A Guide to Children’s Culture for Out-of-Touch Adults: What Is Amialivecore?
Dropping something on your foot and rating how much it hurts is a growing trend on TikTok. The meme’s popularity may indicate something deep and troubling in youth culture. So maybe it’s injecting butterflies and going gothic. You will be the judge.
What is Amialivecor?
In his subreddit ” The Trend Report ,” Kyle Raymond Fitzpatrick pulled together a host of disparate cultural expressions among online youth to define a style he calls “Amialivecore.” Fitzpatrick argues that young people are subconsciously unsure whether they are actually real people. I think he’s up to something.
My interpretation of the meaning of amialivecore: From the time young people are babies, their experiences are almost entirely unreal. Everything is mediated. They have “experience” in video games. They see the world through the vertical window of TikTok videos. They only see their friends in online posts. They base their personal philosophy on memes. Meanwhile, the companies and algorithms behind social media platforms and video games have truly excelled at dehumanization. They have so thoroughly defined, commodified and molded their dreams, desires, thoughts and feelings that young people cannot learn to truly live. That’s why they play, act and create content instead of living. As proof, go to a concert that kids like and compare how many people are filming videos on their phones and how many are dancing.
According to Fitzpatrick, such seemingly unrelated things as the TikTok trend of dropping objects on your feet and rating how much they hurt, wearing visible tape on your face in public , and consciously spending time trying to find personal style illustrate young people’s attempts to “address the question of whether you are alive, whether your body is working, and whether you are truly present.”
Perhaps eating butterflies and suddenly turning into a goth are also manifestations of amyalicor.
Teenagers injecting butterflies as part of an online competition?
No.
I can’t find any evidence of an “online challenge” involving injecting himself with a butterfly, but some sources claim this is what inspired a 14-year-old Brazilian to crush a butterfly, mix it with water, and inject it into his leg. Things ended horribly for Davi Nunez Moreira: after a week of agonizing symptoms, he died in a hospital in Planalto, Brazil.
Medical workers are not sure what exactly caused the teenager’s death: it could have been an allergic reaction, an infection, an embolism, or the butterfly itself could have been toxic. The point is, it’s a bad idea to give yourself butterflies, but it’s also a bad idea to report “online tasks” that almost certainly don’t exist. People have been killing themselves in stupid ways since humans first came into existence.
What is this “accidentally important at work” meme?
I’m fascinated by how the meme-making generations get older, experience adult situations for the first time, and warn/inform each other through memes. It’s this vibe that’s behind the memes about being important at work that are flooding social media this week. The idea is to attach the phrase “accidentally important at work” to an image that expresses awareness of what happens when you are “seen” at work. Here are some examples:
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What does “aura farming” mean?
In slang, the word “aura” describes a person who is mysterious and cool. This is a positive thing. On the other hand, “aura farming” is ambiguous. Depending on the context, it can refer to a person who does something cool without even trying, or someone who tries too hard to appear cool. It’s all about context.
(For more slang definitions to help you maintain your vocabulary, check out my guide to Gen Z and Gen A slang .)
The goth is back (although he hasn’t gone away at all)
Like the vampires that inspire it, the Gothic never truly dies; he simply sleeps in his coffin until the time comes to demand new victims. Judging by TikTok, the subculture’s dark aesthetic and dark atmosphere are gaining popularity among young people ; maybe it’s based on the recent Nosferatu reboot, or maybe it’s just because the gothic fits the times.
While some goth markers are timeless—black clothing, Joy Division, too much eyeliner—this generation’s expression of the vibe differs in many ways from how its grandparents interpreted it back in the early 1980s. Maybe it’s because I think amIalivecore, but well-goth seems more like a pose than a lifestyle. The appearance leans more towards a theatrical and flamboyant look than previous generations. Today’s goths seem more determined and self-conscious, as if kids bought some clothes, watched a few makeup tutorials, and then said, “Now I’m a goth!” The old goths tended to be pale drug addicts with suicidal tendencies that allowed other people to call them “goths.”
Viral Video of the Week: Baby at Benihana
Do you remember the first time you went to Benihana? The child in this week’s viral video is too young to form lasting memories of his first visit to a Japanese chain for a theatrical food presentation, but it makes a huge impression either way.