A Guide to Child Culture for Adults Out of Touch With Reality: Taylor Swift Talks About Cringing
This week, heed the advice of America’s greatest living artist and national treasure, Dr. Taylor Swift. We’re also looking at crouching, exploring Poppy ‘s timing, and analyzing Master Chief’s power armor.
Taylor Swift’s advice: “Live with the cringe”
Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift received an honorary doctorate from New York University this week and delivered her acceptance speech to the school’s alumni.
Beginning with a respectful “Hi, I’m Taylor,” Swift told the class of 22, “I’d like to thank NYU for technically, at least on paper, I became a doctor, not the kind of doctor you needed. around in an emergency, unless your particular emergency involves you desperately needing to hear a song with a catchy hook and an intensely cathartic bridge.”
But Swift was quick to agree with the 22nd Grad’s life advice, saying:
“I’ll give you some life hacks that I wish I knew when I first started… Learn to live with the cringe. No matter how hard you try not to cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe in hindsight. Squeaking is inevitable throughout life. Even the term “shrink” may someday be considered shrinkable. I promise you, you are probably doing or wearing something right now that you will look back on later and find disgusting and funny. You can’t avoid it, so don’t try.”
Accept #cringe
Because the world would be a better place if we did everything Taylor Swift tells us, let’s live with the cringe for a bit.
The word “cringe” has been around for a long time, but its use as slang for “secondhand embarrassment” (instead of “recoil in disgust” as the dictionary says) has evolved over time from “terrible,” a term that has become popular on the Internet and in the media. around 2005-2010. Since then, the term cringe has become a commonly understood and widely used term on the internet:r/cringe on Reddit has over 1.3 million followers and spawned many more specific communities of cringers, including r/sadcringe , r/cringepics and r/ . . #cringe has over 23.3 billion plays on TikTok.
So what can we say about the desire of young people to experience, share, laugh, analyze and highlight the embarrassment of others? Some people say: “Look at the cruelty of today’s children! They are all cyberbullies!” But it’s a bunch of crap. Today’s youth differ from past generations only in that they have the Internet. Kids share horrible videos with strangers instead of calling their classmates behind their backs (or to their faces), as you probably did.
Teenagers have always (at least they always meant “since the 1940s”) have been fascinated and frightened by antics, even if they call it something else. Teenagers are notorious for their desperate desire not to look cool, stupid, or awkward in front of their peers – a fate worse than death for a 15-year-old – and always enthusiastically point out someone’s cringe to dismiss their own. Eventually they will grow out of it (I mean, hopefully) and gain the wisdom of Taylor Swift, who advised a class of 22 not to worry about looking stupid and strive to be enthusiastic and sincere rather than studying and being cool. .
Master Chief lost his virginity
Do you know what shrinks? Seeing Master Chief from Halo having sex. But the creators of Paramount’s Halo series did it anyway .
(SPOILER!) In episode 8 of Halo: The Series, available on Paramount+, the Master Chief removes his power armor and descends with Maki, the covenant spy, as Cortona watches. The video game community is outraged and surprised by this scene for a number of reasons:
- According to established Halo lore, Spartan Super Soldiers are chemically castrated , so how can this be canon?
- The Master Chief has always been portrayed as asexual, and heterosexual contact is an asexual erasure .
- “Master Chief” is meant to be an empty suit that viewers can fit into, and most viewers can’t relate to this particular turn of events .
- Maki is a prisoner of war, and the Master Chief is unlikely to take advantage of this imbalance of power .
- It’s all just weird, okay ?
- The Master Chief’s armor tugs at him anyway.
All About Poppy Playtime and Huggy Wuggy Horror
The popularity of the horror game Poppy Playtime has been steadily growing since the first chapter was released in 2021 (the second chapter was released a few weeks ago). If you’re unfamiliar, here’s the info: Poppy Playtime is an indie survival horror game set in an abandoned toy factory where players encounter terrifying animated toys. It joins Five Nights at Freddy’s and other game sub-genres that draw their horror from the seeming innocence of childish stuff.
Poppy Playtime is so successful in scaring people that the authorities intervened! The UK and Wisconsin police, supposedly cracking down on all real crime, warned parents about a game character named “Huggy Waggie” and warned that he could scare children. Did you hear it? The cops say there’s something scary in the horror game! Really earning your wages, officers. Poppy Playtime is available on PC, iOS and Android. You can watch the trailer here.
Viral Video of the Week: She-Hulk Attorney at Law Trailer
How could you not want to watch She -Hulk: Attorney- at-Law? It’s like a rejected sketch from 30 Rock or Saturday Night Live from the 1990s, but real! Marvel’s clever decision to place its characters in offbeat stories that began with WandaVision continues in this Disney+ series about Jennifer Walters, whose already busy life as a lawyer is further complicated by the fact that she sometimes transforms into a giant green female monster. The She-Hulk trailer gives a nice taste of the show’s comedic, self-aware vibe, and YouTube went crazy for it, with over 16 million views on its first day of release. (Admittedly, some of these opinions are from viewers analyzing the dubious choice of using CGI to animate the hulking Jessica .) The series will release on August 17 on Disney+.