as a dude I want one.
Hee! This is going right on my Xmas list! 
It is very much a word here; you sometimes hear it applied to the noise Jet Engines make as well as when someone’s complaining.
I remember the term ‘hella’ was making the rounds in the blogosphere about 5 years ago.
Once or twice someone tried to work it into a conversation like ‘oh, I’m a hip blogger with a hip new term’, and we’d just look at her like ‘you didn’t just try to be cool by aping something a total stranger said on the internet, are you?’
Hella good times.