A Disengaged Adult’s Guide to Kids’ Culture: Everyone Hates the Minecraft Trailer
This week’s What Young People Are Doing report looks at what happens when the film industry announces a Minecraft movie, the media industry notices a small time trend and what banks do when you steal from them. I’m also watching one of the darkest viral videos ever.
Why does everyone hate the Minecraft movie trailer?
Minecraft is probably the biggest pop culture staple for both Gen Z and Gen A. It came out in 2011 and is still played by around 160 million monthly active players. You’d think that fans of the game would be excited about the release of a live-action Minecraft movie. But this is definitely not the case. At least not this movie.
This week, Warner Bros. released the first trailer for the film “Minecraft” , and many people on the network were interested in it. They hate everything about it – they hate the look, the cast, the whole enchilada: the current likes-to-dislikes ratio for the trailer is 617k likes to 1.3 million dislikes. Ugh.
Here are some YouTube comments about the trailer:
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“It’s like a parody trailer some YouTuber made to show what a stupid idea a Minecraft movie would be.”
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“Are you sure you want to delete this world? This cannot be undone.” Yes.”
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“Aren’t trailers supposed to make you want to see the movie?”
I think the hatred is premature and perhaps unfair. Super Mario Bros. the film connects with the fans by staying true to the game’s look and story, but Minecraft has no story and you can’t realistically make a movie with the game’s low-quality graphics. Thus, it appears that the filmmakers have opted for a look reminiscent of Minecraft, but not pixelated like the 16-bit game , and a formulaic children’s movie plot that has worked since The Wizard of Oz : people from the “real world” are transported into the world fantasies and must learn something about themselves in order to return home. It’s impossible to say whether the film will resonate with its target audience of young children, so maybe gamers should relax.
What is the “airport tray aesthetic”?
Some major news outlets are reporting an emerging trend of image-conscious Gen Z travelers taking photos and videos of their full trays in the airport TSA line and posting them to TikTok, Pinterest and Instagram. They call it the “airport tray aesthetic” and people are pissed off about it. Can’t you imagine some online influencer holding the line while you try to catch your connecting flight? Disturbance!
Except the aesthetics of the airport tray don’t seem to matter much. Like many members of “Gen Z are doing things I don’t approve of!” News reports seem disproportionate to how widespread the practice is: far more people hear about it than people actually do it. Sure, you might find a few posts on TikTok or Pinterest that make elaborate TSA trays sound like some kind of “aren’t I adorable?” flex, but there are not many of them, and they do not have “viral” numbers. In other words, the airport tray aesthetic is another “damn kids get off my lawn!” fake history, outrage bait like the Nyquil chicken , the “slap the teacher” challenge , and a billion other variations on the theme.
What is Dersting and Scrobbling?
The hand-wringing and misrepresentation of online life by the mainstream media does not go unnoticed by internet pranksters. They invented a new copypasta/meme to comment on how the media comments on them. The way it works is you take the phrase “15 year old boy was hospitalized for trying dangerous TikTok trend” and add whatever scary/stupid fake trend you like. Dursting , Scrobbling , Robot Rocking , Weening Out – A 15-year-old boy was hospitalized after attempting each of these dangerous TikTok trends. Very funny, but not as funny as Porcelain Challenge, a parody that got its creator banned from the service.
(To find out the meaning of the real slang words coming out of the mouths of Gen Z and Gen A, check out my ever-expanding slang glossary .)
What is the Chase Glitch?
On September 6, X and TikTok users began posting videos of a “viral free money hack” they called “The Chase Glitch.” Some sources reported that Chase banks allowed customers to withdraw the entire amount of checks immediately after they were deposited; some said you could only withdraw a percentage of the check you deposited. In any case, rumors of “endless money” quickly spread. People allegedly lined up at Chase Banks to deposit bad checks and withdraw money. What could go wrong? A lot actually, because it’s a bank fraud. You can go to jail for this, and the bank will take the money back, plus extra for their troubles.
I believe the vast majority of older people are familiar with check kiting and the potential penalties that come with it. Many young people are learning this the hard way this week: JP Chase released a statement that essentially said, “We’re going to help the police find the people who are stealing from us.”
Viral Video of the Week: SmartSchoolBoy9: The Internet Rabbit Hole
Despite jokes about Dersting, the Internet can indeed be a scary, confusing and dangerous place, as a viral video this week shows.
YouTuber Nick Crowley is one of a growing number of creators exploring the dark side of life and culture: disappearances, degeneration, death—you know the deal. Crowley recently emerged from the dark park, introducing the world to Smart Schoolboy 9, a mysterious, nightmarish man living in the fetid depths of one of the creepiest rabbit holes in the history of the Internet.
Judging by the video, until recently, the person behind SmartSchoolBoy9 (aka true_sticks_11, Girl-chloe12, Stephanieschoolie) operated a number of Instagram accounts where he pretended to be a child or a child’s parent, while warning children and parents about the users. pretending to be children for nefarious purposes. The goal appears to have been interaction with real children, although whether or not this occurred and to what extent cannot be determined.
There’s nothing in Crowley’s video that goes against YouTube’s strict rules, and there’s apparently nothing that can be done about any of Schoolboy’s (now deleted) Instagram accounts, but it all suggests something extremely sinister is lurking in the dark, something scarier than any horror movie I’ve ever seen. I mean, just look at this man:
Ever since Crowley posted the video, internet sleuths have been digging deep into the SmartSchoolBoy9 mystery and trying to connect it to a real person. While I don’t trust the investigative skills of the internet enough to repeat the name of the person they believe is behind these accounts, if the reports are accurate, SmartSchoolBoy9 has been doing what they do since the 1990s.