The Out of Touch Adults' Guide to Kid Culture: What Does 'TLPUR' Mean?

A weekly deep dive into the current trends, slang, and viral videos of youth culture in terms that even the squarest can understand.

This week's trip into the hall-of-mirrors of modern youth culture features a new piece of post-meaning slang, another poisonous dispatch from the incel parts of the internet, a German earworm going viral, and the return of tanning without worry or necessary fear.

What does "TLPUR" mean?

This mysterious acronym #tlpur started showing up recently in comment sections wherever younger people hang out. No one really knows where it started, and what it means depends on who you ask. Some say TLPUR stands for "True Love Pills Until Rope." Some say it means "The Lookspill Proves Us Right." Some say it means "Too Late for Puberty." But what does it really mean? It doesn't mean anything. The idea is to make up what it means to anyone who asks. It's an in-group signifier, or, as the kids say, IYKYK. This video sums it up:

But there's a deeper level to TLPUR. As the acronym took off, more and more people started posting repetitive, vaguely hypnotic videos about TLPUR set to an old Weezer song, like this:

... and offering more abstract definitions in the comment sections like, "TLPUR is essentially when belle delphine hand sticker" and "Tlpur is essentially 808." Check out KnowYourMeme's dive into this topic if you want to go further in-depth.

(For more definitions of words only young people use—both with and without meanings—check out Lifehacker's glossary of Generation Z and Generation A slang.)

What is a "D1 crashout"?

As previously discussed in this column, a crashout is an intense, angry, emotional outburst. "D1 crashout" borrows college sports terminology and refers to an elite, epic crashout.

What's up with the "Top 5 horror movies" trend?

When someone says "top 5 horror movies," I say, "Texas Chainsaw, The Shining, The Innocents, The Wicker Man, and Hereditary," but it means something different to the kids. They're noting real-life anxieties and minor inconveniences, setting them to a melancholy snippet of Katy Perry's "The One That Got Away," and posting videos under the #top5horrormovies tag. These videos give a glimpse into the collective psyche of Gens Z and A. They cast all kinds of things that aren't even momentarily concerning to older cats, like "not knowing what's for dinner" and "having to make a decision," as the worst horrors imaginable. It really highlights how dramatic people can be before they face actual horror, like "cancer" and "werewolf attacks."

What is a "hiplet"?

Many of the videos posted under the top 5 horror movies tag simply list "men" five times, and the rise of the word "hiplet" helps explain why. "Hiplet" is slang for a woman who has "hip dips," i.e., women who have inward curves on their outer thighs just below the hip bone. According to the lore (courtesy of the angry incel parts of the internet) hiplets aren't dating material, as you can see in this video:

What's really going on here is that some dudes are mad that some women say they prefer dating taller men, so they're trying to create a similar category for women. It's the opposite of organic. They're making videos trying to spread the popularity of the term as well as to make sure women know they're seen this way.

It doesn't seem to be working, however. The response from the internet's young women is mostly sarcastic dismissal, as you can see in this video:

Ultimately, there are two losers here: 1) angry dudes on the internet (as always) and 2) the Hiplet Ballerinas, who shouldn't be associated with this nonsense.

What is "tanmaxxing"?

Despite decades of dermatological warnings, more and more teens are tossing their skincare routines out the window for the summer. Tanmaxxers track peak UV indexes and bake in the sun intentionally without sunscreen and/or use heavy tanning oils to get as dark as possible as quickly as possible.

Most tanmaxxer content is videos of people lying in the sun doing nothing, but because it's the post-truth age, there are videos appearing questioning whether the sun is actually harmful.

These young people need to hang around places like Florida and San Diego and take a look at the older locals with faces like catcher's mitts to get some perspective. Apart from the health and aesthetics, making "I lie around in the sun a lot" your whole personality is a little suspect.

On the positive side, so far, I haven't seen any evidence of a return of those mirrors that people used to use to reflect even more sunlight onto their faces, but I imagine that's coming soon.

Viral video of the week: Du bist gut genug

Unlike TLPUR, "Du Bist Gut Genug" actually means something, and it has nothing to do with similar-sounding slang "dah bih gah." Du bist gut genug is German for "You are good enough."

German duo Blumengarten released the song "Gut Genug" a few weeks ago. It's a pretty good song with a pretty good message:

Younger people didn't really notice, though, until Tiktoker @justlove_161 stripped out the chorus and posted a video:

Million of people watched it and its inspired funny remix videos:

and it's quickly becoming a reaction meme in videos like this:

and this: