The Out-of-Touch Adults' Guide to Kid Culture: The Creator of 'Brain Rot'

This week, I'm taking a look at a brain-rot creator Cookie King, whose constant output of brain-rot videos is shaping the internal lives of millions of kids under 15. I'm also taking a look at what people think ChatGPT would be like if it were a person, introducing the clueless to Beabadoobee, and dunking on "millennial burger joints."

Meet Cookie King, the brain behind the brain rot

I think of brain-rot internet memes as springing fully formed from the collective unconscious of the internet like Athena sprang from the head of Zeus, but the culture vultures at KnowYourMeme tracked down the actual person who is probably most responsible for brain-rot.

Demir Basceri, known as Cookie King to his millions of followers, has probably done more to create and define the brain-rot aesthetic than anyone else. Cookie pioneered ironically applying garish transitions, effects, and filters from video editing software Capcut on all-but-meaningless footage. He started off making "fan edits" of The Walking Dead like this one—

—then matured into making videos like this:

Then he started making videos that combine unrelated memes in ways that defy meaning. Check out this video:

Here's Cookie King's explanation of it: "On Instagram, there was a new meme. It was about Chopped Chin and Property in Egypt, and people were doing battles between them. I was like, 'Wait, what if I just combined them together with the Johnnie Walker thing and the Friggin' Packet Yo?' I just thought, 'I'm gonna combine them all."

Cookie King says he's been posting videos since he was seven, first on YouTube and then everywhere else, and the key to his brain-rot supremacy is his work ethic: Dude says he spent his senior year of high school spamming "20, 30, 40, 50 videos a day." Eventually, some of them caught on, like the currently popular memes Eye of Rah and making "99% accurate" copies of existing videos. He seems to not think at all about what he puts out—brain-rot is a pure expression of his internal life, and it resonates with his audience of millions of "raised in the digital world" followers.

So what's going on with all this shit?

In the 1920s, partly in response to the mechanized mass slaughter of World War I, avant-garde artists created Dadaism, a movement that aimed to replace meaning in Art with chaos and nonsense. The Dadaist movement didn't really catch on—it was elitist, self-conscious, and bogged down by a central contradiction: The Dadaist said they didn't care about meaning in art, but they sure liked publishing manifestos explaining what their work meant. Maybe brain-rot is actual Dadaism—chaos blotting out reason entirely. Unlike Dada art, there really is no discernible ideas or thoughts behind brain-rot: It's actually nonsense. Brain-rotters are just spamming 50 videos a day without trying to comment on the horrifying alienation of modernity or whatever, even if that's the message I'm taking from it. I don't think this is a good thing, but it's the thing that's happening.

"How I imagine ChatGPT:" Young women personifying AI

Speaking of the unspeakable horror of the modern world, young people, especially young women, have been asking and answering a fascinating question this week: If large language model artificial intelligence program ChatGPT was a person, what would they look like? The initial post came from TikToker @mymetaldiary. According to them, ChatGPT is a brown-haired, handsome young white dude wearing glasses, as you can see in this video:

While many commenters replied with a variation of "nailed it," others reported their own head-canon visions of ChatGPT-as-a-person. These responses run the gamut from "an old lady like mother nature," to "a mafia boss," or "a golden retriever."

I don't picture anything physical when I think of ChatGPT, but the AI's unfailing politeness and literally endless patience suggest a human personality. I think of ChatGPT as someone I regret having started a conversation with at a party. They seem like someone I don't know who is trying to get me to like them, and I can't figure out why. ChatGPT is a combination of boring and desperate, like someone searching for the most non-offensive thing to say at all time. It's someone I don't trust, even though I have no reason not to trust them.

Famous people you've never heard of: Who is Beabadoobee?

If you've been hearing people talking about (or reading people posting about) "Beabadoobee" lately, here's a look at the person behind the unique name: Beabadoobee is a 24-year-old singer/songwriter who was born in the Philippines. Her parents named her "Beatrice Kristi Ilejay Laus." At three, her family moved to London. When she was 17, she taught herself to play guitar, started writing songs, and began calling herself Beabadoobee. It was a joke at first, but it stuck. Her music might have been called "twee" a generation ago; it's wistful and soft and influenced by artists like Elliott Smith and Mazzy Star. It sounds like this:

She released her first single in 2017, and has been growing in popularity since, helped along by many, many uses of her songs on TikTok videos. As of 2025, there are three full-length Beabadoobee albums and six EPs, all released on indie labels. In a nutshell: Beabadoobee is a cult-popular singer favored by young women who make their own clothing.

What does SYBAU stand for?

The acronym SYBAU isn't exactly new—it was first defined on urban dictionary in 2008—but it's growing in popularity in the comment section of TikTok and Instagram lately. It means "shut your bitch ass up." (Rude.)

What does "snatched" mean?

According to young-people slang, "snatched" means very attractive and/or flawlessly styled. Example: "That new dress has you looking snatched."

(For more definitions of slang words, check out "'Mewing,' 'Sigma,' and Other Gen Z and Gen Alpha Slang You Might Need Help Decoding.")

Viral video of the week: dunking on millennial burger joints

Tim Marcin over at our sister site Mashable noticed a hilarious new trend on TikTok: Generations Z and A are mocking millennial burger joints, pointing out the cliches and tropes of a kind of restaurant you've probably eaten at dozens of times, especially if you've spent any time in a "medium-sized city just outside of a major metropolitan area," but never thought about.

This week's viral video from Tiktoker @user2521208780374 lays it out:

Here are some of the hallmarks of a millennial burger joint:

• Founded by "two friends with a dream"

• Burgers cost $19

• Metal barstools

• Reclaimed wood table

• Truffle fries

• Menu written on a chalkboard

• Garlic aioli

• Brioche bun

• Special sauce described with mild swear like "kick ass" or "bitchin'"

• Local "craft" beers, always IPAs.

Some millennial burger joints really strive to be different by serving food on something other than plates, usually slabs of wood, a phenomenon covered in detail on Reddit's "We Want Plates" board.

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