A Guide to Child Culture for Adults Out of Touch With Reality: Uh, $8,000 “curb Sofa”?

This week, kids commit crimes because of likes, find expensive sofas on the street and sincerely apologize for being too harsh. There is something for everyone.

The growth of “service crimes”

Internet view hunters and influence hounds have invented a new category of crime: welcome to the era of “performance crime.” A performance crime is a criminal act that is done in order to share a video on social media, whether it be people using a software bug they saw on TikTok or YouTube to steal Kias , an internet “prank” that results in a shooting without a draw. , teenagers making videos of themselves entering random houses , a YouTuber causing a plane crash , or political WONDERS filming their betrayal . While authorities everywhere are sounding the alarm about variations on this practice, it actually makes their job a lot easier. Collecting evidence is not difficult when criminals do it for you. For the record, “I filmed the video” is unlikely to be an effective legal defense for criminal charges such as “assault,” “breaking and entering,” or ” destruction and concealment with intent to obstruct a federal investigation .”

What’s the deal with a free $8,000 outdoor sofa?

If you found a sofa on the street, would you drag it home? How about a $8,000 sofa? The issue hit the internet this week when TokTok user @yafavv.mandaa posted a video of his unique New York street find: this designer sofa from Sasha Lakich’s Bubble collection. The sofa was quite dirty, but after a thorough cleaning, she placed it in her living room as if it belonged to her.

The Internet, of course, reacted. Some wondered if it was actually a cheap fake . Some have wondered why anyone would toss something like this in the first place. But the biggest concern was the first thing I thought: what if it has bed bugs? The sofa finder reports that she left the sofa in her father’s warehouse for two weeks as a precaution against potential bed bugs, saying, “If there were bed bugs, we would have seen them!” But she could be wrong, according to Jim Fredericks, senior vice president of the National Pest Management Association: “It might not be worth the risk, in my opinion,” he told NPR .

Bedbugs can hide for a long time even in the most expensive sofa – they can live up to six months without food. Although it is possible to get bed bugs out of furniture, it is not easy, and if you don’t get rid of every single one of them, they will multiply and soon your whole life will be ruined. So far, @yafavv.mandaa has not reported any issues with bed bugs and is generally happy with her new sofa. But who can say what horror the future will bring?

Fear at work

Most members of Gen-Z are not criminals in a performative sense or in any other sense. These are law-abiding nonentities who need a job to buy sofas. They’re just trying to survive in a messed up world they don’t understand. Maybe that’s why I found this TikToker video by @thelizjane so compelling. In it, she explains that she has taken a new job and “everything I do seems so embarrassing”. Like anyone in a new job, she doesn’t know where everything is or how to do things. But unlike you or me, she seems to care.

It’s easy to forget what it was like. When you’ve had a billion shitty gigs, you get wise (or at least jaded) and realize you have to milk without knowing how something works for as long as possible. But when you have clear eyes and still think it all matters, it’s hard. So this is a public service announcement for all the badass motherfuckers to be really nice to everyone who’s just starting out. It’s the right thing to do, and it’ll pay off when he’s your boss six months from now.

Do you distribute “beige flags”?

We all know what red flags mean in the dating world – clear signs that you should stay away from someone. Green flags are also easy to understand. But have you heard of “beige flags”?

There are two definitions of the beige flag. In the #Beigeflag hashtag, the term describes something like a minor red flag, but one that you find weirdly cute. Examples include the boyfriend who calls suddenly ripping off torn underwear a ” big reveal “, calls your girlfriend “King” because of her Elvis eyebrows , or simply never knows the plan .

The second definition of the term, coined byCaitlin MacPhail , is both funnier and more useful: a person throws out beige flags if they are too boring. There is nothing wrong with them, but they are basic. They are average. They are beige . Examples of beige flags are things like including “going to the gym” as a hobby in a dating profile. Or a profile that mentions The Office , “foodie” or “adventurous”. These are all beige flags.

Viral Video of the Week: “I miss the old idubbbz”

YouTube can be a heartless place. While no one person is responsible for the exceptionally cold-blooded and rude culture of the world’s largest video-sharing site, Ian ‘iDubbbz’ Jomha definitely had a hand in it. But this week, the longtime culture maker apologized. In a widely shared video, Idubbbz said, “I made violent and offensive content and I have to admit it and I’m so sorry.”

There is nothing fake about the video; it’s not a half-apology or an apology. This is the real thing. “In many of my videos, I was very bigoted and I justified it because I didn’t think it was too serious… but random racism is still racism. Random fanaticism remains fanaticism,” Idubbs said. “It doesn’t matter what my intentions were. If I hurt people, I hurt people,” he added.

Many of Idubbbz’s over 7 million subscribers enjoyed his “Content Cop” series, in which he criticized other YouTube creators, often viciously, and inspired legions of his fans to campaign harassment by denying he could do anything about hate. received by his targets. . In keeping with his new attitude, iDubbbz delisted all of these videos and even took credit for what his followers did.

iDubbbz gained popularity when the Internet (and YouTube in particular) was going through a particularly “abrupt” phase, but it lingered long enough to see it play out and also grew up enough to get some personal insights. He’s working on empathy, and if a professional bastard lord like Idubbbs can find a redemption, maybe it’s possible for any of us.