The Out-of-Touch Adults’ Guide to Kid Culture: Do It for the Plot
Reading Time: 4 minutesEveryone’s talking about messy rooms, King Kong, and butter chicken. Here’s what it all means.
Inspiration comes from unexpected places this week—places like an Indian restaurant in Bowling Green, Kentucky and TikTok’s recommendation algorithm. Young are people doing it for the plot, wallowing in their own filth, and debating whether Gollum or King Kong stars in the worst video game of the year.
What does ‘do it for the plot mean?’ All about TikTok’s inspiring new trend
‘Doing it for the plot,’ in Gen-Z speak, is doing something unexpected and/or brave to progress your life story. It’s often advice given to a friend making a decision, a way of saying, ‘don’t let your fear stop you. Be the main character and drive your own plot.’
The ‘its’ that are being done for the plot are things like going to a country music festival and making new friends, dancing around in the sun, trying to date a nice guy for a change, or shaving your head—maybe not the biggest life events to crusty old jerks like me, but when you’re 18, you don’t have a lot of experience with life, so deciding not to give a fuck can be a new, scary thing that makes a huge difference. Check out the hashtag (for the plot) to see what I mean.
Viral video of the week: TikToker LukeFoods tries Indian food
Speaking of inspiration, you need to see this week’s viral video. Lukefoods is a genial young fellow from Kentucky who reviews food on TikTok. He doesn’t dine on the high-falutin’ haute cuisine that city folks seek out. He eats the kind of grub you can find in the Deep South—and he eats it in his car. He’s been making videos for a few years, doing things like trying a Taco Bell breakfast or comparing Sam’s Club pizza to a Chuck E. Cheese slice, but to no great acclaim. This week, everything changed when Lukefoods tried Indian food for the first time.
It doesn’t sound like the kind of footage that would get 11 million views in only a few days, but when you see this guy’s reaction, you’ll get it. His excitement is so real and so relatable. I freaked out and yelled ‘holy crap, this might be the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my whole life’ the first time I tasted butter chicken too. And when he eats it with the Naan? Come on!
TikTok poster takes messy rooms to new heights
All this wholesomeness is making me seasick, so here’s something depressing to even me out. There’s nothing new about young people being messy, but kids today are taking slovenliness to new levels, and one of them is getting internet famous for it.
Powenvy was a mildly successful streamer of Roblox content on Twitch, but then he posted a video called ‘Cleaning My Room as a Roblox Streamer’ on TikTok, and his views spiked. This dude’s room is that foul—like roaches and rats kind of gross. Sensing a ‘good’ thing, Powenvy kept posting filth-oriented content. His TikTok feed is now full of grubby videos that that routinely earn millions of views, like this one, where he counts roaches, all presented with this ‘aren’t I gross?’ persona.
In internet parlance, Powenvy’s room is a ‘neckbeard nest,’ the sleep chamber of the kind of dude who neither showers nor has visitors. The name is nothing new, and neither is the fascination with peering into the most untidy bedrooms on earth—Reddit’s r/neckbeardnests has been around for nearly a decade. But Poweny is, as far as I know, the first person to parlay his lack of hygiene into fame. Bigger streamers and influencers have started reacting to his content (mainly to make fun of him) and that’s drawing even more people in to point and laugh. But it’s not funny.
I don’t want to judge, but Poweny’s room and other extreme nests go way beyond teenage sloppiness. They look like manifestations of mental illness— ‘depression nests,’ as Reddit posters have started calling them. Maybe I’m losing my edge, but I find my fascination with the question ‘how could anyone live like this?’ overshadowed by darker thoughts about how this poor kid is being rewarded for whatever is wrong in his life with views and attention. Which is as gross as his room.
Slang watch: ‘Regarded’ and ‘Spoopy’
Let’s talk about a couple of new words kids are using, wanna? This week, I have two definitions for you.
- Regarded: If a young person calls you ‘regarded,’ they probably don’t mean you’re thought of in a specific way. Popularized on Reddit’s weird stock trading board r/wallstreetbets, ‘regarded’ is algospeak for ‘retarded.’ It’s an attempt to slip that slur past whatever program is scanning internet posts for forbidden words, but without using ‘the r-word’ or something.
- Spoopy: It’s Halloween, so kids are calling things ‘spoopy’ again. It’s a silly way of saying ‘spooky,’ no more, no less, and it’s become popular over the last few Halloweens.
Worst video game of the year battle: Lord of the Rings: Gollum vs. Skull Island: King Kong
When video game The Lord of the Rings: Gollum came out in May, most gamers were sure it would prove the worst game of 2023. It has a Metacritic score of 34 our of 100, with reviewers pointing out the game’s abysmal graphics, frustrating gameplay, and overall shittiness. But this week, Skull Island: Rise of Kong was released, and is making a serious go at stealing Gollum’s spot. Kong deserves better. The first game starring the lovelorn ape in almost 20 years, Skull Island is playable on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC, and people are no doubt playing it just to post videos of its worst moments. Like this one, where the developers seem to have left a placeholder jpeg in a cut scene instead of finishing the animation. It’s too early for Kong to have a Metacritic score, but I’m watching this race-to-the-bottom closely. If you’re curious and want to save $40, you can watch the first 15 minutes of Skull Island: Rise of Kong on YouTube. I did, and it does look like an extremely crappy game, but, hey, at least it’s only $40.
Reference: https://lifehacker.com/the-out-of-touch-adults-guide-to-kid-culture-do-it-for-1850944099
Ref: lifehacker
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