This week, the whole internet is talking about one young woman’s journey into career disillusionment—specifically, her shocking discovery (shared via TikTok) that having a job cuts into your personal time in a major way. Meanwhile, youth in Britain are using the internet to gaslight their American cousins, and famous YouTubers are scaring themselves stupid.
Gen Z’s reaction to working a full-time job sparks online debate
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This week, TikTok user @Brielleybell123 posted a simple video that became a flashpoint for the internet to argue about labor within a capitalist structure. In the video, Brielley says she started her first full time job, complete with a two-hour commute, and it’s taking up a ton of her free time. “I don’t have time to do anything,” she says in the video, fighting back tears. “I don’t have time or energy to cook dinner. I don’t have energy to work out, so that’s out the window…the 9-5 schedule is crazy.”
Her video was then embedded in a Twitter post from user Endthemisery1 that reads, “Omg, poor baby has her first job. Like..she has to commute?? Like…she has to cook dinner?? Like…no time or energy to work out?? Like..she’s working in person not remote??? Like…She. Has. To. Work. 9. To. 5 ??? What????”
From there, it spread all over, and divided the online world into two camps: The people who say, “You know what I blame this on the downfall of? Society! Back in my day we worked 28 hours a day and said ‘thank you’ when the boss threw hot embers at us.” The other reaction is more like: “You know, she’s not wrong. And just because you’ve accepted your grim, work-until-you-die fate doesn’t mean you shouldn’t feel compassion for people who are new to the grinding misery of entry-level employment.” (The latter crowd is right, by the way.)
Study: Kids want less sex in media
Everyone likes to talk about the relationship between young people and the mass media, but UCLA’s Center for Scholars and Storytellers did the actual research. According the CSC’s survey of 1,500 people between 10 and 24, the youths want to see less sex in media, but more friendship. More than 47% of survey respondents said that sex isn’t needed for the plot of most movies and TV shows, whereas 51.5% of adolescents said they’d like to see more content focused on friendships and platonic relationships. The least popular kind of content is “aspirational”—only 10% of teens call stories about rich and famous people their favorite. Their top choice is content that “mirrors their personal [lives]” Kids want “hopeful, uplifting content with people beating the odds,” over every other kind of story. More than half—56%—of adolescents also say they prefer original content over sequels, franchises and reboots. (Someone tell all of Hollywood.)
So original, realistic, hopeful stories that mirror teen’s real lives, but with friends instead of romance. All of that sounds great, but it reminds me of the scene on The Simpsons when the kid focus group helps create Poochy the Rockin’ Dog. In real life, nine of the 10 highest-grossing movies this year are sequels or based on existing intellectual property (Barbie, Super Mario Bros., Guardians of the Galaxy, etc.), and none of the top 10 movies remotely mirror anyone’s personal life. Maybe Hollywood isn’t creating that kind of content, but on the other hand, maybe Roger Meyers Jr., CEO of Itchy & Scratchy Studios, was right when he said, “You kids don’t know what you want; that’s why you’re still kids, because you’re stupid.”
Barbie, Taylor Swift, Wednesday Addams expected to be most popular costumes
According to Marie Claire, this year’s top choices for Halloween costumes include Barbie, Taylor Swift, and Wednesday Addams, giving young people an archetype and style for any personality and temperament. For Halloween-heads who are too iconoclastic to choose the most recognizable pop culture tropes, Style Caster suggest dressing up as Joan from the “Joan is Awful” episode of Black Mirror. And if you’re a total nerd, try Wanda Maximoff from Wandavision. That said, I get the feeling that younger people are less into Halloween this year than previous years. Maybe the greater number of real-life horrors that surround us have taken some of the shine off of spooky season.
TikTok asks, “Are there really tea time alarms in Great Britain?”
Here’s a funny, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it piece of online culture that’s blowing up this week: British tea time alarms. UK residents are trolling Americans by posting videos claiming that alarms go off all over Britain when it’s time for tea. According to these Anglo-Saxon lads and lassies, the king pushes a red button to set them off, and failure to drink tea at the appointed hour is punishable by arrest. The alarms they say, are such a ubiquitous part of British culture that they’re rarely even mentioned.
The best of these videos do a great job faking the alarm and seem very sincere, but the real point are the response videos and comments from people who don’t know it’s a joke, or who aren’t sure, so they ask their British friends, who are obligated to respond, “of course there are tea time alarms! I thought everyone knew that.” But before you get too down on dumb Americans, remember, people in Great Britain eat baked beans on toast for breakfast, and the whole nation agrees to pretend one family is the best family of all, so they’re capable of anything.
Viral video of the week: “Spending a week at the conjuring house”
YouTube superstars Sam and Colby are celebrating Halloween and hitting 10 million followers this week by spending a full week in the house from The Conjuring—not the location where they shot the movie, but the house where the “actual events” of the The Conjuring happened.
Based on the first two episodes, this series is going to be about 15 hours long, which is a bit much. But still, the boys seem sincere about it all. They seem like they’re really afraid, and watching people be scared of ghosts is entertaining. Not because it’s sadistic, but because we all know ghosts aren’t real, so what we’re seeing is people who are innocent and alive enough to believe in magic.
This kind of video would not work at all if starred anyone over 40, because they’d be thinking “I’m broke, my mortgage payment is past due, and I go in for my second round of chemo this week, so go ahead, ghosts, try to fucking scare me.”