A Guide to Kids’ Culture for Out-of-Touch Adults: Who Is D4vd?
This week, the youth world tour is hurtling like a runaway train. Everyone’s talking about a pop star with a body in the trunk, a TikTok-inspired dentistry trend, astrology-based beauty tutorials, and a rabbit hole for football stats enthusiasts. It’s hard to believe.
Who is D4vd and why was there a body in his trunk?
Everyone under a certain age is talking about singer D4vd, and it’s not just because he’s released a new album. On September 8, Los Angeles police discovered a body in the trunk of an abandoned Tesla registered to David Anthony Burke (the 20-year-old musician’s birth name). The body was later identified as that of Celeste Rivas, who went missing from her Riverside home on April 5, 2024, when she was just 13 years old.
There are rumors online that D4vd was in a relationship with Rivas, but this has not yet been confirmed. The singer is reportedly cooperating with authorities, the cause of death has not been determined, and no charges have been filed against him.
If you’re wondering who D4vd is, you’re not alone: the singer’s rise to fame is a typical Generation Z story. His career began with online fame, which he gained by posting Fortnite videos, but YouTube removed his content for using copyrighted music. Following his mother’s advice, D4vd began recording his own songs using free iPhone apps and uploading them to SoundCloud. The result was a record deal, an album, and several songs that have amassed over 1.5 billion streams on Spotify.
D4vd’s biggest hit, “Romantic Homicide,” combines 1970s pop with 1990s-style lo-fi production, and it’s a good one. But D4vd’s lyrics, given what happens next, are chilling. “I killed you and I don’t even regret it,” he sings on the track. “I can’t believe I said it, but it’s true.”
But just because you wrote a song about killing your lover doesn’t mean you’re guilty. In any case, the story is dark, tragic, and unfolding, and D4vd is innocent until proven guilty.
The Hot Trend of Generation Z: Veneers
Yes, it’s a change of heart to go from murder to teeth, but such is life in 2025. Regardless, the latest dental trend among young people is veneers . Whether it’s speculation that Gen Z superstar Mr. Beast is sporting fake teeth, the 250,000 TikTok videos posted under the hashtag #veneers , or the detailed analysis below from venerable YouTuber Papa Meat , false teeth are very much in right now.
Perhaps this fascination stems from the influencers’ straight, white teeth. Perhaps it’s due to dental over-awareness fueled by too many selfies. Or perhaps it’s because veneers are just plain fun. Choose your own explanation.
The Hottest Trend for Generation Z: Astrological Makeup
I’m fascinated by makeup trends and pop-occultism, so I’m thrilled that makeup influencers are combining my two passions on TikTok. One of the most popular influencer trends right now is ” rising sign “—a beauty trend where makeup is determined by your zodiac sign.
In astrology, your “rising sign” supposedly reflects how others see you. So , if your rising sign is Scorpio , you might suit a look that’s “rich, dark, and dramatic.” If your rising sign is Gemini, you might want a look that’s “playful and vibrant.”
I don’t see how the position of the stars at the time of your birth could influence the makeup choices you make next Thursday, but if the combination of mysticism and style choices makes people’s day a little easier, then I’m all for it.
The first animated film to use artificial intelligence in production
We all knew it would happen sooner or later, and now it’s here: OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, today announced the first feature-length film animated entirely with artificial intelligence. Critterz, the feature-length version of the aforementioned AI-powered short film, has a budget of $30 million and will be completed in nine months—an incredibly short timeframe for traditional animation or CGI. Critterz may be animated by AI, but the script and voice acting are being done the old-fashioned way—by professional Hollywood actors and screenwriters who will happily let OpenAI pay them handsomely for creating the hilarious voices.
According to The Wall Street Journal , Open AI plans to present Critterz at the Cannes Film Festival, presumably in 2027. It’s unclear whether anyone will want to see an animated film powered by AI. It seems like a terrible idea to me, but I’m not the target audience. Anyway, you can watch the first teaser/promo video here .
Viral Video of the Week: Scorigami Returns
Leave it to Generation Z to invent a new way to enjoy football. “Scorigami” is a term coined by writer and YouTuber Jon Bois to describe an NFL final score never seen before in league history. YouTube channelSecret Base presents a four-part analysis of this phenomenon, beginning with the first-ever NFL football game in 1922 and continuing to the present day, examining it through the lens of “this is the only time two professional teams have finished a game with this score.”
The series combines sports, history, comedy, and statistics in equal measure, with engaging asides and excursions that allow us to understand, for example, how the NFL owes its existence to some random guy’s truck breaking down in Texas at the turn of the century, and how it’s possible—highly unlikely, but still possible—to score even a single point in a football game. In other words, it’s a documentary that ESPN would reject for being too mathematical, and PBS for being too sporty, but which would find a home and hundreds of thousands of viewers thanks to YouTube.