“Slay!”: A term of encouragement, a kitschy compliment and the last thing you want to say on a hot mic during a news segment about murder.

Giselle Hood, a grad student and anchor at West Alabama’s local news station WVUA23 posted a recent on-camera mishap to TikTok of her hijacking her colleagues’ segment. During a weekend shift roughly “two or three” months ago, Hood signed off from a live shot, handing the segment back to her co-anchors.

Yet, as her colleagues began detailing the next story on their docket – a gut-wrenching tale of a Floridian domestic violence incident that left three people dead – Hood, under the impression her microphone was no longer on, gave herself a pat on the back for her performance.

“Slay!” Hood quipped in a singsongy tone, the gruesome details continuing in the background, a mishap she chalked up to a new sound technician failing to turn off her microphone in time.

“I was super proud of my live shot so of course you hear me say ‘slay’ and that’s what comes on the television,” Hood continued, noting that she “didn’t even know that aired until I went in the production room.” “Honestly none of us knew how clear it was until we watched it back and my jaw just dropped to the floor.” 

Slaying: It means something different when anchors say it.