“Being demure” is the new “being brat,” “MILLION DOLLAR BABY” was the top TikTok sound of the summer, and the way students are using ChatGPT might surprise (and concern) caring adults. But first:
Song of the Week: “Die with a Smile” by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars
Edgar Allan Poe is rejoicing from the grave; we’ve now had two popular songs this summer tying love and death together, Billie Eilish’s “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” and now “Die with a Smile.” Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ smooth and soul-inspired single is a macabre take on devotion and love. While doomed love is always a poetically charged topic (i.e. Romeo and Juliet), Gen Z often demonstrates their pessimism about the future through the things they say and enjoy—so it’s not too surprising we’re hearing more songs like “Die with a Smile.” It’s a helpful reminder to ask an important question: where do we place our hope? For the full lyrics, click here.
Three Big Conversations
1. “Very Mindful, Very Demure”
What it is: If you’ve heard an uptick in your teen’s use of the word “demure,” you’re not alone. A new TikTok trend has exploded in popularity, and it’s got teens commenting on all things demure, all things mindful.
Where it comes from: The “demure” trend began when TikToker Jools Lebron (who identifies as a trans woman) decided to give advice to women about how to present at work and what to wear, encouraging them to be “very demure.” Now people (mostly women) are using the term to describe anything that demonstrates the qualities of patience, passivity, and mindfulness. The trend is not necessarily about leaning into these things as virtues, but about presenting yourself as reserved when it’s to your advantage. It’s seen as pointing to what it means for a woman to sit in her power rather than proclaiming it. Still, demureness is an act, just like anything else, and that makes it easy to poke fun at.
Continue the conversation: What’s a time you should be demure? What’s a time you shouldn’t be?
2. The Sounds of Summer
What it is: The top trending “sounds”—audio snippets that serve as the soundtrack for short video posts—on TikTok have been tallied. These snippets weren’t necessarily from the biggest radio hits of summer.
What makes a trending “sound”: “MILLION DOLLAR BABY (VHS)” by Tommy Richman is the official #1 TikTok sound this summer. A viral dance set to the lyrics, “I ain’t never rep a set, baby,” fueled the popularity of this sound for weeks after it lost steam in the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Other viral hits on the app include Tinashe’s “Nasty,” whose lyrics posed a (much-memed) question, “Is somebody gonna match my freak?” and “BIRDS OF A FEATHER,” an airy Billie Eilish tune that soundtracked montages of platonic, familial, and romantic relationships on TikTok. Further demonstrating the divide between radio success and trending on TikTok: the song “Please, Please, Please” by Sabrina Carpenter actually was less popular than an older single by indie band Blood Orange—the vibey, synth-driven “Champagne Coast.”
Continue the conversation: Do you think songs get popular and sounds trend for the same reason, or different reasons?
3. ChatGP-Cheat
What it is: Although chatbots like ChatGPT are mostly trained on news and encyclopedias, data suggests that they’re used most often for help on homework and for writing erotic fiction.
What parents should understand: As students settle into another school semester, many teachers are still trying to figure out the AI-cheating problem. Add to this the fact that calling up customized sexual content with AI is so popular, and it’s clear that what many users of AI long for is a sense of power and instant gratification. The long, sometimes arduous process of finding and establishing a marital relationship (the context in which sexual desire was made to flourish) could be said to parallel the long, sometimes arduous process of learning how to think well through education. Both pursuits take years—and what many of us might really wish for is a short cut. However, as Pippin cautions Frodo in The Fellowship of the Ring, “Short cuts make long delays.”
Let’s go deeper on this one…
Shortcuts for Sale
It’s well known on many college campuses that Adderall (aka “addy”) can be purchased for a few bucks to help students focus and complete assignments. After a few years, whatever grades these students got using Adderall probably won’t matter—but what will matter is whether they learned to rely on shortcuts and substance abuse to solve their problems.
The morality of using Adderall in this way has always been dubious—but those who do so still usually see themselves as responsible for completing their assignments. ChatGPT, on the other hand, allows students to completely outsource that responsibility. If taking Adderall without a prescription was a shortcut through a challenging pass of road, ChatGPT is a teleportation device that makes the road irrelevant.
The word “cheat” has at least two meanings. It can refer to going outside the bounds of a game or assignment for a sense of competitive satisfaction, and it can also refer to going outside the bounds of a romantic relationship for a sense of sexual (or sometimes emotional) satisfaction. In both cases, the motivation is a desire for short-term gratification regardless of long-term consequences—which might include anything from the loss of a grade to the loss of a relationship. While many couples might not classify using ChatGPT to create erotic fiction as “cheating,” ChatGPT is still used most often for short-term gratification.
In Romans 3:8, the Apostle Paul is answering rhetorical questions about whether bad deeds can enhance God’s glory. He writes, “Why not say—as some slanderously claim that we say—‘Let us do evil that good may result’? Their condemnation is just!” In other words, part of being Jesus’ disciple means recognizing that even if we’re pursuing a healthy goal (like keeping a scholarship), the way we get there, and who we become along the way, is just as important—if not more so—as where we end up.
For a full “translation” of everything in this issue, check out our Monday Roundtable podcast on Spotify or Apple. In the meantime, here are three questions to spark conversation with your teens:
- Is cheating on a school assignment ever justified? Why or why not?
- Why do you think people engage with sexualized fiction?
- What’s more important: where we end up or who we become along the way?
Parenting together,
The Axis Team
PS: This week we interviewed Dr. Carl Trueman about Gender, Identity, and Politics. Check it out here!