Sitting
Remember one month ago when I said the planet of the bass was a piece of hysteria we were all caught up in because, after so many years on the internet, we had rotted our brains and were conditioned to enjoy musical comedy? Well, I stand by it. I enjoyed this addition to the Brian Jordan Alvarez extended universe because I am familiar with his oeuvre. I like it as a silly little video from a creator I enjoy. However, we are more than willing to fall all over ourselves to praise this because we have a pathological need to elevate musical comedy. Maybe it’s because we are in a fallow period on Twitter and that makes us worry about the longevity of the land so compensate by celebrating little victories. We need to prove there is still content there. It is still worth spending time here. Clinging to this video will not bring back the good old days. It is just a video and we cannot make it a phenomenon. Mostly because the fun parts are in the delivery and just repeating the text of the lyrics does not capture what’s funny about the song. The song itself is not as good on re-listens and does not hold a candle to the Internshit character. We do not need all this fanfare.
TikTok
Baltimore Strut
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Whistle Twitter suffers TikTok is up to it’s old tricks. There’s a dance going viral and people are doing it in groups in high school hallways. This is and always will be TikTok at its best. A platform like this thrives on videos people make when they’re bored and together. It’s mid-September and in many places everyone has more or less settled into their schedules and the weather has broken as fall begins to arrive. The kids are getting comfortable with each other and you can feel a kind of laughter and joy you haven’t experienced in years through the screen. Killing time messing around with your friends you see all day every day, a kind of stir-crazy boredom that creates some of our fondest memories. Now that we all have cameras in our pockets we can capture this feeling in its pure raw form. This dance is just haphazard enough to sell the spontaneity of these times. There is very little rehearsal required and the more disorganized and unplanned the better the video.
How Often Do You Think About The Roman Empire?
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There are so many things I hate about this trend and they all have to do with the way the question is phrased and presented. The number one thing I hate about it is that everyone is treating these self-reported answers as fact. They forget two of the universal truths of any society, People are stupid and Men lie. I believe every single person who said this is one of three options. 1. Bad judges of how often they think about something; 2. Liars who want to seem smart; and 3. History buffs. It’s well within the realm of possibility that someone would think about the Roman empire once a day and I think dumb people would pick this as a topic to lie about pondering. No one would believe them if they said they think about physics this much, but the Roman Empire is referenced often enough that if one wanted to seem intellectual it would be easy enough to inflate their frequency in this self-reported survey. There is definitely a subset of girlfriends who asked their boyfriend this and were not surprised to know their boyfriend thinks about the Roman empire once a day. I think there is a large group of men who do think about the Roman Empire every day. Lawyers, architects, classics professors, people who know a little bit of Latin, people who love Caesar salads, English majors, astronomers. It comes up a lot in certain sectors of American society and beyond. But I’m not buying into this fake cultural truth based on a leading question. If you asked me how often I think about X, then I start thinking about it, which clouds my ability to accurately assess how often I think about it. We are suggestible creatures with fickle memories. You’re leading the witness.
This is why the other stupid part of this trend doesn’t work. Girls asking what is their version of the Roman Empire and giving examples are missing the point of the original question. It’s not real. They are not thinking of the Roman Empire this often. It is a combination of stupidity and lying. There is no way to self-report your Roman Empire because it has to be something that when confronted with you would lie about to emphasize how smart and worldly you are. It’s not a monologue you memorized. It’s how much French you speak. The reason more options are being thrown out for women is not because women are more complex, it’s because everyone is misunderstanding men’s response to the question.
If you are a man and you said you think about the Roman Empire once a day or multiple times a day, I want you to keep a diary this week, and make a tally every time you think about the Roman Empire and in what context because I don’t believe most simpletons are thinking about it this often. I would also like a running tally of every time you were actually thinking about ancient Greece. Then get back to me with updated statistics.
Tube Girl
No, it’s not a shock site from the early 2000s internet, it’s a girl being obnoxious in a mostly empty train car on the London underground. She’s recording energetic lip-syncs coupled with fit checks that take up a lot of space in a public setting where we are asked to be cognizant of those around us. Others are trying to copy her in subway systems across the globe. It’s just another example of influencers in the wild and the breakdown of etiquette in favor of an internet presence. Tube girl does hers when she has space at the end of the train. Her copycats lack the grace and forethought to give their fellow riders space. As always, it is not the fault of the visionary that their imitators do not have the same thing that made the original special. Although I would love to see some LA influencers hop on the Metro and give it a try!
R. E. P. O. R. T.
If I am being 100% transparent, this is the kind of content I enjoy the most. Mostly because it is the most consistent. If my feed were only little day-in-the-life vlogs from average boring people (not derogatory) I would be happier. I would spend the same amount if not more time on TikTok. I love seeing what everyone is up to. This content is inoffensive and inspires me to enjoy my stupid boring life. I’m always happy to see a trend that is all of us doing the same. I will say that some of these are repetitive. Obsessed with and Recommending are too similar to me and people are conflating them. I kind of wish there was more of a personal check-in. They all have to do with consuming and I wish there was a kind of basic “what’s going on?” or “How was I feeling?” that’s stopping me from emotionally connecting with any of these but I believe the next time we do one of these the girlies will find a way.