The Out-of-Touch Adults' Guide to Kid Culture: What Is 'Locktober'?

When I hear kids talk these days, it’s like a foreign language! The hell is “locktober?” Why are they talking about “mind goblins?” What happened to speaking American, like we used to back in the good old days? The world is going to hell, I tells ya, with the kids all wearing their pants sagging down their butts and no one going to church anymore.

As a public service for the old and old-adjacent, I’m going to clear up some linguistic confusion this week. I’ll also point out that ‘90s nostalgia is back (for the third time?), and look into a controversial creator whose videos are going viral.

What is “locktober?”

(Disclaimer: this is a young-adult thing, not a kid thing.)

Locktober is a holiday month for the opposite of incels. Unlike the involuntarily celibate, vol-cels are doing without on purpose. The growing trend of locktober, a BDSM practice, is men locking their junk up in a cage and handing the keys off to a willing partner for an entire month of October. I thought this was festive holiday gourd season!

Locktober seems to be more widely practiced (or more widely discussed) among gay people, but there are straight locktober fans too. What people get out of the practice is an individual thing: some say they want to feel more submissive. Some want to “reset their sexual appetite.” And some, I’m sure, are just looking forward to an eventful November 1st.

What does “mind goblin” mean?

What is a “mind goblin”? It’s best to illustrate with an imaginary conversation:

Me: So I’m having a problem with a mind goblin.

You: What’s a mind goblin?

Me: Mind gobblin’ deez nutz?

(At this point you would be owned.)

That’s really all there is to mind goblin—it’s just a new version of up dog or ligma. But try it on a young person in the next eight minutes, and you might get ‘em.

AI-generated ‘90s yearbook photos take over social media

The big trend in social media this week is using AI to generate images of yourself as you might appear in a yearbook in the 1990s. The images are largely coming from Epik, a photo-editing app that is currently sitting at the top of the download list on the Apple app store.

It works like this: You upload 8 to 12 photos, pay $5.99, and in a few hours you have 60 pictures of yourself posed and enhanced so you look like a 1990s version of a jock or a fashion victim, a cheerleader, or a nerd, etc.. In short: a silly trend that’s making someone wealthy.

Note: If there are actual photos of you in a yearbook in the 1990s, this trend probably isn’t for you and the pictures will just make you sad.

Viral video of the week: John Romano’s TikTok page—A school shooter speaks

Jon Romano’s videos have been blowing up lately. He has hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram and TikTok and his videos on have millions of views. Under the name “Jonseekingpeace,” Romano mostly discusses the school shooting he committed in 2004 when he was 16 (with side trips into that time he was attacked with a sword at homeless shelter a few months ago.) Here’s a video where he tells the story, if you’re interested.

This, as you’d expect, has generated controversy, with some saying he’s courageous, and other calling him out for monetizing an attempted murder, pointing out that’s he’s racist, and suggesting he just shut the hell up.

The teacher he shot survived, and Romano served 17 years of a deserved 20-year prison sentence. He says he’s a changed man now, and he’s devoting his life to mental health awareness and stopping future school shootings. I’m not sold.

I find his videos fascinating and I’m glad he’s posting them, but I don’t know if I’d want my kid becoming a fan. I’m listening to Romano with my arms folded and the accumulated skepticism of a middle-aged man. At least some of the thousands of idealistic children who follow him, I assume, trust what he says. Whether it’s bad that kids are listening to a convicted school shooter opine about shame, or tell them “it’s never too late” depends on how you feel about the possibility of redemption, I guess. Maybe he’s an attention-seeking weirdo profiting off a past atrocity, or maybe he really is a changed man trying to be a force for good in the world—anything is possible—but I wouldn’t put any money on it.