This work aims to bring an understanding to an ongoing process of social meaning making on a youth persona called tiki, which refers to young people, mostly girls, who have wealthy backgrounds or who want to be, and thus, seem like that. Since the very beginning of the 1990s, the term tiki has acquired different social meanings that refer to such personae as ciks, tiki and Pelinsu that cover both men and women. However, in the course of this diachronic process, the term has recently been labelled as Pelinsu, which is a female given name, and thus, has acquired social meanings that denote only the women. To make sense of the mechanism behind this process, the study draws on Ekşi Sözlük descriptions of tiki and Pelinsu and applies analytical framework developed under the theory of indexicality, namely the indexical field. The findings are important for two reasons; firstly, social meaning making process is dynamic in the sense that how Ekşi Sözlük users project and construct social personae of tiki and Pelinsu. In addition, this study provides an analytical framework to the future studies that aim to bring an understanding to how youth identity in Turkey is socially constructed and projected.

Keywords: Indexicality, indexical field, social meaning, persona, tiki, Pelinsu