Latest news with #SkibidiToilet
Indian Express
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
The Harvard-educated linguist breaking down ‘skibidi' and ‘rizz'
Adam Aleksic has been thinking about seggs. Not sex, but seggs — a substitute term that took off a few years ago among those trying to dodge content-moderation restrictions on TikTok. Influencers shared stories from their 'seggs lives' and spoke about the importance of 'seggs education.' Lots of similarly inventive workarounds have emerged to discuss sensitive or suggestive topics online. This phenomenon is called algospeak, and it has yielded terms like 'cornucopia' for homophobia and 'unalive,' a euphemism for suicide that has made its way into middle schoolers' offline vocabulary. These words roll off the tongue for Aleksic, a 24-year-old linguist and content creator who posts as Etymology Nerd on social media. Others may find them slightly bewildering. But, as he argues in a new book, 'Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language,' these distinctly 21st-century coinages are worthy of consideration by anyone interested in the forces that mold our shifting lexicon. 'The more I looked into it, the more I realized that algorithms are really affecting every aspect of modern language change,' Aleksic said in a recent interview, padding around the Manhattan apartment he shares with a roommate and wearing socks stitched with tiny dolphins. Even those who steer clear of social media are not exempt. If you have encountered Oxford University Press's 2024 word of the year, 'brain rot' (the 'supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state,' thanks to a firehose of digital content), you, too, have had a brush with social media's ability to incubate slang and catapult it into the offline world. Aleksic has been dissecting slang associated with Gen Z on social media since 2023. In wobbly, breathless videos that are usually about a minute long, he uses his undergraduate degree in linguistics from Harvard University to explain the spread of terms including 'lowkey' and 'gyat.' (If you must know, the latter is a synonym for butt.) The videos are more rigorous than their informal quality might suggest. Each one takes four or five hours to compose, he said. He scripts every word, and combs Google Scholar for relevant papers from academic journals that he can cite in screenshots. He appears to be fashioning himself as Bill Nye for Gen Z language enthusiasts. In the process, he has become a go-to voice for journalists and anyone older than 30 who might want to understand why 'Skibidi Toilet,' the nonsensical name of a YouTube series, has wormed its way into Gen Alpha's vocabulary. What he wants now is to be taken seriously outside of those circles. 'I want to balance being a 'ha-ha funny' TikToker with academic credibility,' he said. 'It's a little hard to strike that balance when you are talking about 'Skibidi Toilet' on the internet.' Aleksic settled in his living room, under the apparent surveillance of several stick-on googly eyes left over from his most recent birthday party. To the left of the entrance was a makeshift ball pit filled with orbs that resembled enormous plastic Dippin' Dots. (He installed it as a bit, but has come to appreciate its ability to foster conversation.) In person, he is animated but not frenetic, a click or three less intense than he appears in his videos. He is happy to lean into the persona of a fast-talking know-it-all if it means engaging people who wouldn't otherwise spare a thought for etymology. He started speeding up his cadence when he realized that brisk videos tended to get more views. 'I'll retake a video if I don't think I spoke fast enough,' he said. Just as Aleksic changed the way he spoke in response to algorithmic pressure, language, too, can be bent by users seeking an audience on social media. Take 'rizz,' which means something along the lines of 'charisma.' According to Aleksic, the word was popularized by Twitch streamer Kai Cenat, whose young fans picked up the term. So did the robust ecosystem of people online who make fun of Cenat's every move. Soon, the word had been flagged by TikTok's recommendation algorithm as a trending topic that it could highlight to keep viewers engaged. Influencers — including Aleksic — who wanted their posts to be pushed to more viewers now had an incentive to join in. This process slingshots trendy coinages into the broader consciousness. But it also yanks terms from their original context faster than ever before, he said. Words with origins in African American English or ballroom culture, for instance, are often mislabeled as 'Gen Z slang' or 'internet slang.' Aleksic tackles that well-documented phenomenon in a chapter titled 'It's Giving Appropriation.' Other sections of the book, which was released by Knopf this month, spend time with subcultures that play an outsize role in modern language generation, including K-pop fans, who boosted the term 'delulu,' and incels, or involuntary celibates, who popularized the term 'sigma.' Words have always traveled from insular communities into wider usage: Aleksic likes the example of 'OK,' which was Boston newspaper slang in the 19th century that spread with the help of Martin Van Buren's reelection campaign. (His nickname in full, 'Old Kinderhook,' was a bit of a mouthful.) But 'delulu' and 'rizz' didn't need the eighth president's help to travel across the country — they had the internet. And TikTok's powerful algorithm is more efficient at getting the word out than Old Kinderhook's most overachieving press secretary. Today, the cycle of word generation has been turbocharged to the point that some of its output hardly makes sense. Nowhere is that