nepo friend

Nepo friend seems to have been inspired by the popularity of the earlier slang term nepo baby. The nepo in nepo baby is short for nepotism. The term nepo friend commonly implies that a person benefits greatly from being a friend of a famous or powerful person in much the same way that calling someone a nepo baby suggests that they have benefited from having a famous person as a parent (or other relative).

The term nepo friend has been used on social media since at least 2020.

Ananya is not a "Nepo Kid" as her father is still a struggling actor in Bollywood. She is a "Nepo Friend". She is getting all her films as she is a friend of Suhana Khan daughter of Tony Ashai's best friend SRK 馃お馃お

— Moumita Mukherjee (@MoumitaJSR)

However, the term was rarely used until around late 2022 and early 2023. At this time, the slang nepo baby quickly grew in popularity and nepo friend was used as a spinoff term to refer to people who benefit from friendship with celebrities rather than through familial relations.

I鈥檓 gonna befriend a nepo baby and then I鈥檒l be a nepo friend

— nani (@mysacredungeon)

she鈥檚 not even a nepo baby though she鈥檚 like a nepo friend turned nepo wife

— kira (@freakcinemas)

guy on hinge tried to argue that I'm a nepo baby because I co-host an investigative podcast and my dad's a sports journalist and I'm like no no buddy I am a nepo friend (made friends with a producer)

— the haunted megan (@ozymegdias)

A September 2023 brought more attention to the term nepo friend by using it in a description of a popular trend in which friends of internet influencers use their appearances in popular social media content to attempt to become influencers themselves.