A Guide to Kids’ Culture for Out-of-Touch Adults: the Portland Protest Frog

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Young people are constantly finding new ways to blur the boundaries between irony and sincerity, public and private, and everything in between: TikTokers use caveman techniques to tell sad romantic stories; a Twitch streamer broadcasts the birth of her daughter to her beloved chat; and young people are celebrating a crucial political moment with vibrant animal costumes. And then there’s a new cartoon, for some reason from Nintendo, and slopcore is gaining popularity.

Portland Frog and Chicken

Portland’s youth are redefining what it means to “protest.” Since the president declared Portland a “war zone” and an “ongoing disaster,” more and more young people are turning out to protest in colorful costumes. First up was the guy with the frog. You can see him here, bravely fighting off a squad of heavily armed men:

before being pepper-sprayed as punishment for his troubles.

And then there’s Chicken Guy, whose presence in front of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building provided crucial context for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s recent rooftop photo. “Our reality is beyond satire right now,” Chicken Guy (aka Jack Dickinson) told The Atlantic . “So to greet it with absurdity… I think that’s the point.”

Frog and Chicken appear to have inspired others to meet ICE and the National Guard in absurd ways (and in colorful costumes), which may be a sign of a growing movement.

Protesters have been using absurdities to express their views since the protests began, but the instant worldwide circulation of videos from Portland’s front lines is a relatively new phenomenon. Footage of heavily armed and armored law enforcement officers staring down Portland oddballs in unicorn and panda costumes is more compelling than confrontations with radicals in ski masks—it doesn’t take much thought to know whose side you’re on. And there’s something very Portland about it all.

Twitch streamer Fandy is livestreaming the birth of her baby.

Austin-based Twitch streamer Fandy is known not only for her Overwatch gameplay but also for sharing her personal life with her 300,000 followers. However, last week, the 30-year-old influencer turned that number up to 11 when she livestreamed the birth of her daughter . Fandy began streaming as soon as she went into labor, and on Twitch alone, she attracted nearly 30,000 concurrent viewers. She even joked between breaths and contractions, and Twitch CEO Dan Clancy stopped by to congratulate her. After an eight-hour labor, Fandy revealed her baby to the world.

Most of her fans seem happy to be participating in the broadcast, but some question whether a live birth meets the streaming platform’s terms and conditions and, more importantly, whether it’s fair to the child who didn’t ask to be born and certainly didn’t ask to be live-streamed.

On the other hand, Fandy’s broadcast takes parasocial relationships to a new level, her fans seemed happy to be part of it, and who wouldn’t want to have 30,000 godparents?

Why do so many TikTokers talk like cavewomen?

It’s becoming fashionable on TikTok for young women to talk like cavewomen. In videos titled “First Person: We’re Cavewomen, and I’m Telling You About My Ex,” users openly discuss past relationships, replacing “I” with “me” and typically omitting articles.

It seems like this trend started when @em.brdly posted this video about her (sic) disastrous introduction to polyamory:

Others followed suit, detailing their negative experiences with young people:

But you talk like a caveman! She makes a video where she talks like a cavewoman “Karen” from 2024:

He says caveman 1991:

As I say, a lot changes, a lot stays the same.

What is slopcore?

“Slopcore” is a slang term for the countless hundreds of millions of tasteless, disturbing AI-generated images, videos, and songs that have appeared online since AI became available to the masses a couple of years ago. It also describes the eerie, dreamy, and slightly menacing atmosphere of all this nastiness. I’ve explored this topic in more detail here , if you’d like to explore more of this nastiness with me.

Viral Video of the Week: Nintendo Hints at… Something

On October 7th, Nintendo posted this video on X with the caption “Close to you”:

This tweet is currently unavailable. It may be loading or has been removed.

And no one knows why . There are no credits, no logo. It’s just a kid chasing a pacifier. But since it’s a Nintendo creation, the video has been viewed over 16 million times on Xbox X alone, and it seems everyone has their own guesses. Here are a few theories:

• This is a teaser for the new Pikmin game .

• This is a teaser for the new game Earthbound .

• It announced a new game, Chibi-Robo.

• This is a hint at a new Elebits game (although Elebits was from Konami)

• “Nintendo Baby” is featured as a character in Smash Brothers .

• This is the first look at Nintendo’s new intellectual property involving babies and pacifiers.

• This is a short film designed to showcase the work of Nintendo’s new animation studio.

• Nintendo wants to give its fans an experience they’ll never have before .

The point is, there’s no way to know, and it could be anything. (But it’s Pikmin, because Nintendo has released a Pikmin game on every console since the GameCube.)

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