An Out-of-Touch Adult’s Guide to Children’s Culture: Is It Wrong to Beat a Robot?
On this week’s journey into the cultural zeitgeist of people too young to rent cars, I explain why everyone is arguing about robot abuse, take a look at TikTok’s niche subculture of sticks, and explain why you should never say “sigh, name the cuffs” ” on video. All this, plus warnings about dangerous TikTok trends and a look at glitching.
Viral Video of the Week: Kai Senate Buys a Robot for $70,000
Hugely popular YouTube and Twitch streamer Kai Chenath may have doomed humanity with a viral video this week. In a recent livestream, Senate and his friends unbox and assemble a humanoid robot that cost Senate $70,000. The video begins with a fun demonstration of impressive and creepy technology. But for some, things turn sinister. Soon after Kai and company pick up the robot and start walking, they start attacking, kicking, punching and pushing it. Here is a link to the relevant part of the video . At some point it seems that the poor guy is trying to escape.
The Internet responded with a debate over whether the mocking of a humanoid machine was a sign of something disturbing or just plain fun. As Ian Miles Cheong said on X:
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Overall, I think the video is funny and harmless. The robot is not human and not intelligent, so there is no cruelty here. I don’t think it reveals anything dark about the people in the video either, any more than shooting “people” in a video game reveals that you’re secretly a killer. But I still understand why it upsets some people. I can’t help but sympathize with the poor little robot, even though I know my compassion is misplaced. It’s our nature to personalize things, and this robot looks so helpless.
It’s easy to write off this particular video, but since machines are (probably) on the verge of something like consciousness, we may soon have to decide what rights they have and what responsibilities we have regarding how we treat them . That’s why I always say “Thank you” to Siri; perhaps she will remember this later and save my life. However, the Senate is finished.
Welcome to Stiktok
I love that TikTok has a corner for every possible niche interest, like finding a cool stick and saying, “That looks like a sword!” This is what the kids on Sticktok andSticknation do. They find cool sticks! Sticks for hunched gnomes,
sticks for breaking things,
magic wands,
and any other stick you can imagine. If you like sticks, you can find your people here . This is a much cheaper way to get some views than buying a $70,000 robot.
What is “gliking”?
I remember people talking about glycation – the spraying of saliva directly from under the tongue, often during a yawn – when I was in high school in the 1840s, so it’s not a new slang word, but it has become a cultural moment among children . Glicking has crossed generations and is gaining popularity, as the kids (used to) say, on TikTok. The training videos get hundreds of thousands of views and some say they are addicted to them . “Gleek” is also what a Glee fan might call themselves, which is why the hashtag is everywhere . Another interesting fact about “gliking”: no one really knows where this word came from. Shakespeare used this word, but he was referring to a joke that happened hundreds of years ago, and it came to mean the release of saliva from under the tongue. In the 1980s it was common almost everywhere, but how did the pre-internet youth nation share this information? How did it spread? Nobody knows. Mysterious!
(If you want a complete dictionary of the slang kids use these days, I maintain it here on Lifehacker . )
TikTok Warns: Don’t Do Any of These Dangerous Things Online!
This is part eight of my 4,394-part series, “Never Do Anything You See on the Internet or Anywhere Else,” in which I warn you about terrible things kids do because they saw them on TikTok.
Don’t eat tiramisu out of your car’s cup holder.
The TikTok video below demonstrating how to eat an Italian dessert from your car’s console is not to be imitated!
According to health professionals like Dr. Shivram Singh , “Storing and consuming food in a car can lead to increased bacterial growth, which can lead to many health consequences.”
Don’t shave your eyelashes to look more masculine
The young guys are not doing well. Some people are so weird about their masculinity that they shave off their eyelashes to avoid looking so girly. Although I haven’t talked to an ophthalmologist about this, I know that eyelashes help protect your eyes from dust and debris, and if you shave your eyelashes to please women, there are probably other reasons why women don’t do it. How are you.
Don’t try rubbing banana peels on your face.
I’m on the fence about this. Some beauty influencers post before and after videos of what happens when you rub a banana peel on your face. Bananas are said to be like nature’s Botox because they contain lutein, which helps reduce wrinkles.
According to skin care expert Dr. Dave Reilly, “Although banana peels do contain this antioxidant, it is not absorbed topically when applied directly to the skin. The concentration of lutein in the peel is also not high enough to produce significant results. “
But this doesn’t seem like a danger , so I recommend rubbing your face with a banana peel all day; What do I care? But don’t tell your kids that smoking banana peels gets you high . Let’s keep this our little secret.
What does “Cuff Sigh Name” mean?
If the young man in your life points a camera in your face and asks you to say “Sigh Name Cuff”, by all means do it, but understand what you’re getting into.
The young man will take a video, turn it over, and instead of “sigh the cuff,” you will say something very rude. It’s like reverse disguises in heavy metal albums, except Satan isn’t involved and it’s real.
Here’s a video demonstrating this phenomenon:
You can see tons of other examples here .