Childhood Culture Guide for Adults: Lady Dimitrescu and Silhouettes
This week’s trip to the hidden land of young people includes a whole host of internet accidents. I’m going to define slang, tell you how perverts mess things up on the web, and introduce you to an internet star who rose to fame while she slept. All this plus a nine-foot vampire toddler.
Basic slang for out-of-communication adults
Trying to define children’s slang is a thankless task. It is not a language that is meant for you and me to understand and use, we never get it right, and once we try it we will look like neo maxi zoom weaklings. So, even if you should never use any of the words below, here’s how kids jargon on social media these days:
CEO : While for children, CEO means the “CEO” of a corporation, the CEO as a whole is the boss. So you can be the CEO of makeup or Fortnite .
PFP : Profile Picture. (I don’t know why it’s not just “PP”, just accept it.)
Simp : Popular with guys who want to humiliate each other, it means something like “a desperate guy who will do anything to please a girl” or even just “loser.”
Stan : Used as both a verb and a noun, “Stan” means a fan, either overly obsessed or just a very big fan.
Sweaty : In gaming culture, sweaty refers to someone who takes things too seriously: “We’re trying to play the casual game Among Us, and this sweaty attempt is acting like it’s the end of the world.”
Wig : Similar to the old school slang “flip your wig”, answering someone just “wig” means something like, “I’m so impressed that my wig fell off.”
Yit : A universal word that usually means something like “fly away quickly.” Like, “When the cops showed up at the party, the kids got discouraged from there.” It also means throwing and can be a universal expression of energy or arousal.
This Week in Horrific Male Behavior: Silhouette Challenge
Men are a mistake. I was going to write about a new trend that TikTokers are using called silhouette challenge , where users shoot clips of them dancing and posing in front of a doorway and then use a red video filter that combines them into a silhouette. It was a fun, sexy and maybe even inspirational trend … until the slimy guys spoiled it.
As soon as the problem became popular, creeps began posting tutorials on YouTube and Reddit explaining how to change the settings in these videos to essentially remove the filter by exposing users’ bodies without their consent, so almost everyone stopped doing it.
Creepy guys on the internet, we need to talk: you had a perfectly acceptable and fun way to stare at TikTok users with their consent and convenience, and you went and screwed up for everyone. You could just leave a comment like “You’re awesome!” and continued the day with you. But noooo, I should have ruined everything. Please do not do this in the future. Also: nobody likes you.
This week in terrible apartments
I live on a sprawling platinum estate on a private tropical island that’s also made of platinum, but I remember my post-college days in cramped, hideous apartments that I could barely afford. If you’re looking for some of that anti-nostalgia, or just want to see how awful it is for young people, check out @ Newyorkcityrealtor ‘s video about the worst apartment he’s ever seen.
Your potential new home in New York’s West Village is renting out for $ 1,650 a month – a single room the size of a prison cell, no stove, no oven, and one tiny closet. No bathroom: you will share a toilet in the hallway with the rest of the apartment building, and if you want to take a shower, it is in another room in the hallway that you will also live in. So it’s almost like a county jail, no free meals.
Viral Videos of the Week: Hilarious Sleepwalking
It is so easy to get famous on the Internet that you can do it in your dreams. Just ask Ontario, Canada’s Celina Myers, whose TikTok, @Celinaspookyboo, exploded over her hilarious and terrifying sleepwalking antics.
Selina’s rise to fame began in December when she posted a video of herself at a hotel. After sleepwalking, she woke up in the hallway, naked and locked outside her room. After more than five million people watched videos from the hotel, Myers realized the entertaining potential of her sleep disorder, so she installed night vision cameras inside and outside her home and began posting videos of her antics in the middle of the night. Myers is fun when awake, but even more fun when asleep. She tosses beer cans on the lawn , fights a stuffed octopus, and otherwise legitimizes her dreams. Check out her TikTok to see what I mean.
This Week In Video Games: Tall Vampire Steals Blood, Hearts
Gaming Internet is in love. The object of their obsession is Lady Dimitrescu, a mysterious female vampire who will appear in the upcoming horror game Resident Evil Village from Capcom.
Here’s what we know about the new girl in the gaming world: her style is a cross between gothic and 1940s heiress, including a stylish hat, loose curls, a stylish pearl necklace and a long cigarette holder. She lives in a scary old mansion with her two killer daughters. She has retractable claws like Freddy Krueger and is nine and a half feet tall.
Resident Evil Village won’t be out until May 7th, so the only look we have at Dimitrescu is the recentResident Evil Village trailer , but that hasn’t stopped the internet from crushing it. Fan art , fan theories and lady Dimitrescu cosplay are everywhere. Go to #LadyDimitrescu on Twitter to see an endless stream of high-glorious offerings to female vampires.