I’m totally totally cheesin over Mixtape and not cheesin at all about TikTok’s AI cat videos. Scuba! If none of that makes sense to you, you’re about to be educated and embettered by this week’s Out-of-Touch guide, where the secret world of young people is either explained or misunderstood, depending on whom you ask.
What does “cheesin” mean? And how does it differ from “cheesing?”
The slang word “cheesin'” refers to smiling, particularly a big, goofy smile. It comes from the common exhortation to “say cheese!” when a photograph is being taken. Here’s an examples of how cheesin is used online:
The word “cheesing,” with a “g” at the end, often means the same thing, but it can also refer to the trend of throwing pieces of cheese at cars and/or people—the cheese sticks, and it’s kind of hilarious. I know people shouldn’t do it, because won’t someone think of the cars? but it’s still funny. Here’s an example of the second kind of cheesing:
Throwing cheese at people’s cars isn’t new online, and it doesn’t seem to have ever been a huge trend, but it made enough of an impact this week that a teenager was arrested in Topeka and booked on two counts of aggravated assault after a cheesing incident. The unnamed youth allegedly cheesed someone, and when confronted by his victim, brandished a gun. In response to the cheesing, the Topeka Police Department issued a statement reminding the public that “social media trends and pranks can quickly escalate into dangerous situations with serious legal consequences.” Thanks, Topeka Police Department!
Gamers are angry over Mixtape
Gaming culture is getting weird again. On May 7, Annapurna Interactive released Mixtape, a story-heavy adventure game about the messiness and beauty of coming-of-age. Mixtape is to Call of Duty as Boyhood is to Avengers Endgame. Because professional game reviewers are largely sensitive fellows, they like this game a lot, but many of the “real” gamers out there do not like Mixtape. People are calling the game pretentious, boring, “too woke,” and are questioning whether it’s even a game at all. The backlash has mostly been limited to people complaining and some funny memes so far, but online types are making much of the fact that Annapurna Interactive was founded by Megan Ellison, daughter of super-rich Oracle founder Larry Ellison, leading to charges that the game only exists because of nepotism, and that its high review scores are dishonest or a result of reviewers being scared of angering a rich guy. It’s starting to feel a little like Gamergate 2.0.
There’s something about gaming culture that leads to people picking bizarre hills to die on. Movie fans don’t get morally indignant and organize doxxing and harassment campaigns because critics like Silent Friend better than Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. It’s not like they won’t put out the next Madden because Annapurna interactive wants to make another sensitive walking simulator.
What does “Scuba” mean?
I’m not sure why I know this off the top of my head, but “scuba” is an acronym for “self-contained underwater breathing apparatus.” That’s not, however, what it means to young people. In slang, “scuba” is a verb. To scuba is to do the scuba dance (sometimes called the scuba juke) which I’ll just show you rather than try to describe:
Anyway, videos of people doing this simple dance are all over TikTok. The trend supposedly started with Desean Hawk Logan-Russell—he made the first Scuba video, and that’s his sound bite behind rest—but it looks like a variation on 1960s dance the Swim to me. If you’re ever thinking, “These online dance trends are so stupid,” remember that The Swim was a huge craze.
What do you think so far?
Viral videos of the week: cats vs. vegetable AI videos
This week’s viral videos are a look into a dark and troubling future. There is a sub-genre of AI videos on TikTok in which anthropomorphic cartoon cats do disturbing things, and they are very popular. Channels like @cat_mind6, @the_meow_minute, @giselecat, @mixcat804 and dozens more post steady streams of AI vids of human/cat chimera stealing each other’s eyeballs, being hit by trucks, putting roofies in drinks, and otherwise being extremely creepy. These video regularly go viral, and gain tens of millions of views. The weird-ass video below has been viewed over 120 million times.
It’s unlikely humans had any input in the “creative” part of these videos. AI makes the videos, posts them, analyzes what works and what doesn’t based on view counts, then hones and perfect the formula for the next video, giving us a hazy view of a combination of humanity’s collective unconscious and the programming of TikTok’s algorithm. Meanwhile, the AI itself is prying secrets from the human soul by learning how we engage with this slop. This is how all entertainment will be made in the future; because it is what many, many people most want to watch, even if they’d never admit it. This video has over 148 million plays:
A few weeks ago, something mysterious happened, and cat video accounts started posting videos of sentient fruits and vegetables being messed up instead of cats. @cat_mind6’s last cat video, in which a cat-woman is sexually assaulted by a cat-man and a rabbit man, is dated April 24 and was watched fewer than 150,000 times, but the next day, the channel posted a video dramatizing an apple-woman’s battle with explosive diarrhea that was viewed over 13 million times. @the_meow_minute’s last cat video, in which a kitten is raised by gorillas, was posted in March. After that, it’s all about a zucchini guy and a peach woman’s abusive relationship.
At the end of the chain of AI agents and TikTok video viewers, someone is making a ton of money. A video that hits 128 million views can generate between $60,000 and $100,000 from its creator through TikTok’s Creator Rewards Program. And that’s the tip of the iceberg, because those profits drive hundreds of latecomers to try to get in on the action. They probably won’t make money, but they’ll shovel cash into the pockets of the AI companies that make the programs that make the videos.
I’m going to find an ice floe to float away upon now.