more evident than in a chapter titled 'Sticking Out Your Gyat for the Rizzler,' a chaotic mélange of slang that is hilarious to middle schoolers precisely because it is so illegible to adults. Words and phrases don't need to be understood to go viral — they just have to be funny enough to retain our attention. Aleksic argues that 'algospeak' is no longer as simple as swapping sex for 'seggs'; it is a linguistic ecosystem in which words rocket from the margins to the mainstream in a matter of days, and sometimes fade just as fast. When influencers modify their vocabulary and speech patterns for maximum visibility, those patterns are reinforced among their audiences. Aleksic said he works hard to keep viewers' attention, for example, jumping between camera angles roughly every 8 seconds. He longed for a forum in which he could discuss his ideas at length, and last January, he began refining an idea for a book about algorithms and language. That's an ambitious goal for a recent college graduate without an advanced degree or decades of research experience, the kinds of qualifications that abound in the linguistics publishing crowd. But youth has its upsides when it comes to the world of internet slang, said Gretchen McCulloch, the author of 'Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language.' 'The tricky thing with internet linguistics is that the point at which you're the most qualified to speak about it from personal experience is also the point at which you have the least, sort of, academic credibility,' McCulloch said in an interview. She, too, is fascinated by how short-form video is affecting language, though she wonders which changes will be permanent and which will fade with time. Take the way that influencers often begin their videos with superlatives like 'The most interesting thing about …' Will those hyperbolic phrases bleed into other forms of communication, or will they lose their potency with overuse? There is a whole graveyard full of internet-speak — 'on fleek,' you will be missed — that has fallen out of fashion. While Aleksic wades through these big questions, he is also making time for really small ones. He is hoping to make a video about urinal conversations, which have been the subject of more academic papers than you might think. While we spoke, he pulled up his email inbox to scan through the questions that had come in from his followers. (He gets about 10 a day.) 'Somebody emailed me about the word 'thank' versus 'thanks,'' he said, scrolling through a message. 'You know, that's kind of interesting.'
Yahoo
19-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Propaganda platform PragerU is primed to capitalize on Trump's PBS cuts
Donald Trump and the GOP's move to slash more than $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's budget is putting children's educational programming offered through the Public Broadcasting Service at risk. And right-wing indoctrination platforms — in particular, PragerU — are in position to capitalize. This week, Republican lawmakers inflicted serious damage in their yearslong war on Big Bird, with passage of their Trump-backed rescissions package. In response, The Washington Post raised the legitimate question of whether American children will now be turning to vacuous and absurd web content to occupy their time, such as the popular 'Skibidi Toilet' series. It's not a far-fetched possibility. But also not the scariest. Because if conservatives have their way, more children will be educated with explicitly right-wing propaganda — like that provided by PragerU, the online content mill whose namesake, Dennis Prager, has admitted his goal is to 'indoctrinate' children with a right-wing ideology. The organization, which has faced backlash for downplaying racist atrocities like chattel slavery and the slaughter of Indigenous people, hasn't hidden its desire to overtake PBS as a provider of children's content. 'Arming parents and educators with the pro-America content they are craving — we are going toe-to-toe with massive youth media companies like PBS Kids and Disney,' PragerU said in its 2022 annual report. PragerU has already entered partnerships with states to produce educational materials. Oklahoma's far-right school superintendent, Ryan Walters, even announced this month that his state will use a new ideology test from PragerU for certification of teachers who come from states with what he called 'progressive education policies,' something he said is necessary to protect students from 'radical leftist ideology.' That gives you a sense of how well-positioned PragerU is in the conservative movement's propaganda and indoctrination plans. And the White House has done its part to promote PragerU as it has waged war on PBS, as well. The Trump administration has partnered with the platform on a 'Founders Museum' exhibit for White House visitors. As tech outlet 404 Media explained, the attraction comes complete with digital assets like this 'AI-slopified' version of John Adams, who was made to regurgitate a saying popularized by right-wing influencer — and PragerU contributor — Ben Shapiro. As 404 Media noted, the White House videos conclude with a disclaimer that says: 'This partnership does not constitute or imply U.S. Government or U.S. Department of Education endorsement of PragerU.' But that's laughable. As Trump and his allies gut PBS programming and promote this right-wing alternative, the message seems clear: 'Move over PBS, and make way for PragerU.' This article was originally published on
Hype Malaysia
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hype Malaysia
Movie News: Michael Bay To Direct 'Skibidi Toilet' Movie; 'Avengers: Doomsday' & 'Secret Wars' Delayed?
