I'm Just Ken
July 19th — August 1st
🎵 Top Sounds 🎵
Our curated picks of the top sounds on TikTok
I’m Just Ken 🧍♂️
Show your ‘Ken’ and his one-word job. Is your Ken’s job computer? Is it… cheating?
Use this sound when something is just a little off or when you just realized something.
This trend is all about the passage of time. While I’m not 100% sure how to feel about TikTok’s relationship with aging, I do see the potential for someone to make Young Biden (you know the photo) a thing again.
You’re The Type Of Person They Can’t Find Twice 💖
This is a positive sound for when you’re ready to embrace you are one of a kind.
Push 🐎
More Barbie! Or more Ken actually. If you’ve ever had a man play guitar at you (not for you, it’s never for) then you know what this mood is. People are using this sound, as well as I’m Just Ken, to unpack toxic masculinity and the film’s themes.
This sound is being used as a background to photo slides and day-in-the-life style content. It’s a sweet and gentle sound perfect for this time in summer.
🔉 Our Sound Highlight 🔉
What Was I Made For?
Mood: 😭
Ready to cry about what it means to be a woman, daughter, and mother? To progress beyond the women of past generations, to grieve, to be human? Yeah well, apparently, a song from the Barbie movie is going to give you an excuse to.
🎥 Account Highlight 🎥
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I’ve really been appreciating the Turner Classic Movies TikTok account lately. I love a good out-of-context clip. I love that TCM— classic being in the name, after all— is so refreshingly current. Sometimes all your content needs to elicit is a little internal chuckle, a quick send to a friend with the message ‘me.’
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👹 Effects Highlight 👹
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AI-generated music is all over my fyp. Now, this would take several ethical leaps to apply to your own account (AI instead of a voice, copyrighted music, not to mention using artists’ ‘voices’ without their consent) as well as technical skill. All the same, it’s a trend worth noting as it flourishes on TikTok.
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If you’re too old to be on your parent’s health insurance but still want them to call the doctor for you, this is the trend for you.
🗣️ The Moment 🗣️
Issues that are at the forefront of online discourse— climate crisis
Greece is on fire. We’re experiencing Earth’s hottest weather in 120,000 years. The Florida coast is so hot the coral is dying.
How do we feel? Outraged? Optimistic?
Hopefully, spurred to demand change. Real substantive change is required here. It is increasingly clear that climate change is not going to be solved by individual choices or individualist policies alone. Our economic system, the way our cities are designed, and how business functions must change in addition to our behavior as consumers and civic actors.
If we reject the notion of mutual exclusivity of individual choices and structural change in climate action we can arrive at a place where individuals take part in a collective response to environmental degradation. We also might avoid the acceleration of the climate crisis by purposely boycotting corporations that are significantly contributing to waste and harm. This would avoid the fatalism of the “well, I may as well shop at SHEIN because all consumption is bad” mindset.
We need to do better and our structures need to change. Similarly, we can be both outraged and optimistic. Things can and must be different.
☕ The Zeitgeist ☕
Hot topics from across the internet
Someone call Mulder and Scully the House just held a hearing on UFOs.
Try That In A Small Town is a hit song among racists with such lyrical dog whistles as “we take care of our own” and “full of good ol' boys.” Don’t worry though, Jason Aldean wants you to know this isn’t a pro-lynching song, even if the music video is shot at the site of a lynching with scenes of Black Lives Matter protests, and a lyrical hook about being shot up in the titular
sundown townsmall town if you try anything*.*anything here meaning: existing while Black, but especially if existing while Black means advocating for your humanity.
Greta Gerwig made history with Barbie by becoming the highest-grossing debut of 2023 and setting a new record as the highest-grossing movie on an opening weekend from a female director.
Barbie upset right-wing commentators like Ben Shapiro, which is great marketing in favor of the film.
There are 2 billion monthly YouTube Shorts viewers according to Google.
Twitter is now X because Elon Musk is obsessed with the letter X. It’s just another chapter in the ridiculous Musk saga.
The release of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has unleashed some terrible discourse reminding us that having a Twitter (or should I say X?) account isn’t the same thing as being a skilled culture critic.
Mitch McConnell froze not under a sheet of ice, as you may be hoping, but during a press conference.
🥡 The Takeaway 🥡
Can trolling be used for good?
Halli Ingi Þorleifsson, the tech professional you might remember as being subject to an almost-firing and string of ableist tweets from Elon Musk, seemed to be interested in the use of trolling this past week as he posted a not-so-innocuous question on Twitter:
While Halli may have been looking for a genuine answer, he seemed quite interested in gently debunking the flurry of blue-check replies that the tweet garnered. The responses were what you’d expect from a group of people determined to shift ‘woke’ from a Black-originated term denoting awareness of systemic violence into a right-wing catch-all for whatever is being villainized at that moment. Feminism? Woke. A corporation? Somehow also woke. Halli responded to the many definitions with occasional pushback, fair questions, and humor.
Once you’ve read the question “Which hamburger is fascist?” you’d hope for some degree of introspection from anti-woke crusaders. Even if the commentators are too far gone the idea of a thread full of self-owns is entertaining. There is a joy in laying bare the emptiness of arguments against ‘woke.’ Once you get past the contradictions, oxymorons, and absurdity you find a common emotion. Anger. The puerile anger of children forced to share.
Maybe there’s some worth in being a troll, after all.