A Guide to Children’s Culture for Out-of-Touch Adults: the “Socrates and the Skeleton” Meme.
As usual, this week’s youth content selection was quite diverse. We saw the unexpected appearance of the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates in AI-generated videos that should have been perplexing; a meme about gambling winnings that turns into a meme about hypocrisy; an emoji whose meaning is probably different from what you imagined; and truly creative videos that, phew, don’t use AI.
Viral Video of the Week: Socrates and the Skeleton
This week, the founder of Athenian philosophy, Socrates, became the star of viral videos, and his co-star was a living skeleton. In these AI-generated videos, the skeleton represents the viewer, and the idea is to illustrate hypothetical scenarios, such as, “What if you and Socrates opened a Chick-fil-A restaurant in ancient Greece?”
Or “what if you met Socrates in Ancient Rome?”
The trend started with this Instagram video:
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They then spread to TikTok, where anyone can create a video by sending a simple prompt to the AI-powered video-generating app.
It may be a good thing that children include Socrates in their internal meme hierarchy, but Socrates is portrayed as the most annoying person in the world, going around pestering strangers with pseudo-philosophical questions. This isn’t far from real-life depictions of the philosopher, who was so confrontational and arrogant that his fellow Athenians voted to force him to drink poison. Not because his questions were irritating, but because they revealed unpleasant contradictions at the very core of human nature. The Socratic method is a path to truth through fearless self-assessment, not a path of rudeness.
Furthermore, Socrates was Greek , not Roman . Socratic irony is the use of feigned ignorance to reveal the truth, while internet irony is the use of AI to portray modern people as superior to ancient philosophers, when they don’t even know the difference between Greece and Rome.
The story behind the “I hit the jackpot” meme
It may be impossible to pinpoint exactly why Socrates has become popular now, so let’s look at a more easily explained trend. “I Hit the Jackpot” is a meme in which a video clip of rapper GameboyJones singing the chorus of his song “HIT THE JACKPOT! (Hakari Dance)” is overlaid with lyrics about a situation in which someone hit the metaphorical jackpot. For example, when there’s a substitute teacher:
or when an exam you haven’t prepared for is postponed:
User GameboyJones originally posted this song as an accompaniment to a video montage from the anime series Jutsu Kaisen . The song and meme are related to the character Kinji Hakari, whose superpower involves gambling and being a “jackpot killer.”
The anime connection means that many memes based on this video delve into aspects of the anime world that only the most ardent fans understand. With videos like this one, you can only guess:
Also, a lot of these memes are about “love over lust,” so let’s explore that further, shall we?
What does the expression “love is more important than lust, bastards” mean?
The “mfers” part means “motherfuckers,” but “love over lust” is a little more difficult to explain. At first glance, it seems self-explanatory and refers to people who say they’re more attracted to love than lust. Recently, videos like these have been popping up on TikTok:
The deliberate, ostentatious sincerity in these videos is so strong that a backlash is inevitable. It manifests itself in videos where the joke boils down to the idea that anyone who says they’re more attracted to love than lust is actually a huge pervert—a joke that perfectly complements the “I hit the jackpot” meme:
What does the low battery emoji 🪫 mean?
Among young people, the 🪫 emoji for low battery doesn’t mean “I urgently need to find a charger.” It can mean something like “I’m feeling emotionally drained, heartbroken, or a general feeling of being overwhelmed.” It’s a more general version of the 🥀 emoji for a wilted rose, but unlike a rose, it’s not limited to a broken heart.
(If you’re looking for more definitions of Gen Z and Gen A slang, check out Lifehacker’s glossary .)
These cartoonish chases are inspired by
This is what young people are doing that’s original, creative, clever, and doesn’t rely on artificial intelligence. These chase films use old-fashioned sound effects, video editing, and ingenuity to recreate iconic cartoon moments, like this:
I’m sure Socrates would have some serious questions about recreating old Looney Tunes cartoons, like, “When the coyote runs off a cliff, is he falling because of gravity or because he’s looking down and holding up a sign that says ‘Oops!’?” and “When Bugs Bunny dresses up as a sexy bunny to trick his enemy, who gets tricked—Bugs or Elmer?” But that annoying bastard died back in 399 BC, so screw him. Sixty-seven!