'Expect the unexpected' is a phrase that applies to much of life, but who'd have thought that it'd be so relevant to the world of cinema, now more than ever? From the potential birth of an unexpected, but potentially huge, IP, to the surprise delay of another – here's some hot tea straight from the world of movies. Michael Bay's 'Skibidi Toilet' Movie Now In Development Internet trends and YouTube sensations come and go; some fade into obscurity while others are elevated to unprecedented heights, for better or worse. However, almost once every decade, a viral internet sensation will rock the social media landscape and snowball into an unstoppable juggernaut of intellectual property. The last time was 'Five Nights At Freddy's'. And now, the 'Skibidi Toilet' movie is on the horizon. You read that right. The mega-viral YouTube sensation of this generation is hitting the big screen. But who is bringing such an experimental and, for lack of a better word, bizarre, series to life? Well, it's none other than 'Transformers' franchise director Michael Bay. Invisible Narrative, a film production company where Bay serves as its chief creative director, announced earlier this week that the veteran director is officially working on a 'Skibidi Toilet' movie. For those who are unfamiliar with the franchise, 'Skibidi Toilet' is, as mentioned earlier, a mega-viral YouTube series that talks about a dystopian war between a race of singing toilet-men and humanoid figures with TVs, cameras, and speakers for heads. Made with iconic, albeit dated, Source Filmmaker, the series, created by Georgia-based Alexey Gerasimov, has been going strong since 2023. The series' explosion onto the public consciousness marked the arrival of Generation Alpha to the world and the internet. The first-ever episode, though only 11 seconds long, has amassed 241 million views, while its most recent 78th installment has garnered 31 million views. It has inspired memes, games, fan art, and at least one 'Skibidi Toilet' themed birthday party. The series has been the subject of incalculable amounts of speculation, theories and even essays that delve deep into the lore; something that we speculate Invisible Narratives seeks to leverage. It's quite surprising to see Bay take on this film head-on. At the age of 60, we never expected him to tackle such a wild franchise. However, credit where credit is due – he made the 'Transformers' franchise into the behemoth it is today. Something similar might happen to 'Skibidi Toilet'. Speaking of 'Transformers', we might see the same level of movie magic going into this upcoming film as Bay will be reunited with his production designer, Jeffrey Beecroft, who worked on 'Age of Extinction' and 'The Last Knight'. Also on board is three-time Academy Award-winning VFX supervisor Rob Legato, who is known for his work in 'Titanic' and 'Avatar' – so to say this film is a surprisingly massive undertaking is an incredible understatement. There's no release date yet for the upcoming adaptation, but the company has confirmed that they will post regular updates through their official website. 'Avengers: Doomsday' & 'Secret Wars' Pushed Back To Late 2026 & 2027 Despite the success Marvel is experiencing with the recent 'Thunderbolts*', even titans trip up at times. Though Marvel and Disney are juggernauts of their respective fields, people tend to forget that every single project these companies take on is a logistical nightmare. Though we're excited to see the return of RDJ as Dr. Doom, the arrival of the X-Men, as well as the Fantastic Four, it seems as though fans will have to wait a little longer to get that next Avengers-level threat. As per Screen Rant's report, Marvel has delayed 'Avengers: Doomsday' from 1st May, 2026, to 18th December, 2026, and 'Avengers: Secret Wars' from 7th May, 2027, to 17th December, 2027. News of the delay broke last night when Disney revealed that significant reshuffling was ongoing with its current lineup. The lineup changes include, but are not limited to, the removal of one untitled film from its 13th February, 2026, release date, another from its 6th November, 2026 date, and another from its 5th November, 2027 date. They are to be replaced by 'Untitled Disney' movies. Which means that, after the release of 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps', there won't be another MCU film until next year when 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' swings into theatres. Not only that, Marvel still has three more dates for untitled movies in 2028: one on the 18th of February, one on th e5th of May, and one on the 10th of November. It;s unknown whether these yet-to-be-announced movies will be affected by the delays. That isn't to say that the two 'Avengers' movies have ceased production entirely. Robert Downey Jr. himself has shared some BTS pictures from the 'Doomsday' set on Instagram, teasing his reintroduction into the villainous role (and he is JACKED)! Who knows, we might just see the rest of the confirmed cast duke it out with the returning star. Though we have to hunker down for a little while longer, we know for a fact that, when the chips are down, Marvel can deliver some wicked hits. Source: Empire, Screen Rant, Entertainment Weekly
Forbes
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
It's Official—Michael Bay Will Direct The ‘Skibidi Toilet' Movie
Skibidi Toilet is set to become a Michael Bay film YouTube/DaFuq!?Boom! Viral YouTube series Skibidi Toilet has gone from meme to Hollywood dream, with Transformers director Michael Bay set to direct the film adaptation of the internet phenomenon. The film is being developed by Invisible Narratives, the company founded by the former head of Paramount Pictures, Adam Goodman, who reckons that the Skibidi Toilet franchise could rival 'the Marvel universe.' The viral series has proved wildly popular with Gen Alpha but controversial with parents—each episode posted on YouTube features grotesque images of heads poking out of stained toilet bowls, engaged in a fierce battle with mechanical men made of media equipment such as speakers, televisions and cameras. The Skibidi Toilet film has attracted top talent, with three-time Academy Award-winning vfx supervisor Rob Legato (Titanic, Avatar, The Jungle Book) joining the production along with Academy Award-nominated production designer Jeffrey Beecroft (12 Monkeys, Transformers). While other internet memes (such as Italian Brainrot) are beginning to rival the popularity of Skibidi Toilet, on YouTube, the series is still going strong, each new episode acclimating tens of millions of views. According to a press release from Invisible Narratives, the Skibidi Toilet franchise collectively boasts over 35 billion views. The series was created by Georgia-based animator Alexey Gerasimov, who uploaded the first Skibidi Toilet video as an 11-second short on YouTube. Said short features a head poking out of a toilet and singing an altered version of a Biser King song which originated from a TikTok meme. Gerasimov was originally inspired by terrible dreams of 'heads coming out of toilets,' and turned his nightmare fuel into a story using Valve's Source Filmmaker. The series has since grown increasingly elaborate, showing the fallout of a catastrophic arms race between the Skibidi Toilets and the mechanical men. Many episodes of the series bear more resemblance to first-person shooters than traditional action films, and characters from famous video game franchises have appeared as easter eggs for eagle-eyed fans to spot. More recent episodes of Skibidi Toilet depict kaiju-size mechs armed with laser beams, a far cry from the initial premise of scrappy, hand-to-hand combat, which featured plungers used as lethal weapons. Gerasimov specifically cited Michael Bay's Transformers films as an inspiration, so the viral YouTube series has gone full circle. The internet largely reacted with memes and skepticism to the news. It appears that we have entered a strange new era of cinema, where popular IP is being mercilessly mined for content, a landscape in which Barbie can outshine The New Avengers. Superheroes are no longer a safe bet at the box office, but video game adaptations such as Sonic, Super Mario and Minecraft are drawing in huge crowds. In some cases, such as the Minecraft Movie, memes have spilled into the theatre seats, changing the way viewers interact with their favorite blockbusters. The viral 'Backrooms' phenomenon emerged online as a collective horror concept composed by anonymous internet users, and is also set for a film adaption. Skibidi Toilet emerged from a primordial stew of memes, YouTube culture and video game assets (largely taken from Half-Life 2), and seems well-suited to inspire a similar trend.
