A Guide to Children’s Culture for Out-of-Touch Adults: “The Department of Tortured Poets”
Taylor Swift released a new album this week. Although the singer is 34 years old (almost middle age), her music speaks directly to young people, and they reciprocate. Less popular young people are becoming big fans of a Chinese industrial chemical company. Read on and I’ll explain why.
The Internet reacts to Taylor Swift’s book “The Department of Tortured Poets”
The Department of Martyred Poets report came out this week, and people have their opinions . Swift’s 11th studio album offers 31 new songs to listen to, dissect, love or hate. Critics are almost unanimous in their praise, but are they intimidated by this? Paste magazine gave Tay-Ty’s latest book a bad review, but did not include a byline in their post “due to the fact that in 2019, when Paste wrote a review of The Lover , the writer received death threats from readers who disagreed with work.”
Fans also seem to like the new album, but some of Swift’s lyrics are mildly controversial. First, there’s a line from “I Hate It Here”: “My friends used to play a game where/ We’d pick a decade/ We’d like to live in this place/ I’d say the 1830s, but without all the racists . This has led some to speculate that Swift is secretly racist, a popular topic among far-right assholes. Truth: In context, this phrase is not objectionable.
There’s also the line “You wouldn’t last an hour in the orphanage where I was raised” from “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Man Me.” Some have pointed out that Swift’s father was a bank president and she grew up in an upper-middle class family, as if that was a huge “mistake.” But this is art; come on. Some critics also take issue with this line from “So High School”: “You can play, I know Aristotle/New kid, full throttle/Touch me while your brothers play Grand Theft Auto ,” pointing out that Swift is 34 of the year. years old, and it’s not that funny. But this is a song about high school. (Now that I’ve defended Taylor Swift, I intend to use her fans as my personal army, because they owe me one.)
Why is TikTok obsessed with “food grade glycine”?
This is one of those jokes that can be broken down with an explanation, so before I spoil it, I’ll wait for you to watchChinese production company Donghua Junlong’s TikTok . A chemical company recently created an account to post fun videos about the many uses of glycine, an amino acid. There’s something about them that appeals to TikTok’s tongue-in-cheek audience, with videos like ” Strong Piglets Start with a High Quality Iron Glycine Supplement!” And the article ” Food Glycine: Essential for Everyday Life ” went slightly viral, with Donghua Junlong employees posting hundreds of hilarious comments about their admiration for the company and the food glycine it produces. (See how my explanation makes the joke less funny?) Fans began posting fan videos . This guy visited the factory . Here is an interesting answer from a Chinese woman about local cultural exchange.
In the end, the company noticed this attention and recently published a video specifically for fans . They seem happy but embarrassed by the attention, which likely means the trend is over as future Donghua Junlong videos will be created with this new audience in mind and will likely lose their appeal to outsiders.
Watcher Entertainment is the latest exodus of the old guard YouTuber
This week, popular YouTubers Steven Lim, Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej, founders of Watcher Entertainment, announced that the channel is leaving YouTube for greener pastures on the subscription-based platform . Fans greeted the news with a chorus of disappointment, prompting the company to announce that it was not leaving YouTube after all, but would instead post videos on YouTube a month after they were posted on its subscription site.
Watcher helped develop and popularize the professionally produced style that defines YouTube in 2024, with popular series like The Ghost Files and Puppet Story. His half-departure is just the latest exodus of “old guard” content creators. Stars with multimillion-dollar subscribers such asPewdiepie , Tom Scott , MeatCanyon , MatPat , Seth Everman and others have recently left YouTube. The reasons vary, but the most common theme in the “I’m outie” videos I’ve watched is simple: “I am.” Tired.” Creating, maintaining and promoting a popular video channel has always been a 24-hour job, but the market is more competitive than ten years ago, meaning more work for less money. This is due to YouTube’s ability to arbitrarily demonetize videos and/or change its own recommendation algorithm whenever it wants, and being a “YouTube influencer” becomes an unstable and stressful job that makes you burn out if you’re over 20.
The rise of AI-generated parody music
I’d like to say that art created by artificial intelligence is terrible and irredeemable, but on several YouTube channels I reluctantly admit that artificial intelligence can create funny parody music – maybe. Obscurest Vinyl uses artificial intelligence to create dirty songs in old school music genres. “ I Glued Balls to My Ass Again ” and “ This Baptism Fucking Blows ” are rough, but they’re fun. “There I Ruined” Requires a different beat and uses artificial intelligence to “ruin the music you love” by approximating it would sound as if Elvis Presley covered “I Like Big Butts” , The Beach Boys sang ” 99 Problems ” or NWA played at Octoberfest . I don’t like that this music is funny, but I can’t deny that it made me laugh (or). at least snorted). On the other hand, attempts to dig deeper into the genre reveal that copycat AI covers are almost always bad , so the AI doesn’t give us a “be funny” button, the humor still depends on the person creating; the joke, not the artificial intelligence that helps tell it. But if I were Weird Al Yankovic, I’d be worried.
Viral video of the week: Deadpool and Wolverine trailer
Things aren’t really “breaking the internet” like they used to, but if they did, the Deadpool and Wolverine trailer would turn the place into rubble. In just the first day of its existence, this team from the Marvel Universe has received more than 21 million views on YouTube. It seems like the film will be an “Odd Couple” superhero story, with the dark Wolverine serving as a foil to the wisdom of Deadpool. The increased interest in Deadpool and Wolverine , as well as similar reactions to the teaser for DC’s Joker: Folie à Deux released a few weeks ago, suggests that the superhero genre may not be as dead as some suggest . Instead, audiences seem to be tired of “traditional” superhero stories like Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and Marvels, but remain interested in popular characters presented in new ways. It is impossible to determine whether any of these films will live up to the pre-release hype. Hitting the artistic/commercial bullseye by placing a comic book hero in an unfamiliar context seems a lot harder than pulling off yet another formulaic movie, but even if they don’t work, at least the resulting movies will be interesting failures.