A Lacking Adult’s Guide to Kids Culture: Bigfoot Vlogs
If there’s one theme among young people these days, it’s the lack of it. It’s fractional here, cousin, which is why this week’s column is scattered around the world. But maybe in 2025, this mix makes intuitive sense? So let’s work together to connect 16 million people simultaneously tending virtual gardens, AIs creating fake Bigfoot vlogs, Gen Z reimagining relationship dynamics through memes, and a 62-year-old B-side that’s become the soundtrack for millions of TikTok users.
What is Grow a Garden in Roblox?
Roblox’s “Grow a Garden” game recently broke the record for the most concurrent users in a video game, with more than 16 million players logging in on June 14, up from five million players on May 17. To put that into perspective, that’s more people playing the game at the same time than the entire continent of Australia.
The colorful free farming game requires little skill and has the relaxed atmosphere you’d expect from a game about growing plants. Here’s how it works: Players plant seeds. The seeds grow even when users are offline. Eventually, you can harvest, buy different/better seeds, etc. Once you get the hang of it, you can log in periodically instead of spending all day online, making it a very casual game. But there are limited-time seed and pet releases that require anyone willing to be online to buy them, and befriending other people will reward you with bonuses. In this way, it combines the player-driven atmosphere of Minecraft (every garden is different), an element of FOMO (rare drops and limited-time releases), and a real incentive to socialize. Perhaps the genius of the game is that it’s fun to be online to work on your garden, but there’s no penalty for being offline. It’s also simple enough that anyone can play.
ASMR and Bigfoot’s AI
As AI continues its inexorable, joyless takeover of everything, I avoid despair by clinging to the idea that young people will use technology in some unimaginable, innovative way that doesn’t destroy the human spirit. Then we might have a future that, at least, isn’t completely dystopian. However, I’m not sure that two current AI trends fit the bill. The first isASMR AI . AI is apparently pretty good at creating this kind of content, especially since it can easily create videos that aren’t possible in real life, like spreading diamonds on toast:
glass fruit cutting:
or eating lava:
I have no idea if these videos serve the purpose that ASMR videos are supposed to, but TikTok has a growing collection of such videos under the #AiSMR tag that you can watch if that’s your thing.
The second AI-generated meme of the week is a more traditional one: using AI to create realistic vlogs from Yeti . If it works for Jesus , it should work for Bigfoot, right? Kids put Bigfoot in all sorts of ridiculous situations, like accidentally slipping weed into their brownies:
interrupting backwater meetings of the Ku Klux Klan:
And use more drugs:
Are these videos funny? I’m not, but I’m not the target audience. Judging by the millions of views some of them have, someone must be. Has this provided any evidence that AI will be used for anything amazing? No. But I remain hopeful.
Two Relationship Memes That Explain Gen Z Relationships
Young people have always been hyper-focused on relationships — hormones and all — but Gen Z does it differently, and these two viral meme formats reveal something about how they approach gender dynamics by flipping them on their head.
“Bark Like You Want It” features couples filming a video set to the Sir Mix-A-Lot track of the same name. The format is a simple but provocative role reversal with a ’90s beat: the guy lip-syncs, “And just when I thought I could do it,” his girlfriend replies, “You better drop to your knees and bark like you want,” before we see the man spinning around like a dog. It’s easier to see than to explain, so watch:
“You Better Say Nice Things” videos take a different approach to combating stereotypes about masculinity. They feature what Tim Marcin, on our sister site Mashable, describes as “strong women defending the clean, quiet men in their lives by showing off their interests.” The format involves women delivering “faux-threatening threats” to the audience before their boyfriend pontificates about his quiet hobby, whether it’s houseplants, cooking, or crafts. The women are essentially saying, “Don’t you dare bully my sensitive boyfriend for caring about something.”
Both memes feel like responses to the rising tide of toxic masculinity online and offline. They celebrate men who are comfortable being vulnerable and playful in their relationships. The guys in these videos have partners who seem to adore them, which is the most effective counterargument to machismo rhetoric you could ask for. It’s as if Gen Z is saying: The guys who actually get girlfriends are the ones who are confident enough to bark like dogs on TikTok, not the ones who post all day about being “alpha males.”
Viral Song of the Week: Connie Francis?
Connie Francis’s “Pretty Little Baby” was released in 1962 as the B-side to “I’m Gonna Be Warm This Winter”, the final single from Connie Francis Sings Second Hand Love & Other Hits , which reached number 111 on the Billboard Top LPs chart. Francis herself (still alive at 87) said she had no memory of recording the song. In other words, it was an obscure tune, but TikTok recently fell in love with it, with over 1.4 million videos (and counting) posted using Frances’ song, resulting in over 10 billion combined streams, pushing “Pretty Little Baby” to the top of TikTok’s Viral 50 and Top 50 charts, to the top of every other video platform and music service chart, and turning a song that even its own singer had forgotten into a Gen Z anthem.
So what is it about this track that appeals to kids? I think it’s the combination of a great pop song, Francis’s addictively overrated lyrical delivery, the ironically creepy atmosphere, and the fact that it works for any video. It would work equally well with real kids:
ceramic glazing:
and underwater roller coaster: