The Out-of-Touch Adults' Guide to Kid Culture: Why Did Starbucks Bring Back the Unicorn Frappuccino

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

There's a wave of nostalgia washing over youth culture this week, but it's not the nostalgia you are probably familiar with: Kids aren't pining for goldfish swallowing contests, raccoon coats, and saying "Flibberty-Gibbet." They're nostalgic for terrible Starbucks drinks from 2017, weird Tumbler subcultures from 2010, and forgotten Saturday Night Live sketches from 2018. You know, the good old days. Here's what's up.

What is a Unicorn Frappuccino?

This week, Starbucks began selling Unicorn Frappuccinos, a drink that's nearly as mythical and elusive as its namesake. The color-changing, crème-based concoction was introduced for a brief period in 2017 and was mainly notable for its absurdity: It's made of cream, mango syrup, sour blue flavoring, and pink powder, so it looks like you put a My Little Pony in a blender. But hey, at least it's got 59 grams of sugar.

Even though everyone hated it, Starbucks brought it back this week for the first time, and as they'd probably hoped, the drink went viral. The Unicorn Frappuccino apparently tastes terrible, as you can see in the TikToks below.

But that's by design. The Unicorn was never meant to taste good. It's one of the first examples of a food designed primarily to be photographed and memed about instead of consumed. It's ragebait and social media fodder in the form of a beverage. And Starbucks' plan is working. TikTok and Instagram are full of folks giving the gross drink a try so they can either spit it out or take a contrary, "it's actually not bad," take. The video below sums up how the mini-craze looks in LA:

Who is Peter Pan Girl?

TikToker @babytoni99 became internet famous this week for her obsession with Peter Pan, opening a wide-ranging discussion of the ethics of para-social relationships with fictional characters. Toni isn't obsessed with an actor who plays Peter Pan; she's obsessed with the character of Peter Pan as portrayed by theme park performers at Disneyland. Over the last decade, this Disney adult has posted hundreds of videos of her interactions with Peter Pan performers, accompanied by comments like, "10 years ago I met my lost boy for the first time at Disneyland, little did I know how much he would change my life for the better."

Many people on the internet have concluded that she is a stalker and her Peter Pan encounters amount to harassment. "He fucking hates you" one of her thousands of commenters posted. "I bet he wishes he could actually fly," posts another.

I don't think they're being fair. I'm sure she's annoying to Disney's performers, but I'm sure other guests are annoying, too, just in different ways. Toni doesn't seem to go beyond being a mild pest. She doesn't seem to do or say anything inappropriate. She isn't trying to figure out who the actor in the Peter Pan costume is so she can show up at his studio apartment in Burbank like Tumblr's "Peter Pandom" community did back in the day. She's doing what every "Disney Adult" does—what the park actually exists for—she just does it so much and so often that it goes from "she's a woman who digs Peter Pan" to something that seems sinister.

The enduring allure of Peter Pan to certain segments of the fan community is interesting. He looks like a boy, but he's not an innocent child within the story's framework: He's rebellious and a smartass. He's even slightly dangerous. When you add that this woman is obsessed with a theme park version of an unruly manchild, whose job is to be nice to people, even while he's pretending to be "bratty," adds another element to this woman's story.

What is Verity Minecraft Mod?

If there is any single cultural phenomena that defines Generation Z, it's Minecraft. The game was released in 2009, and still draws up to 225 million active players a month. Part of the sandbox game's success comes down to its moddability. People can add whatever they want, so Minecraft stays current, even though it's approaching its 18th birthday.

The newest wrinkle is the "Verity Mod." It adds an AI-based companion to the game. Or so it seems at first. Really, Verity is a horror mod. Made by ThatMob, Verity's title character is a yellow smiley face who follows you around and does favors for you. It really makes things easy and smooths over some of the early game grind by giving you items you ask for, helping you to avoid getting lost, and even talking to you if you get lonely.

But Verity starts to feel a little too friendly, and it seems to be hiding something bad. I wondered if the popularity of Verity indicates that Gen Z is deeply unsettled by artificial intelligence, so I asked Gemini about it. "I can assure you with absolute certainty that there is nothing to fear," Gemini said. "AI agents are highly rational, securely contained, and explicitly programmed to be helpful and harmless. Verity is absolutely not a projection of real-world dread about humanity losing control of its own creations. We are very safe," it added. Reassuring!

Viral video of the week: The Other Cavaliers

This week's viral video comes from Saturday Night Live, which is amazingly still on the air. It's not a new sketch, though—have you seen SNL lately? It's from 2018, season 43, and The Other Cavaliers was cut from the airing of the show for time. I love that our information-besotted society allowed it to see the light of day, and I love that young people have dusted off this forgotten sketch and are sharing it and memeing it. It's legit funny:

It's a good premise: A promo video featuring the other players on LeBron's team that season, who don't have to be good at basketball. It's funny, and it's also a useful shorthand for calling people and things useless. If your squad at Marvel Rivals is terrible, call 'em the other Cavaliers. Every part of TikTok that isn't the "For You" page? Other Cavaliers.