A Guide to Children’s Culture for Adults Out of Touch With Reality: What Does the Phrase “This Is Miyamoto” Mean?
This week’s journey into the strange corners of culture populated by young people comes with a variety of dangers! There is the danger of talking to strangers on the Internet, the danger of first dates, and the danger of pursuing scientific advances. But let’s start with the danger of tweeting something weird.
What is the “This is Miyamoto” meme?
Nintendo announced this week that the release of the animated film Super Mario Bros. was rescheduled from December to May 2023 in tragic US news, of course, especially given the general excitement of gamers over casting Chris Pratt as Mario. But the delay went viral not because fans were upset, but because Nintendo used a tweet allegedly written by legendary game director Shigeru Miyamoto to break the news. “ This is Miyamoto ,” the message began, triggering countless memes.
Most agreed that their first impression of the tweet was that it must be from a parody account. But no. This is from the official Nintendo Twitter. The blue checkmark is right there. ” Why do the first 3 words read like email scam or hostage taking ?” @rabbidluigi asked. Others have parodied the format with tweets like ” This is Miyamoto. You’re not ready for Chris Pratt . But he goes. He is inevitable. You can’t run forever.” And, of course, that phrase was quickly added to the original Super Mario Bros. game. , in the image you can see at the top of this post.
FBI warns teenagers of ‘sexual extortion’
If you know a young person who is very online (or even slightly online), you might want to let them know about the FBI’s recent warning regarding the rise in “sexual extortion” style crimes . There are several variants of this scheme, but basically a scammer gets to know a young man on social networks, often pretending to be a girl/woman, and forces him to take nude photos/photos. From there, the perpetrator threatens to distribute the photos to the victim’s contact list unless a ransom is paid. Sometimes they use one photo to demand more, and sometimes a scammer says he hacked into your nude photos and demands money. While some adults would respond to such a threat with the words: “Whatever one may say, dude.” or “Okay. Give my photo to whoever you want. You’re just saving me the trouble,” children are not experienced enough to recognize obvious deception, and not jaded enough to care. The FBI encourages the victims to report it and promises that they will not have problems.
This week in online danger
Speaking of dangerous things online, this is part 463 of my 736,000 part series Don’t Do What You Seen Online.
- Don’t try to fake freckles with hair dye , even if you’ve seen it on TikTok.
- Don’t use electricity to decorate a tree, even if you’ve seen it on TikTok.
- Don’t kick other people’s doors or run away, even if you saw it on TikTok.
- Don’t smoke, then drive while you testify in one of the most high-profile court cases in history. Come to think of it, you should. It’s quite a baller.
Bad dates on TikTok
TikTok user Taypole recently had a terrible Tinder date and her story went viral. According to the video, the charming gentleman caller took her to his home and then forced her to watch him practice for three hours on his short round of golf. (I was going to make a joke about the “hard game” but decided not to.) The Typol nightmare made me wonder if TikTok had a corner of bad dating, and of course it does! The Worst Dating Story hash is filled with hilarious, scary, and tragic romantic disasters, like this woman whose fiancé commits a crime in the middle of dinner , this woman whose Tinder date took her to church to crash some strangers’ wedding , and this one dude whose date thought she was a mermaid ,
Viral video of the week: The man who accidentally killed the most people in history
Who killed the most people? Stalin? Hitler? Genghis Khan? All wrong. This week’s hit video ” The Man Who Accidentally Killed the Most People in History ” by Veritasium provides a surprising answer: Thomas Midgley. Midgley indirectly caused the death of millions of people, lowered the collective IQ of the entire human race and, ultimately, may be the person most responsible for the end of all human life. And he did everything with science! Midgley is responsible for the addition of lead to gasoline, which has led to untold deaths and a decline in our collective IQ. Not satisfied with this achievement, Midgley pioneered the use of Freon to cool refrigerators; that the pioneering use of CFCs has led to the development of all the chemicals that have punched a hole in the ozone layer and helped accelerate global warming. Accordingly, Midgley was eventually killed by one of his own inventions. The story is just incredible, weird and interesting, and you can find out all about it here.