An Out-of-Touch Adult’s Guide to Kid Culture: Kids Are Burning Their School Chromebooks
Welcome back to The Out of Touch Adults Guide to Kid Culture, your weekly reminder that the internet is raising kids in ways no one understands. This week, we have kids setting their laptops on fire for clicks, an unsuspecting millennial stepping into a cultural and linguistic minefield, and a sneaky Alfredo (but let’s make that R&B).
‘Low GPA’ Trend Makes Kids Burn Their Laptops
In last week’s column, I explained the ” low GPA activity ” trend that’s been gaining traction on TikTok. To quote: “It’s the kind of trend that’s quickly gone from funny to a little harmful, so watch these videos now before TikTok bans the entire genre.”
I must be psychic, because a trend that started with cafeteria sculptures has literally exploded: kids are setting their school-issued Chromebooks on fire and then posting videos like this:
Unlike many previous sensational reports of dangerous internet trends, this one appears to be real. Children burning their laptops have been reported across the country , and there are at least two cases in which laptop arsonists have been charged. However, it is important to note that this is a small number of children.
There are three types of laptop destruction: the milder kind involves “stress testing” the laptop by throwing it. Kids have taken it a step further by inserting staples, paper clips, or other metal objects into the ports of Chromebooks to short them out and cause smoke. The final form of the trend is puncturing the lithium batteries in laptops to release toxic smoke and/or cause a fire.
Despite the news reports, I don’t think it’s fair to blame these fires on an “online challenge” or a meme. I still vaguely remember what the last days of a teenage school year felt like; when everything slowed down enough that you started to see the deception for what it really was, when it was a grim revelation rather than something you learned to cope with. I would turn on Alice Cooper or watch Rock ’n Roll High School , but only because I didn’t have a laptop to burn.
Generation A slang sparks controversy online
Xiaomanyc is a 34-year-old YouTuber best known for his videos where he speaks different languages to fans and subscribers around the world. But a recent speech at a high school proved controversial for the otherwise uncontroversial streamer. Xiaomanyc decided to give a speech about the “Generation Alpha dialect of English.” It was clearly meant to be lighthearted, as you can see from the video below:
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But he inadvertently touched on a cultural third rail, especially for young people. Most kids seemed to like the speech, but some definitely did not. Online types voiced their own disapproval. As @hennytwote put it on X:
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He went on to lay out the crux of the issue : “Being a polyglot studying linguistics and not being aware of the sociological overlaps in your field that essentially cause you to engage in microaggressions toward black members of your audience is actually fucking funny to me. White people are crazy.”
“This is literally just black slang. What is wrong with ⚪️ people and erasing? This is so disgusting,” wrote user X @Santawave.
That’s certainly a fair point, but much of the slang used by Xiaomanyc (and Gen A itself) didn’t originate in AAVE. For example, “giga-chad” and “mog” came from the jargon of very-online communities. “Chud” came from the movie CHUD , and I doubt any black person would want to appropriate “Skibidi Toilet.” More importantly, even if you have legitimate concerns about how other people use words, the language doesn’t care; it’s the magpie that takes all that shines.
(If you’re looking to translate some expressions from Alpha speakers, both AAVE and elsewhere, check out my glossary: ”Aura Farming,” “Huzz,” and other Gen Z and Alpha slang expressions you might need to decode.)
What is a pipeg?
“Paypig” is slang that originated in the BDSM community. It refers to submissives living a financially dominant lifestyle. So basically, these are submissive guys (usually) who get off by giving money to financially dominant people, also known as “findoms.” (Capitalism calls them “consumers.”) I bring this up to point out the growing niche of TikTok users who teach each other how to find a paypig by giving out their Cash App name to anyone willing to send a few ducats and filling out hashtags like #findomme and #paypig .
What is Chicken Alfredo Boomerang music?
This is a phrase that only hyper-online music fans understand. It needs to be broken down to be understood by mortals/people who have to work. “Boomerang” here refers to the Instagram looping feature of that name. Chicken Alfredo refers to food, but when you put them together, the music ” Chicken Alfredo boomerang ” refers to the kind of weak R&B someone might post to Instagram while dining at a mid-range restaurant. Referencing commercially released music like this is obviously an insult.
Other highly specific musical insults include ” heating up your own nachos “, “coworker music” (the music a careless coworker might play), and ” Love Island music” (the music that plays when a couple is arguing in an episode of Love Island ).
What is the 2020 Effect?
The 2020 Effect is a TikTok meme where users post videos that seem to show a brighter, more colorful world, as if the darkness of the pandemic years that began in 2020 is finally lifting and the angels in heaven or whatever have turned up the saturation. It’s often mentioned that the graphics are being adjusted, but in a metaphorical sense, as you can see in this video:
Or a reference to the last time everything looked so bright:
I don’t know if this means anything, but it’s nice to see a hopeful and optimistic trend gaining popularity.
Viral Video of the Week: I Spent $10,000 on Kickstarter Tech
In this week’s viral video, genius streamer Mrwhosetheboss illustrates the hopes and woes of anyone who’s into cutting-edge tech. It’s one of those YouTube videos where someone does the ridiculous thing we all want to do before common sense stops us from actually doing it, like buying way too many promised tech products on Kickstarter just to see what they’ll send. True to the name, Mr Whose spent ten grand on products so advanced they didn’t even exist when he bought them, like a solar-powered charging base, an AI-powered pillow, and a USB-powered robotic desk pet. No spoilers, but the results are mixed: some products turn out to be outright scams, some are pretty good, and some deliver on the promises of their Kickstarter campaigns.