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Comment by Cthulhu_ | Hacker News Reader

> Kids are always gonna love stuff that pisses off their parents.

Thing is, gen alpha's parents grew up with weird shit themselves, edgy stuff that pushed the boundaries of what is acceptable. MTV and Comedy Central productions for a lot of people, stuff like Beavis & Butthead, Jackass, South Park, and then the 2000's internet of Newgrounds productions. Especially South Park I think desensitized the millennial generation, to the point where there's nothing that really weirds us (well, me) out.

I never watched skibidi toilet or much gen alpha stuff, but I'm not shocked by it or anything. I just think it's weird and surreal, but nothing worse than e.g. Salad Fingers.

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> I think desensitized the millennial generation, to the point where there's nothing that really weirds us (well, me) out.

You know, I used to think the same way, that so many of us got desensitized that none of this newfangled stuff should really be surprising, even less appear bizarre.

Yet out in the real world, I think you, me and the others are maybe a 5% slice of all the people out there, as many people get borderline offended by "weird stuff" and doesn't seem like they got desensitized like you and me when we were younger.

> Especially South Park I think desensitized the millennial generation

Desensitized some people, who understood and appreciated the irony, absurdity and inversion of norms.

It hyper-sensitized others, who often doubled-down on the type of authoritarian political correctness that South Park satirized.

There is clearly a huge segment of the millennial generation who don't agree with the South Park "make jokes about everyone and everything" ethos, and instead believe there are numerous individuals, groups, topics and issues which should never be joked about, and feel very offended when someone does.

Jokes are serious business, more so when they're funny. It's best to leave that sort of thing to accredited professionals.

Lachwerkingenieur is a registered title in German that is related to your point.

It is a little known fact that Germans have rigorous state controls over who can build humour for their media.

For sure. Im the parent of a couple Gen Alpha kids on the younger side. I showed the skibidi toilet videos to my wife and her response was a shrug and “looks like dumb videos we watched in college”.

But as other posters say, not everyone was into that corner of internet culture as millennials. Especially the weirder offshoots.

The difference between these generations is that millennials would consume the stranger or more “offensive” stuff sporadically, as a thrill or pleasant provocation. Even among those who wanted this thrill, I think the majority of the media diet was more traditional narrative stuff.

Gen alpha, on the other hand, seems content to consume the absurdity non-stop. I think this is another angle on what “brain rot” actually is - briefly shattering a reality that made sense was a thrill, while immersing yourself in sense-shattering media starts to actually sever the connection to reality.

Salad Fingers! That lives rent free in my brain, near Magical Trevor and Schfifty Five, and a bunch of 90s TV ads. It's my money and I want it now!

It’s your _settlement_ and you _need cash now_.

Remember: if you have a phone, you have a lawyer.

In case you didn’t know, Filmcow’s Charlie the Unicorn and Llama’s with Hats series are finished now.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bKd_2vqPrmU

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XPj_1XzPCj4

JG Wentworth...this guy is stuck in other people's brain's too!? I thought that was a locally aired commercial when I was younger, but apparently that earworm went nationwide!

What is or isn't edgy is defined by the dominant culture of the time and place. It changes over time. Stuff probably does weird you out, but maybe it's on a different axis than Cartman accidentally joining NAMBLA. I mean, if you think South Park is mainstream, what do you think about Paramount pulling a handful of episodes from their streaming platform? Surely if your peers, your kids, etc., stopped treating pedophiles as distasteful butts of jokes and started fighting for the censorship of media, that would weird you out, no?

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