A Disconnected Adult’s Guide to Kid Culture: Roblox’s Anti-ICE Protests
Today’s edition of our guide to out-of-touch events features a mashup of internet nonsense that reflects real-world anxieties. A deprived London neighborhood has gone viral thanks to a taxpayer-funded water park that exists solely on AI-generated videos designed to anger racists. In the kid-friendly video game Roblox, users protest ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and age verification without leaving their avatars. And in the dark corners of the online world, self-improvement enthusiasts determine who is a “hot bird,” while everyone on TikTok says, “Screw it. We’ll just pretend to be birds.”
What is Croydon Waterpark?
The name “Croydon Waterpark” might sound like the name of a risqué sex act or a 1980s cocktail, but it’s quite different and requires explanation. Croydon is a large town in south London, known as a rough, deprived place, renowned (rightly or wrongly) for its concrete and crime. It’s also multicultural—51% of its population identifies as Black, Asian, or ethnic minority—so racists in Britain tend to dislike Croydon. The phrase “waterpark” originated from people posting AI-generated videos of masked men (“street lads” in slang) enjoying a non-existent waterpark in Croydon, often with “reminders” that it’s “taxpayer-funded.” It’s a provocation for older, racist Brits. Here are a few examples:
Other AI-powered places in Croydon include this taxpayer-funded buffet:
And also the Croydon Aquarium:
In the online hall of mirrors, it’s impossible to tell how many of the angry idiots in the comments are genuine and how many are just kids pretending to be idiots. Judge for yourself by the hashtag #Croydon .
Protests have erupted in Roblox over Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids (and age verification).
Digital activism can be complex and unpredictable. Recently, in response to the anti-ICE protests in Minnesota, Roblox users organized their own in-game demonstrations. Led by @clipsforcloset, users recreate ICE raids, hold signs, and otherwise express their deep feelings about current events. It goes something like this:
Here’s a video of ICE vans pulling up to a kindergarten:
In-game protests are unlikely to have an immediate impact in the real world, but they could be effective in educating a particularly hard-to-reach population about what’s happening beyond their computers. However, it appears that for many Roblox users, the most important issue isn’t Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but the platform’s age verification requirements .
Roblox’s new chat restrictions require users to either provide identification or take a photo to verify their age—otherwise, chatting is impossible. From a bot that completely fails to verify age to privacy concerns and the sale of age-verified accounts online, Roblox’s new policy is full of flaws . Some Roblox users are organizing “marches” to Roblox’s virtual headquarters, seemingly aimed at ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and the chat restrictions.
Some note that participating in a march in a game means increasing the number of players, so it may not be the most effective way to protest , but interestingly, similar arguments like “What’s the point?” and the inability to keep protesters “on topic” are common in real-life activism. Speaking of real life, age verification in Roblox doesn’t seem to be affecting the parent company’s stock price .
What does hypertension mean?
The acronym “HTN” stands for ” high-tier normie.” In everyday language, you might call an HTN a “handsome guy,” but not a “handsome male model.” This expression originates from the online community of “looksmaxxers”—people striving to maximize their physical attractiveness. Looksmaxxers use what they consider an objective measure of facial attractiveness, the PSL scale , and an HTN scores between 4.5 and 5.5 out of 8 on this scale. Of course, this is all complete nonsense, but many young men believe it to be true. If you know such young men, explain to them that a high score on the “being a half-decent person” scale is better than any score on the PSL scale.
Viral Videos of the Week: TikTok Owl Impersonators
This week, TikTok was taken over by owl impersonators. The meme works like this: you say, “Here’s my owl impersonation if it were X,” and then act it out. X can be anything. Celebrity impersonations are popular, like this owl impersonation if it were Michael Jackson:
There are many images of owls that represent different groups of people, such as this owl, which is “Italian-American in origin, but also originally from New York City.”
If you dig deeper, you might encounter more conceptual owls, such as the owl that represents “an overstimulated millennial mom who is teaching herself self-regulation while teaching it to her child.”
or an owl, “which is ChatGPT.”
To see thousands of videos featuring countless species of owls, check out the TikTok page where people parody owls .