Welcome to the Culture Translator newsletter, where each week our team dives into three conversations shaping teens’ world. Before we get into it, here are some of the biggest headlines in teen culture this week:
A new report claims that TikTok is building a U.S.-based app to launch in September, a 14-second video featuring Howie Mandel telling a 4-year-old that he is the “youngest person ever” was viewed and liked millions of times, podcaster Joe Rogan speculated that perhaps humans creating AI will be what “the second coming of Christ” was supposed to refer to, the English port of a “horseracing game” involving anime girls as horses started trending in the U.S., and Morning Consult reported that the youngest voting cohort (currently Gen Z) is 12% less likely to identify as liberal than the youngest cohort was in 2016.
Join over 500,000 parents and caring adults who are connecting with teens through biblically driven cultural conversations. Click here to sign up for our mailing list!Resource of the Week – The Coversation Starter
The Nintendo Switch 2 is now available for gamers to purchase—that is, if they can get their hands on one. In the newest episode of our YouTube show, The Conversation Starter, we take a look at the legacy of the original Switch, which sold 150 million units and was touted as a revolution in gaming that would bring people together. As our video explains, that’s not exactly what happened. To check out what the Switch meant back then, and what the Switch 2 means now for teen culture, click here!
And now for our three conversations…
1. Huntrix in Your Area
What it is: An animated film called “KPop Demon Hunters” released on Netflix, and it’s been dominating both music and video streaming charts.
Why it’s perfect for social media: The movie has funny moments, relatable characters and themes, Easter eggs for rewatches, catchy music, and lots of stylish outfits. The plot pits Huntrix, the K-pop stars from the title, against the Saja Boys, a K-pop boy band made up of, you guessed it, demons. The two groups battle for the hearts, minds, and souls of their fans via stylish action scenes and K-pop, all while the two leaders of the warring bands are slowly falling in love. It all plays very well on TikTok, as fans obsess over the characters, the songs, and pretty much everything about it. While the movie does have animated demons and spiritual themes that aren’t explicitly Christian, the conclusion of the movie resounds with Gospel truths like self-sacrifice, redemption, and confessing our darkest secrets to find healing and community.
Continue the conversation: What was the last movie you got really into?
2. Looking Away
What it is: The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld a Texas law requiring actual age verification for access to pornographic websites.
Why it’s a step: Teens can’t buy a pornographic magazine without showing ID—but for a long time they have been able to access substantially more extreme content online, with no barrier. With this ruling, that tide seems to be turning. Texas is one of 24 U.S. states requiring mandatory age verification, and some think the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold their law could pave the way for mandatory age verification in all states, via the SCREEN Act. As long as VPNs allow internet-enabled devices to mask what state or country a user is connecting to a website from, teens will still be able to find their way to explicit content online. But hopefully, speed bumps like this encourage more would-be viewers to pause and ask themselves: is this really what I want to be looking at right now?
Continue the conversation: What role do you think external boundaries and restraints should play in morality?
3. Tragedy in Texas
What it is: Communities in Texas are reeling from grief as the death toll from last weekend’s flash floods continues to climb over 120. At least two dozen victims were children attending the Christian, all-girls camp known as Camp Mystic.
Why it’s hitting so many, so hard: For over a hundred years, families have been sending their children to the Christian camps on the Guadalupe River. Connecting with camp staff and other campers in a spiritual environment every summer is a tradition that generations have come to treasure, and the memories made are a foundational part of countless personal testimonies of faith. Several of the camps have been physically devastated, but the spiritual devastation of this disaster may be deeper still. The tragedy raises the question of how God could allow such a terrible, tragic thing to happen—and whether joy and laughter will ever return to the banks of the Guadalupe.
Let’s translate this one further…
Like so many parents, I cannot stop thinking about the girls of Camp Mystic. They were supposed to have a blissful summer making lifelong friends, practicing archery, making crafts, and encountering Jesus. But something horrible happened. There were heroes present. There were prayers uttered. And yet, those girls are gone.
“After I lost my son, it took me years to figure out if I still loved God,” read one comment on a news article about the historic flash flood. This commenter may have been speaking to no one in particular, but everyone reading could feel their pain. It’s the kind of pain that never goes away, borne from a question that so many philosophers and theologians have grappled with: Why do terrible things happen to God-fearing people?
Young Life Ministries operates 23 camp properties in the U.S, including one in the Texas Hill Country. “Like all who have followed the news over the past four days, it’s been tremendously sad and heavy,” Gabe Knipp, Senior Director of Content at the organization, told us. “As observers, we feel the tension that runs through life, feeling the weight of the tragedy, and yet continuing to host young people at camp. It speaks to the tension between death and life we all feel at times, and it becomes more acute at times like this.”
As Christians, we are called to pray ceaselessly for peace and comfort for those who are grieving. If you’re reading this and have been impacted by this tragedy, we want to hear from you. Reply to this email with your request, and we will pray together for you as a staff.
We also encourage anyone reading to lift up our brothers and sisters in prayer as they bear the unbearable, knowing that Jesus has gone before us in all our pain and suffering. As Dorothy Sayers once put it, “For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is—limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death—He had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself.”
For more context and nuance, check out our Roundtable podcast on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. In the meantime, here are three questions to spark conversation with your teens:
- Have you heard a lot of news about the flash flooding that is happening in Texas and New Mexico? How do you feel about that news?
- Why do you think bad things sometimes happen to great people?
- How can our family be present and supportive to the people in our lives who have experienced loss this year?
PS: Know someone who could use our conversation starters with their teens? Share the CT with a friend!