Tik Tok Tawk: Death of The Pastor's Wife, Keith Lee Gets Cancelled, White House Arcade Features Copyright Infringement, Racism
This is the beginning of a series that's written by a neurospicy for ...well, the rest of you. Or the rest of us. Or both.
Whether you like it or not, the apps the kids are using are relevant in pop culture. So whether, like me, you actually enjoy some of the weird shit coming out of the "clock app" and can find uses for it in your life (pleasure counts) or you're one of those who's halfway to a Satanic panic about it and how terrible it is, you really can't deny its relevance to society at large, and to ignore it would be ignorant, frankly. I fought that fight with Twitter long before it became the place most journalists gathered.
So instead of acting like we aren't all doing a little doomscroll here and there, or acting like it's the worst thing since sliced bread, DnD, video games, or whatever else everyone's saying is rotting our brains, let's discuss. Maybe we'll agree, maybe we'll laugh. Maybe we'll learn something.
Tawpics:
Death of The Pastor's Wife
It's a bit of a double dip but Tiktok is sure still talking about The Death of The Pastor's Wife.
It's not hard to see why. Not only is it triggering the hell out of those among us who lived any sort of life inside the evangelical church and are now outside it, it's incredibly triggering for anyone who's been in an abusive relationship.
Leaving abuse is the most dangerous part, and the more places that this kind of thing is put under the spotlight as the heinous horrible shit that it is, the less likely entire congregations are going to accept that whatever the pastor says from the pulpit is God-breathed, ethical or anything other than maniacal.
Please, keep the conversation going. It might save someone's life.
Keith Lee Getting Cancelled
This one is interesting, because largely, Keith Lee has been unproblematic. He's a darling in the TikTok community, and often doing charitable work and giving honest reviews of places all over the country.
It's pretty wholesome content, or it's seemed to be, and over the years he's given many a business his trademark boost.
Recently, this influencer was almost in a fatal car crash, and his take on it did not go over well.
So what was the problem? When relaying the story of the crash (where someone else did die) he was overly expressive about God saving him and how grateful he was that he didn't die.
Whether or not he meant it that way, quite a few people, Christian and non, took it as him basically celebrating God was in his corner when other innocent people died and what...didn't have God in their corner? I think it'd be a lot like making it through cancer with your best friend and saying God saved you because you were faithful. Maybe you believe that, and it could even be true, but the implication is that the person who died wasn't as worthy of being alive as you.
My hot take? I think it was insensitive. Incredibly. Someone else wasn't so lucky. But I also don't think it was malicious or intended. I think the problem with social media influencers is that there's a lot less steps between them and the post button than there is with celebrities. Most of them got started doing it on their own and even if they do now have a team telling them what's not the best idea, they're not always listening. And when something traumatic happens and they want to talk about it right away, they may not be thinking clearly.
So is it in poor taste? Yeah. Should he maybe have taken more time to consider what he was saying? Also yeah. But does it make him a bad person? No. And does it mean we should all stop supporting him because of this? Also no. Go ahead and @ me.
The White House "Arcade" and Why They're Gonna Get Sued
ICYMI, the White House recently decided it was time for them to get with the times and be all cool and shit, and put some video games up on the White House website. You know, the official government site for the White House that represents the entire nation. That one.
Instead of tasking, I don't know, anyone, with any kind of skill in game production to do any kind of actual developing of any kind of game, though, they decided, hey, what if we take beloved IP from classic retro video games and turn it into a racist, horrible propaganda machine.
Meet the Tetris clone where you build walls to keep immigrants out. I only wish I were kidding:
And the official response from Tetris.
Now let's talk about MAGA stealing the SEGA logo:
And finally, today, the piece de resistance as Nintendo is busy launching all kinds of marketing frenzy about the anniversary of Legend of Zelda.
Here's the craziest one:
Legend of Trump. Complete with insanely obvious copyright infringement and obvious lies about how well intentioned Trump is in making America Great Again.
Now this isn't a fully realized game on the arcade site. They're not capable of anything near that. But it IS a pretty obvious infringement at a moment when Nintendo is wholly focused on their Zelda IP and announcing plenty of new games/merch/etc. Which makes this the dumbest thing they've done RE: Video Games all week.
If you want my hot take, you already missed it, and I just hope Nintendo goes after this idiocy with the fervor they do for just about anyone who dares mess with their IP.
Well, that's all we have time for in this week's Tik Tok Tawk.
Join us for what I'm sure will be just as crazy nonsense next week. Or don't. You still have free will. I think.
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