This week’s dispatch has it all: the indomitable spirit of internet perverts, a genre of music named for its awfulness, slang that didn’t come from African-American vernacular English, and a couple of YouTubers who out-earned Star Wars. As always, I’ve done the deeply undignified work of digging into it so you don’t have to. You’re welcome.
What is the matcha filter?
TikTok is serious about keeping people from using its service to expose their parts, but the ingenuity of perverts should not be underestimated. Enter the matcha filter. Officially named “wild hearts whisper,” unofficially named for the thick, hazy green wash it throws over videos, the matcha filter showed up on the ‘Tok a few weeks ago and user quickly discovered it defeats the platform’s nudity filters. Here’s a non-nudie video of it in action:
Using the matcha filter is called out in the comments on those videos, and TikTok’s moderation team works hard at the endless “prevent nudity” game of whack-a-mole, so don’t be shocked if the filter is “fixed” by the time you read this. That’s the rhythm of moderation: Someone discovers a gap in the algorithm; it gets famous, gets patched, and everyone moves on to the next thing.
What is UK Poo?
I love obscure musical sub-sub-sub genres, and you don’t get more obscure than UK Poo. Basically, it’s British hip-hop that is very, very bad. I’ve never heard any British hip-hop that was good, but UK Poo is next level: the very bottom of the cultural garbage heap of Brits trying to make hip hop. Think gratuitous auto-tune, way-too-complicated hi-hat patterns, and “I shot it in me flat!” style videos. Here’s an example:
That’s “Belfast” by D Rebal. It is not good. Here’s another example, Savvy’s “Slap Me Again.” Also, not good.
The word was coined by X user @cashyams, and they meant it as an insult. But it seems to be morphing into something a little deeper than just bad music. People are finding DIY British hip-hop that they actually like and labeling it “UK Poo,” for instance, as you can see in this video:
Then there are the people who think they’re being clever by labeling music “UK Poo” when it’s clearly a joke they aren’t getting.
And my favorite: people who try to redeem bad art through re-mixing. Such kindness.
Did they succeed? No. But it’s at least better.
What does “cortisol-coded” mean?
“Cortisol-coded” describes something that is meant to be relaxing but is actually stressful, like watching a video of the 5 a.m. yoga routine of a perfectly styled influencer surrounded by $400 candles. It comes from the “wellness” parts of TikTok, where “performative relaxation” is an epidemic.
What do you think so far?
Cortisol is one of the hormones our body uses to manage stress, both mental and physical. When your body is dealing with ongoing threats or health conditions, it’s good—lifesaving, even. There are also conditions where too-high cortisol can be a problem. Because of its association with stress, “cortisol” has become a shorthand for anything stressful.
Some TikTok influencers blame almost every physical ailment on “high cortisol,” leading opportunists to start selling supplements designed to lower cortisol, which either don’t work, or, worse, work. You don’t want to be messing around with your endocrine system unless you really know what you’re doing.
Gen Z officially takes over horror
There’s a lot of understandable hand-wringing over how being steeped in internet content all day, basically from birth, will affect younger people, but the early returns are coming in, and it seems to have worked out for horror filmmakers at least. The horror film genre belongs to a couple of Gen-Z directors whose talent and sensibilities were forged in the crucible of YouTube. Together, Curry Barker and Kane Parsons have made over $800 million from a couple of low-budget horror movies this summer.
Barker is 26 years old. A sketch comedian who dropped out of film school, Barker made an $800 found-footage movie for YouTube, and parlayed its success into a sub-million dollars feature, Obsession, that has so far made a staggering $474 million. It’s actually good, too. You should watch it.
Parsons, aka Kane Pixels, based his first feature, Backrooms, on his YouTube series of the same name which was itself based on a 4chan creepypasta. It is also good, although Backrooms “only” made $393 million on a budget of $10 million. But then, Parsons is 20 years old, so he has some time to catch up.
Viral video of the week: “I never told you this, but”
This week’s viral videos have a simple premise that leads to limitless possibilities, like the best meme formats. Here’s how it works: Two friends sit next to each other. One says, “I never told you this, but I like you better with…” followed by a ridiculous request (like a weird outfit or a strange prop). The video jump-cuts to person two having made the requested change. They fire back an even more absurd demand and everything gets weirder and weirder. It is low-effort, occasionally amusing, and a stark reminder that young people have entirely too much free time. Here are some examples: