A Guide to Children’s Culture for Out-of-Touch Adults: What Are Brawl Stars?
This week I’ll start with a review of Brawl Stars . I know the game has been out for a long time, but if you’re like me a few days ago, you have no idea what it is. It seems that without our knowledge, this mobile game has become so widespread among the youth that the obsession with it has become almost universal. Meanwhile, adding green onions to coffee and flying on airplanes are still much more niche activities. Read on to find out all about it all.
Everyone plays Brawl Stars , but what is Brawl Stars ?
I was talking to my child the other day about the lack of social experience in modern culture. I thought I was wise to point out that there are no longer as many unifying things in pop culture as Star Wars or Nirvana that everyone either likes or is at least familiar with. He said: “It’s not true. I can walk up to any kid, anywhere, and say, “Do you want to play Brawl Stars ?” And their phone breaks down.”
So here’s the thing with Brawl Stars : it’s a cartoonish multiplayer online battle arena game where teams of three players fight each other under a variety of different sets of rules. It’s available on both Android and iPhone and is free to play, but you can purchase cosmetic upgrades with real money. There are a reported 376 million registered users (for reference, Nirvana’s Nevermind sold 30 million copies). Brawl Stars was created by the Finnish company Supercell and published in 2018. To sum it up: it’s Angry Birds, but for now.
What is “Man-game” ?
Unlike Brawl Stars , Man the Game is not actually a game. Or it wasn’t until someone turned it into one. The title and concept are taken from the “brain rot” meme created by TikToker @alexlussy, which explores the nostalgia that a person living in 2027 might feel for 2025. One of the things they’re nostalgic for is a PS5 game called Man the Game . The original poster included cover art for both the original game and the eventual sequels, but did not include any details.
Naturally, TikTokers began to support the idea, and people began posting reviews and editorials about the controversy surrounding Man the Game 9, essentially creating a fictional mini-universe in which the game exists. It also inspired the actual point-and-click game Man the Game , which can be played online . (Spoiler: it’s really stupid.)
So what does this all mean? Nothing special – school is over, so young people have a lot of free time. But if you want to dive deeper, here’s more information .
People are putting onions in their coffee and it needs to stop.
There’s a new trend on TikTok where people are spicing up their iced lattes with green onions. Basic recipe: Mix milk, espresso, ice and a generous portion of green onions, then drink it all! (Shudders.)
While green onions add nutritional value to the drink, they taste decidedly unappetizing, but maybe that’s the point. The drink supposedly originated in China, where it is part of a larger “dark cuisine” trend that combines foods in unusual ways, such as chicken wings with blue soda. According to TikToker, dark kitchens are often used as a way to curb people’s appetite and help them lose weight. Mission accomplished—I’m sure I’d take one sip of onion coffee and throw the rest in the trash—but if you eliminated the milk and onions from the cold brew coffee to begin with, it would taste great and contain no harmful substances. calories, so I’m not sure this logic works. I’m not going to try it anyway, but some people on TikTok have tried it and the reviews are mixed. Some people “don’t hate it,” others say , “I can’t even feign any redeeming qualities. It’s horrible”.
Travel Trend: Flying on Planes
It’s hard to say how widespread this TikTok trend really is, but some people are bragging online about “rough” long plane flights, i.e. sitting without headphones, no movies, no books, no nothing. They just look at the flight map and wait . Some even specifically reserve a middle seat.
The aggressive music choices in most of these TikTok videos coupled with their braggadocious tones beg the question, “Am I not hardcore?” vibes that indicate this could all be a joke, but even so, it’s also an interesting look at the cultural reaction to the availability of things meant to distract and entertain us. My first reaction upon hearing this was a complete “this is stupid” but I thought about it a little more and I’m not sure. Bragging about sitting on a plane without at least reading a book may seem like a pathetic perversion, but lately, both online and offline, there’s been a lot of focus on what we’re actually doing when we’re not doing anything. How do the supposed dopamine hits we get from video games or social media affect us, and what are we missing out on when we turn to them at every opportunity?
It may seem like we don’t have much to lose on a plane, but the chance to do literally nothing is rare. Before seatback entertainment centers, smartphones and tablets, airplanes forced this on us. You’re alone with your thoughts, which used to be the default state for almost everyone, almost all the time, but now there’s something to brag about, name, and, I guess, post about on social media so others don’t have to be alone with their thoughts.
Viral video of the week: “I made the most powerful football boots in the world”
This week we have a viral video from YouTuber I Did a Thing , and it’s part of one of my favorite online video genres: crazy engineering. In these videos, people make the kind of ridiculous inventions you might have dreamed about in class, like a ceiling fan with machete blades or an insanely dangerous giant beyblade . In this case, I Did a Thing is trying to create the most powerful football boots in the world . His plan is to create a gun that uses blank cartridges to force a steel finger to push a football faster than anyone could kick it.
It’s a potentially lethal project, and it’s probably illegal in many jurisdictions, but I Did a Thing hails from Australia and has a delightfully laid-back construction style. He is not the kind of craftsman who creates perfectly designed gadgets (like the father of the genre, Marc Robert ); I Did a Thing makes a lot of mistakes, rarely measures anything, and often gets injured when testing its gadgets. His projects rarely work out the way he planned and they usually end up a mess, but damn, he tries . I relate to his methods and the monsters he creates because they remind me of too many of my own projects.