What Is ‘Jayden, Your Bus Is Here’? This Derogatory Teen Slang Term Explained

Why are teens calling each other Jayden and talking about school buses? It’s not as innocent as you might assume. The latest teen slang taking over is a derogatory term that you definitely don’t want your kids saying.

Mr. Lindsay, middle school teacher and expert on all things teens are saying these days, shared the phrase on TikTok last week. “This one, you’ve gotta be aware of because it’s not kind. It’s not something that they should say,” Mr. Lindsay said about the new teen phrase: “Jayden, your bus is here.”

“It started as a video of a kid getting on a special education bus, and the memes going around are not good,” he explained. “They’re a throwback to the old short bus jokes of the ‘90s, and it’s not OK.”

According to Know Your Meme, “Jayden’s Bus Is Here” is a phrase taken from the Mind of Rex YouTube channel. In a 2018 video, the YouTuber shared a video of his younger brother, Jayden, getting onto the bus for the first day of school. Mind of Rez reacted by saying, “Jayden’s bus is here, woahhhh” when a “short bus,” typically used to transport students with disabilities, pulled up to take Jayden to seventh grade. A clip of this video went viral on TikTok due to several edits of the video.

Apparently, kids are now using this phrase in a derogatory manner to other students, per Mr. Lindsay. In the comments of Mr. Lindsay’s video, other parents and educators shared their experience hearing this phrase.

“Heard the bus one a lot this past week, kinda figured it out so I started cracking down on it already,” one person wrote.

“Thanks for explaining when it isn’t kind,” another said. “I typically don’t care about slang in my classroom, and mostly fully embrace the insanity, but I can’t get behind the unkind bologna. Appreciate you.”

Someone else admitted, “Yeah I had to check my daughter when she said something about the short bus.”

For a comprehensive guide on teen slang in 2025, check out our handy guide HERE.  

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