind the plate with the help of a colleague who held her hand. A phone recorded her.
Our curators are lowkey rizzlers. So they teamed up with our intern to make this video. pic.twitter.com/5SFyexRO7y
— National Gallery of Art (@ngadc) December 19, 2025
“Look how bro glazed it,” Luchs said, pointing to the plate. “He went goblin mode with all these colors,” referring to a behavior that is unapologetically self-indulgent.
A few seconds later, Luchs described the woman on the plate: “Girly over here is freshly ‘yesified.’”
Off-camera, a colleague corrected her pronunciation. Luchs corrected herself a moment later: “Yassified” — meaning to look very glamorous after a makeover.
Luchs then said the woman is “’rizzing’ up the viewer, t—- out” — meaning the woman is charming a romantic partner and revealing cleavage.
On her first try, Luchs nailed the speech, finishing by saying: “Chat, would you bring this dish to the function, or is it chopped? Either way, ‘girly pop’ is the moment, and she’s living rent-free in our heads and in the National Gallery of Art.”
The video, posted Dec. 18, quickly went viral. An Instagram commenter wrote: “She’s so natural with it too like it’s not even cringe.”
The social media team wrote another script for Luchs near the start of this month. In the second video, posted Jan. 13, Luchs spoke about the 16th-century urn with grotesque masks that was made with porphyry, an igneous rock that Luchs said was “‘yoinked’ out of a mountain in ancient Egypt.”
Near the end of the video, Luchs told viewers about the museum’s contest to submit a redesign of a piece of art by sending in a short video. About 400 people have submitted videos so far, according to the museum, which set a Feb. 28 deadline and $3,000 prizes for the winners.
Luchs now weaves her new language into her daily life, her colleagues said, explaining that she recently sent an email to them saying she would be late because she was on “the chopped Metro” — meaning it was not moving fast. A woman visiting the museum last week even recognized Luchs from the videos.
Luchs is also collaborating with the social media team for more videos.
“Alison told us about a sculpture in which two women are engaged in a wrestling match,” King said, “and, you know, I’m thinking—”
Luchs cut her off to clarify: “Actually, one is already defeated.”
King then continued: “One is already defeated. And who knows, maybe there’ll be a ‘Heated Rivalry’ reference in the next video.”
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