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What does “Alter” mean in German slang?

Alter literally means “old man” or “age,” but in casual, youth-colloquial speech — mostly among peers who already know each other — it’s used as a filler exclamation, closer to English “dude” or “man” than to anything about actual age: “Alter, das ist zu schwer!” (“Dude, that’s too heavy!”) Outside that casual peer setting it can land as blunt or annoying rather than friendly, so it’s not something to sprinkle into any sentence with anyone.

In this clip, two friends struggling with overweight suitcases punctuate nearly every line with Alter — “Alter, die wiegen beide scheiße viel” (“Dude, they both weigh a ton”) — without addressing anyone by name at all, exactly the kind of relaxed, familiar exchange where the word fits. It functions much like “Mann” (literally “man”) does in similar contexts: less a form of address than a stress marker.