The Out-of-Touch Adults' Guide to Kid Culture: Generation Z Gets Into Marketing

Credit: TikTok

Our sister site Mashable identified an interesting trend that's been ongoing for the past few years: companies "letting" members of Generation Z do their marketing. While the trend can result in self-aware exercises in misused slang like the Northumberland Zoo Hits Different TikTok that's currently blowing up, it isn't always a cheap joke. Gen Z's marketing savvy can be impressive, or at least result in something unique.

Generation Z marketing

Take, for example, Nutter Butter's Instagram page and TikTok. For the last year or so, Nutter Butter's social media streams have been embracing an "analog horror" style that's all Gen Z and Gen A. The snack food brand has been building its following by posting increasingly bizarre and disturbing content that seems at odds with selling junk food. The posts suggest an ominous entity has wrested control of the accounts from Nabisco Inc. for some diabolical purpose. Videos like this one of a Nutter Butter murder house have earned millions of views on TikTok, and there are active online communities trying to figure out the mystery. Not bad for a snack.

Another Gen-Z operation that's way more sophisticated than slang-heavy jokes is the pack of "feral 25-year-olds" that make up Kamala Harris's social media team. Since she's announced, they've been flooding the zone of TikTok and Instagram with meme-able content that regularly sees hundreds of millions of views and has helped make Harris the clear choice for younger people in the next election. Whether it results in actual votes remains to be seen, but Harris is the winner of the TikTok election.

The Nike "Elite Zipper" trend

Young people are getting into stealing zipper ties from backpacks, specifically from Nike Elite backpacks. Once they gank a bunch of zippers, petty thieves are showing off their collections in TikTok videos. The trend seems to have started in schools (lots of backpacks there) and the thievery seems generally of the good-natured, stealing-from-your-friends-for-a-laugh variety. TikToker @kyrieirvingishimm provided the first online evidence of this trend by posting a video with his collection of purloined zippers. Others followed with similar videos of their trophy collections or footage of the crime being committed. Before long, targets of the trend started responding with poignant videos detailing the pain that zipper theft victims experience or tips on how to prevent stolen tags by walking backpack to the front, tying knots, using super glue, or just taking the zippers off yourself. 

This is the kind of trend that would have been localized to a single high school before the internet, but free-flowing information has it blowing up on an international level. Nike Elite Zipper videos are racking up millions of plays. So the practice is spreading to the outside world and becoming harmful. TikTokers are posting videos of store shelves with backpack displays completely stripped of zippers, which renders them unsellable—what good is a Nike Elite backpack with no zippers? In other words: This is the moment right before TikTok shuts down this variety of videos, so watch them now if you have any interest. 

What is “Boysober”?

More and more young women on TikTok and other online spaces are declaring themselves “boysober”—in other words, they are eschewing sex, relationships, and/or dating. According to comedian Hope Woodward, here are the “2024 boysober rules: no dating apps, no dates, no exes, no situationships, no XOXOXO, (aka hugs and kisses), etc. The #boysober hashtag is full of videos illustrating the benefits of boysobriety and discussing the practice philosophically and psychologically. There’s a competing #girlsober community too. Surprisingly, it’s not overrun with misogyny (yet) but instead has some interesting discussions about how trends like this might be helping young people rethink relationships. 

What does "HGS" mean online?

If you see the initials HGS online, the poster is shortening "homegirls."

(For more youthful slang, check out my Gen Z and Gen A slang glossary. It's got all the good words; no cap.)

Online dangers of the week: horse electrolytes and glass fruit

This is part 6,294 of my 9,312 part series "online dangers of the week," a discussion of the things you might see online that you should not actually do in real life.

Do not use horse electrolytes to cure a hangover: X/Twitter user @pigshitonballs started the trend of horsemaxxxing with a post extolling the virtues of human consumption of "Apple a Day" horse electrolytes. I'm pretty sure they're joking, but you know someone is actually doing it. They shouldn't be; the company that makes the product posted a warning on their site reading, "In the interest of social responsibility, we remind consumers that this product, and all of our horse products, are not approved by the FDA for human use or consumption."

Do not make glass fruit: I don't like telling people not to experiment in the kitchen, but the TikTok trend of making "glass fruit" is resulting in hospital visits, so caution is advised. Glass fruit, or Tanghulu, is prepared by boiling sugar water, then dipping fruit into it to create a glass-like, sweet coating. The problem comes when kids try this recipe and spill molten sugar-water on their skin. Shriners Children’s Hospital in Boston recently released a statement pointing to an uptick in injuries from glass fruit and urging parents to be aware of their children getting curious about the recipe. So be aware.

Viral video of the week: Dog Man trailer

Last week saw the release of the Minecraft trailer that inspired nearly universal hatred from fans. By contrast, here's the trailer for upcoming movie Dog Man. It was also inspired by universally known kid media—in this case, the book series by Dav Pilkey. The reaction on YouTube is the opposite of Minecraft's: The kids love Dog Man. "As a 17-year-old who hasn't read Dog Man since primary school, this is an absolute masterpiece and I am so glad they kept to the original books. It's literally a masterpiece," one YouTuber said. The secret, it seems, is keeping things the same as they are in the book or video game.