The Out-of-Touch Adults' Guide to Kid Culture: How Young Is Too Young to Go to Hooters?

In Great Britain, they used to call the summer months “the silly season” because of the frivolous news stories that would populate the media due to the lack of “real” news. It seems to work the same way with young people on the internet: Summer is the silly season, so all of these stories are ridiculous.

What is #Krissing?

Rickrolling has been around since 2006, so it’s about time for the young people to come up with a replacement. One attempt, spreading on TikTok, is “Krissing,” which involves posting a video with a clickbait title like, “Roblox is shutting down!” Then, at the most dramatic point in the video, you insert a brief clip of The Kardashian’s Kris Jenner dancing to “Lady Marmalade.” Add the phrase “You just got #krissed,” and you’re out: Joke completed. Here are a few examples to get you started.

Whether this will have the staying power of Rickrolling remains to be seen, but it’s even more annoying, so my guess is it will be around for a long time.

On Teslas and tiny houses

We used to call “tiny houses” either “dumps” or “trailers,” but some youngs are all about embracing little spaces, asking “how much house do you actually need?” That might be a valid question, but what about when you live in a 240 square foot place and drive a Tesla? Do you have your priorities straight? That’s the lifestyle TikToker jackleonardbirt has chosen. According to him, living in a converted shipping container while driving a Tesla makes sense, as his tiny house has everything he needs and he uses the Tesla to deliver for DoorDash. I knew some wannabe movie producer types who paid more in car payments than rent back in the day, but they were trying to appear more successful than they were for business reasons. This dude is just delivering burritos.

How young is too young to go to Hooters?

If your kid asked to go to Hooters for their twelfth birthday, would you take them? TikToker Emtmomlife would, did, and posted a video to prove it.

On the one hand, I hear Hooters has good chicken wings, and kids aren’t prohibited from going there, because it’s not like the waitstaff goes topless. On the other, there’s something gross about the idea of the place. It represents values I wouldn’t want my child to adopt, so I’d say “no.” The commenters on the video are divided, with some pointing out, “My mom would have grounded me just [for] asking,” while others say, “My man looks so happy I love it haha.” To balance the scales, emtmomlife posted a video of her son reading the Bible. As directed, he found Jesus!

Future favorite movie: The Summer I Turned Pretty

I like to make predictions about popular culture but I’m usually wrong, but here goes anyway: Many young women are going to respond positively to The Summer I Turned Pretty, and it’s going to end up being a touchstone movie in the lives of girls between the ages of 12 and 16. 

Here are my reason: It’s a spiritual follow-up to Netflix’s successful 2018 movie To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and its sequels. It has a perfect title. It’s out on Prime Video just in time for the beginning of summer. It’s based on a successful YA novel. And, finally: it’s really good. It’s not good in the way that I like movies to be good, but it’s good in the way that normal people like movies to be good (the cast is attractive and talented, the writing is solid. It’s about relatable human emotions, etc.).

What is “Cluttercore?”

I spend my life trying to prevent clutter in my personal space, but certain mad lads and ladies of TikTok are embracing it. They’ve dubbed the decorating style “cluttercore.” The aesthetic combines elements of maximalism with elements of being a damn hoarder. If you’re doing it right, your home should feel like a “warm and cosy antique store,” where your possessions are displayed every which way without apology. There are over 52 million views on the hashtag, filled with videos of rooms that set off all my “get rid of that crap” alarms, like this one, this one, and this one.

Two dumb-but-harmless TikTok trends

There’s too much dumbness going on daily on TikTok to catalog, but here are a couple of stupid things that are currently blowing up on the service.

Viral video of the week: “I’ve Got a HUGE Secret Hiding Behind This Fake Office”

Mark Rober, the guy behind those YouTube glitterbombs and squirrel obstacle courses, has a new engineering project, and it’s pretty amazing. In this week’s viral video, Rober takes you behind the scenes of “Crunch Labs” his new secret laboratory/work space.

If you were ever bored in sixth grade English class and drew your ultimate secret base, you probably drew something like this. The lab is entered through a secret door in an unassuming office, but if you follow the secret passage, it leads to a Willy Wonka like factory complete with a pneumatic system for lowering people between floors, a Nerf gun arsenal, secret rooms hidden behind a soda machine, the world’s longest Hot Wheels track, a tennis ball cannon that can be cranked up high enough to blast tennis balls through drywall (complete with a $10,000 prize if you can hit the bullseye), and way more totally impractical but awesome-to-a-sixth-grader features.