New York Post
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Is your kid is speaking Italian gibberish? Blame this Gen Alpha ‘brainrot' meme
It's giving… espresso-induced insanity. If your 10-year-old suddenly starts yelling 'tralaero tralala!' while pirouetting like a caffeinated ballerina, you're not hallucinating. You've just been hit with a full-blown case of 'Italian Brainrot' — Gen Alpha's latest hyper-online obsession that makes 'Skibidi Toilet' look like Shakespeare. Forget pasta, art, or bona-fide Italians: This trend has nothing to do with the land of 'La Dolce Vita' and everything to do with AI-generated chaos, garbled gibberish and digital derangement. Born on TikTok in early 2025, 'Italian Brainrot' features bizarre, AI-spawned characters with fake-Italian names and storylines as warped as a Funhouse mirror. Philip Lindsay, a social media creator who calls himself a 'student translator,' described Italian Brainrot as 'blending AI-images and videos with made-up stories' in a recent video. 'If I hear ballerina cappuccino one more time…' threatened one parent in the comments of another recent video by Lindsay. Picture a ballerina with a cappuccino cup for a head (ballerina cappuccina), a crocodile-bomber-plane hybrid (bobardiro crocodilo), and a sneaker-wearing shark chanting his own name (tralaero tralala). The concept behind 'Ballerina Cappuccina' was dreamed up in March by 24-year-old Susanu Sava-Tudor in Romania. In an email to the New York Times, Sava-Tudor described the trend as a 'form of absurd humor' that's 'less about real Italy and more about the cinematic myth of Italy.' His original video introducing 'Ballerina Cappuccina' — which he spelled 'Balerinna Cappucinna' — has since garnered over 45 million views and 3.8 million likes on TikTok. 3 'Ballerina Cappuccina,' a whimsical concept created in March by 24-year-old Susanu Sava-Tudor in Romania, has racked up over 45 million views and 3.8 million likes on TikTok since he first introduced it — under the original spelling 'Balerinna Cappucinna.' Tiktok/@ The clips come with exaggerated 'Italian' voiceovers that sound like a Super Mario fever dream. Oxford even named 'brainrot' one of 2024's words of the year, which should tell you everything you need to know about the current state of humanity. And Gen Alpha can't get enough of it. 3 Oxford even designated 'brainrot' as one of its 2024 Words of the Year — a reflection, perhaps, of the cultural moment we're living in. And for Gen Alpha, the obsession shows no signs of slowing. Dmytro Hai – Content creator Summer Fox recently went viral after admitting she thought, at just 27, she was still 'down there with the kids' and 'up to speed with the slang.' But after hearing Gen Alpha tossing around phrases like 'Ballerina Cappuccina,' she realized she was out of the loop. In the clip, she shared that kids told her the phrase means someone who looks 'cute and classy' and that it's used as an adjective. Fox also noted other Gen Alpha lingo like 'Skibidi,' 'what the sigma,' and 'aura points' — proof that today's youth speak in memes, not sentences. Even educators are struggling to keep up. Teachers say kids are yelling out Brainrot catchphrases mid-lesson, disrupting class, as reported by Parents. But before you declare your household a 'Ballerina Cappuccina'-free zone, remember: to your kids, this is the new knock-knock joke. It's a way to bond, be silly, and flex their aura points. 'The sheer randomness of the meme is the point,' Yotam Ophir, a communications professor at the University at Buffalo, told the New York Times. 3 Before you ban 'Ballerina Cappuccina' from your household, keep in mind: for kids, it's the modern-day knock-knock joke — a playful way to connect, be silly, and show off their vibe. Natalia – 'What users get from it is the sense that they are in the know — that they know something their mom doesn't know.' 'Maybe at some point there will be meaning to it,' Lindsay, the middle school teacher and content creator who studies Gen Alpha slang, told the outlet. But for now, it's just another entry in the growing universe of AI-fueled 'mumbo jumbo.' Molto bene, or whatever.
