This week, the young people on TikTok have uncovered a new way to prepare breakfast and an evocative way to describe the feeling that something bad is coming. That’s a pretty good week, but they’ve also taken to LARPing as artificial intelligence, and finding something interesting about Staples stores. Here’s what all of that means.
What are “frambled eggs”?
I can’t believe I never thought of this. “Frambled” is a portmanteau of “fried” and “scrambled.” It’s eggs prepared partly scrambled, but with the yolk intact. The culinary breakthrough seems to have been invented by TikToker @bussyrelate in this video:
Although their commenters are calling it a “sunny scramble,” as if it’s an known egg preparation style. New or not, everyone else on TikTok is giving it a shot.
Judging from the videos I’ve been watching, there are two schools of frambled eggs. One is scrambled egg whites with intact yolk. The other is one egg fully scrambled mixed carefully in the pan with an egg where the yolk isn’t touched. The preferred method seems to be to scramble ’em right in the pan, but you could separate the whites and yolks, scrambled the whites, and then put them in the frying pan. If you want to be fancy.
What does “The saxophones are getting louder” mean?
This meme-speak phrase isn’t used that widely among young people, but it’s such an evocative piece of slang, you should know it anyway. “The saxophones are getting louder” describes a feeling of impending disaster. It’s a reference to the scene in 1991’s Boyz n the Hood where the sound of a screeching saxophones precedes the death of Ricky.
The meme seems to have started with this video:
but has since expanded to include any situation in which doom is imminent.
The saxophones start getting louder when you remember there’s pistachios in the dessert right after your allergic brother gives it a taste:
when the nurses at the hospital start moving quickly:
when there are gunshots at the pool party:
and maybe whenever you start really thinking about what’s happening:
If you like ominous videos as much as I do, check out the collection connected to the sound clip.
“Your AI Slop Bores Me” lets people replace AI
I love a free web game, especially one that comments on AI. Your AI Slop Bores Me cuts the artificial out of artificial intelligence and lets you ask questions or request drawings from an anonymous human instead. Or you can become the AI and answer queries. The answers highlight the difference between fake intelligence and people. You don’t get responses like this from ChatGPT:
Credit: Stephen Johnson
or like this:
What do you think so far?
Credit: Stephen Johnson
Viral video of the week: Staples Baddie
If you’re like me, you think ubiquitous office supply store Staples is boring, if you think of Staples at all. But we are so wrong. To a growing number of young people, Staples is more than a place to get printer paper when you forget to order it from Amazon. Staples is cool, and it’s thanks to one person: TikTok user and Staples employee Kaeden Rowland. Dubbed “Staples Baddie,” Rowland’s TikTok channel is blowing up, with millions of views on videos describing the things you can do at your local Staples. Like make a custom mug:
Or a personalized signature stamp:
You can make stickers, too. Or have a mailing sent out to masses of people. There’s a lot.
While Staples Baddie’s popularity is no doubt making Staples Corporate happy, another supposed Staples wage slave is not happy at all. “I’m a Staples worker and Staples Baddie is ruining my life,” says Aran in a TikTok response video. “Staples was not a busy store. We would maybe have three people in the store at any given time. Now that the Staples Baddie has gone viral, we get hundreds of people every day.”
“I was really loving how my job was just kind of sitting around,” Aran concludes.
On a deeper level, this could all be a corporate advertising. According to CNN’s reporting, Staples Baddie is legitimately a Staples employee, but I saw the story of Aran on People.com, and that publication seemed unaware that Aran doesn’t actually work at Staples: In other videos they’ve posted, Aran has claimed to work at Spirit Halloween, AMC, and has said they are a med student.
Even if he doesn’t work there, according to many Staples employees online, Aran’s point is legit, and Staples Baddie is making things harder for everyone else at the chain store. “If they’re just a regular person and not a marketing ploy, higher up employee or being paid extra, it makes me mad that customers see a fun glimpse instead of what we deal with, how we’re treated and how little we get paid,” posts Reddit’s u/Dear_Ad63.
