A Divorced Adult’s Guide to Children’s Culture: Alice Liu and Gunbait
This week, we’ll be looking at goonbait and RegencyCore, as well as deconstructing the controversial video of McDonald’s CEO barely eating a hamburger. If you don’t even know what that is , you’ve definitely come to the right place, so let me explain.
Alice Liu and goonbait
In Generation Z and Generation A slang , “gooning” refers to prolonged masturbation without orgasm, sometimes with the goal of entering an altered state of consciousness. “Gunbait” is essentially media created to inspire gooning.
Speaking of provocation, a couple of weeks ago I talked about Olympic figure skating champion Alysa Liu as a heroine among Generation Z and Generation A athletes. Soon, some of the more outspoken members of the younger generation began to view this as creepy. It’s a familiar reaction that too many young men have to women doing anything in public.
The controversy centered on a widely circulated photo of Liu gazing hungrily at her gold medal, which some called “bandit bait.” Here’s a post on X-Switch that illustrates the point well:
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This prompted many to point out how creepy it is and create “goon bait”-themed memes , such as the following:
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The truth is, people used to test whether a coin was gold by biting it with their teeth—gold is a soft metal—and photos of athletes biting their gold medals are an Olympic tradition dating back to at least 1992, when Greco-Roman wrestling champion Peter Farkas was photographed biting his medal . I’m pretty sure no one called that photo “bully bait.” Since then, all medalists have been expected to strike this pose for funny photos. It seems Liu’s photo is poking fun at this tradition, rather than creating “bully bait.”
It’s not just internet users who have strange reactions to Alisa Liu; in real life, regular people have the same reaction. On March 4, the 20-year-old figure skater posted a story on Instagram * with the caption: “I arrived at the airport and there was a crowd of people waiting at the gate with cameras and stuff for me to sign. Everyone was invading my personal space. Someone chased me to my car, dude. Please don’t do this to me.”
What is “RegencyCore?”
RegencyCore, a popular style among some members of Generation Z and Generation A, arose from the popularity of the fantasy Regency style featured in the Netflix series Bridgerton . It draws inspiration from the opulent British Regency style of the early 1800s but adds fantasy elements through pastel colors and gold accents.
RegencyCore style is becoming a whole lifestyle. TikTok is full of RegencyCore decorating tutorials , tea parties are becoming popular , people are wearing corsets and opera gloves, and some have even taken up archaic hobbies like table setting and letter writing using quills and sealing wax .
Viral Video of the Week: McDonald’s CEO tries his company’s new burger.
Last week, McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski started a worldwide viral trend when he posted this video:
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In an attempt to promote the company’s new hamburger, the Big Arch (the burger is really big), Kempczinski says, “I really like this product,” “I don’t even know how to eat it,” and assures viewers, “I’ll have it for lunch, just so you know.”
“I am unharmed and consuming this product voluntarily,” Kempczinski doesn’t say. But he does take the tiniest bite of a hamburger imaginable and conclude, “This is delicious,” while looking like this:
This raises so many questions. Why does this look like a deleted scene from Fear Factor ? Why does the cut happen right after he takes a bite, so we can’t confirm he actually ate it? Is Chris Kempczinski actually an alien?
People noticed and started sharing the video to make fun of him. Instagram doesn’t show the number of views, but the video has already garnered 225,300 likes and over 30,000 comments.
In response, the heads of other burger chains have released videos that seem to say, “I’m not an alien sent to Earth to study human culinary habits.” But these attempts by millionaires to outdo another millionaire’s “regular guy” are also strange, albeit in more subtle ways.
This is Burger King President Tom Curtis.
Wendy’s President Pete Suerken went even further by posting a video of himself frying up a “Baconator” (a bacon burger) and then taking a huge bite, but he posted the video on LinkedIn , which is pretty weird in itself.
The Jack in the Box restaurant chain made a parody video, but their mascot’s mouth was drawn on, so he didn’t eat the burger either.
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A&W Canada did a parody that’s pretty funny, but points are deducted because the guy is an actor and not the actual CEO, and when was the last time anyone ate at A&W?
The original video raises an interesting question: what if McDonald’s did this on purpose? While everyone calls Kempczinski “McNibbles,” perhaps he’s okay with it if it means extra sales. If it were a more or less ordinary video, no one would share it, but according to Marketwatch, the video has been viewed over 70 million times in one form or another, and its viral popularity generates about $18.4 million in brand revenue for McDonald’s. If it was intentional, it’s genius, but I don’t buy it.
I don’t think this was intentional, because Kempczinski’s Instagram is full of tasting videos that are only 8% less awkward than this one, and ironic self-mockery has never been McDonald’s style—it’s more of a Wendy’s thing. I also can’t imagine a marketer telling a CEO, “The point of the video is that you dislike the burger so much you can barely bring yourself to eat it,” and expecting to keep his job.