The Out-of-Touch Adults' Guide to Kid-Culture: What Exactly Is 'Elden Ring'?

This week, I’m answering important questions, like “which is cooler, Star Wars or Star Trek,” “What the hell is Elden Ring,” and “Can you just, like, move into your cubicle?” But most importantly: “Are there more doors or wheels?”

What is Elden Ring, and why should I care?

If you’re too busy with your “job,” “social life,” or “family” to know what Elden Ring is, let me explain: Elden Ring is a just-released action-role-playing game that everyone is playing. Literally everyone.

This deep, difficult, but very rewarding game features a massive open-world setting and a distinct lack of hand-holding. Created by FromSoftware, the company that brought us the Dark Souls games, Elden Ring was directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki and written (at least in part) by George R.R. Martin of Game of Thrones fame. Gamers and critics are hailing it as a masterpiece, with some going as far as calling it the greatest video game ever made. (My capsule review: The starting area is amazing, but I can’t get past Margit, The Fell Omen to see the rest of it.)

Are there more doors or wheels?

Having presumably settled the matter of whether it’s better to fight a horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses, the Internet has a new imponderable: Are there more wheels or door on planet Earth? And just when I think I have a handle on answer, it changes.

I’m like, “Well, there’s all the cars, so wheels.” But then I realize, cars actually have more doors than wheels, if you include the trunk and the glovebox. So it’s doors. But then, what about all the bicycles? Wheels. But what about all the kitchen cabinets? Door. But then, toys have so many damn wheels. I’m going to lock myself in a small room and watch every TikTok video on this to arrive at an answer. See you in about 12 years.

How did Squidward die?

As kids, we identify with the goofed-out optimism and energy of SpongeBob Squarepants, but as we get older and life crushes any trace of joy in our hearts, we start to identify with his melancholic friend, Squidward. This is happening, in a twisted way, in real time, on TikTok.

A new trend gaining steam is googling “How did Squidward Die” and watching one of the fan-made, very depressing videos that result, then posting a before-and-after reaction video at #howdidsquidwarddie. A product of the “creepy pasta” world, these Squidward-suicide videos are part of a subgenre of web-horror that mines cherished childhood programming for unexpected horror. My favorite is that classic of the genre, Candle Cove.

Can you just move into your cubicle?

While many digital workers are reticent to return to their offices after years of work-from-home, TikTok user Calm Simon has the opposite problem. He’s moved into his cubicle at work.

“They do not pay me enough to do both,” he explains in a video, “so as a matter of protest, I am just going to live at my job. We’ll see how long I can get away with this.”

My first thought was that this is fake, but a video that details Simon’s interaction with a clearly surprised cleaning crew in the middle of the night at least seems genuine, and so does the email he received from management. It’s the way they don’t come right out and say, “You can’t live in your cubicle,” but instead ask him to take down the video evidence. That’s so H.R.

Update: In the minutes between when I wrote this and when I edited it, Calm Simon posted a video of his “eviction.” He lasted four days (if this is real).

Viral videos of the Week: Which is cooler, Star Wars or Star Trek?

The age-old battle of Star Trek vs. Star Wars continues this week on the bloody battlefield of YouTube. In the Star Wars corner, there’s a teaser for Obi-Wan Kenobi, an upcoming, six-episode series coming to Disney+ on May 25. Obi-Wan Kenobi is set in the years before Star Wars: A New Hope, when Obi-Wan was hiding from the Empire on Tatooine under the name “Ben Kenobi.” (I would have changed my last name too, but I’m no Jedi.)

In the Star Trek corner, there’s a teaser for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, a new series that promises a return to the standalone-episode format of the original Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Bakula. New Worlds even features Captain Christopher Pike, who, as we all know, was the captain in the scrapped pilot for the original Star Trek back in 1964—oh, you didn’t know that? Nerd.

Anyway, both trailers were released on March 9, and, even though Star Trek is a clearly superior franchise, Kenobi has nearly 9 million views compared to Strange New World’s relatively paltry 1.5 mil.