A Disengaged Adult’s Guide to Kids Culture: Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl Victory
The biggest event this week was the Super Bowl. Although the game was a snorefest reminiscent of the lopsided Super Bowl losses of yesteryear, the halftime show bore no resemblance to the performances of 1980s Super Bowl favorite Up with the People.
If you compare these two speeches (and you should), you will see how far we have come as a society.
Kendrick’s jeans won the Super Bowl
The 2025 Super Bowl may have been more grueling than exciting football game, but luckily Kendrick Lamar was at halftime and provided some much-needed drama. From Samuel L. Jackson’s “Uncle” preempting criticism of the show from “mainstream” America, to Serena Williams’ horrendous walk for more yards than the offense in Kansas City, to plenty of Drake-baiting , as well as some provocative, timely questions about what “America” means anyway, it was all put before the sitting president himself, it was a lot.
But even so, Kendrick’s jeans stole the show.
Controversy over the length and style of jeans has always been a big part of youth culture, and K Dot’s choice of washed jeans in a slim fit (even flared) marks a turning point. For the past few years, kids have been wearing oversized Jnco-style jeans from the mid-1990s, often adorned with chrome studs, but Kendricks’ loose top, wild ankle style is destined to be a style not worn for the foreseeable future.
I hope kids will notice that Kendrick’s jeans are the right length and not do the “drag on the ground” thing that was popular the last time people wore bell-bottoms. As for the future of jeans, look for the return of skinny jeans; it’s inevitable.
“What is father?” memes have flooded the internet
Internet pranksters recently rediscovered an old interview clip with late rapper XXXTentacion and have been creating hilarious memes using it on X, TikTok and everywhere ever since. The original video was released by TheFader in 2022. In it, XXX is asked: “Do you have any kind of relationship with your father?” He replies: “What is this? What is a father? and there’s something so performatively poignant about it—so real, yet so fake—that it’s a moment that defines cringe.
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The Internet attacked X after the first post, and everyone agreed that XXX is corny . Then there were attempts to recreate the clip as accurately as possible:
And a lot of memes where XXXTentacion doesn’t understand other simple things like showering and work .
What does “warm up your own nachos” mean?
“Heat up some nachos” or “heat up your own nachos” is catchy slang originating from internet fandoms and amateur cultural critics. It is used in relation to performers and/or artists and means something like “trying to recapture what was good about the previous work.”
This is usually meant as a negative criticism – nachos generally don’t taste as good when reheated – but you can successfully reheat your own nachos. For example, many Lady Gaga fans consider her new single “Abracadabra” to be nachos reheated—it has the same electronic beats, wordplay, and catchy chorus as her best work—but many think it’s awesome, leading to the idea that she made new nachos as delicious as the old ones and/or created new nachos from her old recipes. Like good nacho cheese, this concept can be stretched quite far.
What does “bumbaya” mean?
The slang word “boombaya” is a euphemism for having sex, sometimes called “doing boombaya”. It’s used primarily on the Internet, often to bypass censorship algorithms, so it’s not a word you’re likely to hear out loud.
The word originated from the 2016 K-Pop group BlackPink’s song of the same name, but only recently began to spread widely, first in the Squid Game fandom ( thanks to this video) , and from there it spread to everyone else.
Everyone Hates “Powerful Smurf”
Few things generate as much reaction as the relaunch of a childhood favorite. When a new version of an old thing is done well, people really like it, much like the reaction to the recent Super Mario Bros. movie. But when it’s done poorly, the vitriol runs high.
The same goes for the upcoming Smurfs movie. The plot of the Smurfs having to end up in the real world for some reason feels lazy, obvious, and the same as the plot of the rather bad 2011 live-action film The Smurfs . But there’s particular hatred for one character in the trailer: the powerful Smurf. His line in the trailer (“Press that subscribe button!”) and his smug appearance are seen as the worst kind of pandering and a desperate attempt to create modern relevance in the most obvious way. “An influential Smurf will lead to a cataclysmic event in July,” one Reddit poster summarizes .
On the positive side of the reaction to The Smurfs , people are loving the casting of John Goodman as Papa Smurf. So at least there is something nice to say. There’s also the fact that the Smurfs have always been something terrible, and people only liked the Smurfs in the first place because they were 5 years old. A new generation of five-year-olds will fall in love this summer when The Smurfs is released. Again.
Viral Video of the Week: Doug’s Winter Party
This week’s viral video is so wholesome you can’t help but love it. The doorbell camera footage of Doug’s Winter Party shows 85-year-old Doug visiting his neighbor Michelle to invite her and her family to his party. “Hi, I’m Doug, just across the street,” Doug says. “This is an invitation to a party on February 15th. I didn’t want to leave it in the mailbox.”
It would be pretty cute—maybe a five on a 10-point cuteness scale—but Michelle follows with a video showing a paper invitation , with Doug writing that the party will run from “4:00 p.m. until the cops arrive.” This turns it up to 11.
An invitation to Doug’s winter party is now the most coveted ticket in the world (or on the Internet, anyway), and many are looking for a spot on Doug’s guest list and trying to impress with the dance moves they’ll bring . We can all just hope that no strange strangers actually show up. Nobody wants this, least of all Doug.