The Out-of-Touch Adults' Guide to Kid Culture: Cave Diving Memes

This week, I explain why generations A and Z are eating rotten meat, making fun of cave explorers, showing off their emergency contacts, and becoming very emotionally invested in an angler fish. Everyone is having a very normal week.

What do all the cave diving memes mean?

If your various social media feeds are full of videos of upside down shoes and boots in different locations, you're witnessing "cave diving" memes. While "cave diving" actually refers to underwater cave exploration, the memes are not about that: Younger people are making jokes about the way cave explorers will wedge themselves into tiny crevices until all anyone can see are the bottoms of their boots. Here's a real life example:

And here are some of comedic takes.

How a cave diver checks their oil:

A cave diver going through a door:

A cave diver notices a crack in the wall:

A cave diver at the Sydney Opera House:

I'm sure you get the idea.

The meme spread because it's easy to do, and it's funny, but it's partly based on a photo taken of the boots of John Edward Jones, who wriggled into a tiny crack in Nutty Putty Cave in 2009 and could not wriggle back out. Despite the efforts of hundreds of rescuers, Jones was so firmly wedged in the tiny fissure, nothing could be done to free him. He died 28 hours later while his would-be rescuers looked on helplessly. Way less funny than the memes.

What is "high meat?"

For the past several years, young people online have been sharing stories and recipes for "high meat," or "fermented meat," which is raw meat that is left to rot, then eaten. "Why?" you might be asking. Because it supposedly gets you high.

Do not follow the recipe below:

To be fair, making your own high meat, also known as "fermented meat," is not a widespread trend, but it's interesting because it's on the far fringes of two larger movements. High meat's proponents are generally people who follow a "carnivore" or "paleo" all-meat diet—like this guy. The "it gets you high" part puts fermented meat on the fringes of the psychonaut community, where people are always searching for novel substances to alter their minds. It also reminds me of the many hoax "things that get you high" that crop up every few years among young people, like Jenkem or smoking banana peels.

Fermented meat seems like a way of making an already extreme diet even more hardcore. Burly carnivore dudes eating rotten meat remind me of those hippies for whom veganism isn't enough, so they become raw food vegans or fruitarians. I almost hate to break it to the hardest-of-the-hardcore cavemen out there, but a ton of people eat raw, fermented meat all the time: pepperoni and salami are made of fermented, raw meat, and so are a bunch of other common foods. They're made by professionals using time-tested methods so they (usually) don't give you food poisoning, and they don't get you high, but still: raw fermented meat, right in my sandwich.

What does “get it twisted” mean?

"Get it twisted" is a, well, twist on the older phrase, "don't get it twisted." When someone says "don't get it twisted," it's a promise that what is to follow will be the unvarnished truth. When someone says "get it twisted," they're going to tell you lies. It started in the online gambling community, where a couple of well-known streamers overused the phrase "don't get it twisted" leading to remixes where a speech like this:

became this:

(For more young people slang, check out my post "'Mewing,' 'Sigma,' and Other Gen Z and Gen Alpha Slang You Might Need Help Decoding.)

"Jerkmate Ranked: The Game" released for real

Last month I covered the internet making funny memes about "Jerkmate Ranked," an imaginary competitive video game based on the pornographic media platform. This week, in a case of life imitating memes, Jerkmate actually released a game. "Jerkmate Ranked: The Game" doesn't create a leaderboard based on the amount of time one spends on the site though. It's a "clicker" game where the users click the screen to make a robot enjoy itself. The more clicks, the higher you climb on the leaderboard. I try not to judge, but maybe there's something else people could be doing?

What is the "my emergency contact" trend?

Not all young people are eating rotten meat and clicking for no reason. There are normal people out there too, like the people making "my emergency contact" videos. This wholesome, funny meme template involves showing your partner doing something silly with the text "my emergency contact" laid over it, as if to say, "Can you believe this person is who the hospital will call if I'm in an accident?" That's really all there is to it, but the result is a funny, touching reminder that we're all a bunch of goofballs.

Here are a couple examples:

Viral videos of the week: the heroic angler fish and Wiwiwi kitten

This week, two animal videos are going viral for very different reasons.

First up, the sad tale of the heroic angler fish. Last week, scientists off the coast of Spain filmed a black seadevil fish, aka humpbacked angler, for the first time ever. They usually stay hundreds of meters below sea level, but this one, for reasons unknown, swam right up to the surface. Then it died, leading people to imagine an angler that only wanted to see the sun:

I mean, people got emotional over the fish:

Or pretended they were going to save it:

I'm gonna leave things on upbeat note though: This week's second viral video isn't emotionally wrenching at all. It's just a kitten being so cute that people all over the world are watching the little guy eat its little food and say "wi-wi-wi" and "oooh!" Adorable.

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