I lyrically riffed a bit in this comment about Gura being hounded by cancel culture dorks (for being a "loli"), and trolling them back in her unflappable shitposting style, to the tune and the similar theme of "Piece of Me" by Britney Spears.
That immediately made me think of the hoe anthem to end all other hoe anthems -- "Gimme More" (original lyrics here). Gura remains mainly on the seiso, or wholesome side, but fortunately for my inspiration, she let loose with a little fan-service at the end of a recent Minecraft stream (here at 1:55:00). Playing into the "step on me" meme, and size-based roleplay (an ironic role reversal for our tiny virtual princess).
Her fellow players had left the game, so she thought she was alone, where nobody else would be reading her edgy chat logs. But even if she could erase those in-game logs, there's always the clippers who record what went on, to repost as short standalone videos on social media. All the more reason to adapt this iconic song to the current era, when it's mainly online content and social media, rather than Hollywood movies / music, photographers, and glossy magazines.
Pronunciation: stress shift in "chatroom" (chat-ROOM) and "trophies" (tro-FEEZ).
* * *
It's Sharky, bitch
I see you
And I just wanna bantz with you
When the other streamers log out,
I'll roleplay "loli's towering over you"
This parasocial V-connection
Feels like it's our private chatroom
Desires unbound like we're alter accounts
We're overclocking
Trophies unlocking
Screenshots are snapping, yabai-like we're bantzing
They're emoting
Emoting
Feels like the chat is spamming:
Gimme, gimme shork
Gimme shork
Gimme, gimme shork
Gimme, gimme shork
Gimme shork
Gimme, gimme shork
The number 1 on Trending
Even when we broke the heart-rate belt
You make me feel this fan's more than fiction
If you came for friction,
You got my subscription
Desires unbound like we're alter accounts
We're overclocking
Trophies unlocking
Screenshots are snapping, yabai-like we're bantzing
They're emoting
Emoting
Feels like the chat is spamming:
Gimme, gimme shork
Gimme shork
Gimme, gimme shork
Gimme, gimme shork
Gimme shork
Gimme, gimme shork
I just can't... *bonk* myself
They want shork?
Well I'll give 'em shork!
Gura's size-play bit shows how Zoomers love low cam angles, the opposite of the super-high angles favored by Millennials since the "MySpace angle" of the late 2000s. But even Millennials using selfie sticks throughout the 2010s were holding them up high, pointing down at the subjects.
ReplyDeleteThere are hardly any high angles on TikTok, the most Zoomer of platforms, and lots of very low angles. Might as well call it the "TikTok angle" to contrast it with the older generation's distinctive angle.
I like the Zoomer version better. High angles are jarring, like much else about Millennial cultural hallmarks. Look at meee, lol XD so randommmm. Some of it's funny and charming, but they really have been whoring for attention their whole lives, and generally not through any kind of merit, but in a shortcut / cheat-code way like holding the camera really high up, so you can't help but pay attention due to the weird angle.
Low angles are far more common in photo / cinematography. It makes things look larger than life. Like dat big bank in a TikTok video.
Hmmm, maybe it's more about the perspective of the audience -- like Millennials are flattering an audience that thinks they're bigger & better than others, and want to look down on them. Whereas Zoomers are more laid-back, self-effacing, and passive, so they want to feel like they're smaller and if anything not-worthy of the subjects in the picture.
It has nothing to do with tech changes, since putting your camera on the floor was always an option for Millennials, and putting it up high -- whether holding it up with your own hand, or attached to a separate fixed holder -- is always an option for Zoomers.
It's just one of those things where one generation feels that something belonging to the previous generation is played out, and it's time to do the opposite. Either because they don't care and just want to do the opposite of what came before, or there is actually a substantive difference like wanting to feel big vs. small in the audience.
In any case, now it's center parts, baggy clothing -- and low angles.
To finish with something nice about Millennials, I do miss severe side parts, since that allowed girls to pile their hair up even bigger, on top of itself, whereas it sits flatter now with a center part.
Here is a great representation of the wholesome ditz architype from the early 1990s.
ReplyDeletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CC_k3mB8S2U&t=54s
Daaaang, super-low-angle from the shork is blowin' up on Twitter, maybe her most liked post at well over 100k?
ReplyDeleteThe backlash against the Millennial / MySpace angle is real.
And on the same night, she debuts on the Zoomer / low-angle platform itself, TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@gawrgura_holoen
It's so funny seeing all the Millennials melting down in her mentions on the Twitter post with the news (and somewhat in the comments on her TikToks), about how they will never, ever download that app, never install it, never start an account there, etc.
ReplyDeleteOr if they will, it's only because of her higher holiness that they're violating an otherwise sacrosanct order to never set foot on that platform.
As everything goes virtual, these platforms are becoming like nations, and everyone's getting insanely chauvinistic about their platform of primary residence / citizenship. They could never hold dual citizenship in a sworn enemy nation.
Why are Millennials so xenophobic against TikTok? Because they didn't get in on the ground floor, and were not able to colonize it like they did Twitter (and to a large extent, Instagram). Same with Twitch -- Millennials deride streaming because they're only half of the population there, and the other half are Zoomers. TikTok is worse because there are hardly any Millennials there at all.
Zoomers only flocked to TikTok in the first place because the other platforms were mature, saturated, and thoroughly colonized by Millennials (or X-ers and Boomers, like Facebook). They could get a huge following and engagement, with minimal competition at the outset. Like settling a wild frontier (how Millennials were on Twitter and Tumblr 10 years ago).
Just keep that in mind whenever you hear Millennials coming down with the vapors over the "Satanic" nature of TikTok -- meanwhile they're forever wading into the discursive Lake of Fire on the most hellbound of hellsites, Twitter. It's just moralistic rationalization about "platform we colonized, good -- platform we did not colonize, bad".
White-knighting the honor of m'lady Twitter, in 2022, while crusading against the harmless booty-shakers and sketch-comics of TikTok. GTFOH.
Millennial copium about "TikTok Satanic" always reduces to the woketard political videos that have been cherry-picked by X-ers, Boomers, and Millennials for re-posting on Twitter (like Libs of TikTok).
ReplyDeleteNo one who is actually on TikTok creates that kind of content, or consumes it. It's not a platform for political or culture-war takes. It would be totally invisible, except for the secondary market on a separate platform, namely the ragebaiting aggregators on Twitter.
Millennials need those aggregators to distort and re-interpret TikTok's actual content, because it's so foreign. Where are all the damn TAKES?! We need to know what the TAKES are like over there!
What, it's just babes dancing to music, bros pranking each other, dads making how-to tutorials for technology, girls showcasing their sub-cultural aesthetic, and foodie porn galore? Impossible -- what do they crusade against each other over? What's the outrage du jour?
They can't just be straight vibin' all the damn time. They must be consumed be seething hatred for their enemies, whether openly or disguised by ironic detachment. But still -- they must always be hating and debating, not chillin' like a villain!
Maybe the Hololive girls could frame their late entry onto TikTok with some tongue-in-cheek videos about, "We always wished we could've hopped on this trend, so now that we're finally here, here we go!" to revisit some familiar faves.
ReplyDeleteNot Gura single-handedly reviving the "Electric Love" / kissing my friend trend... You know Kiara would be down for the kisser role, too, if she were on TikTok.
Recreate the style of the original videos, like a candid shot of the target, or both together doing friendly activities in a montage, with text saying "This is my genmate So-and-So... I've collabed with her for over a year now... But she still doesn't know how really I feel about her... Gonna shoot my shot today... Wish me luck!"
Or that "put your hand in mine" song, although please not the sad-boy rap one about "don't stay away for too long". Keep it upbeat or anthem-like, not mopey.
Or that, "Wear this on Monday, wear this on Tuesday..." where the girls showcases some fanart from her community, a different look for each day of the week. That could actually be a recurring series -- just like regularly retweeting fanart on Twitter, only posting a TikTok with that song and a week's worth of fanart.
Depending on how yabe they're allowed to be, Gura could do that "small waist, pretty face" trend. When she lands after the jump spin, as the words "big bank" play, her tail physics could be wobbling heavily side-to-side. A novel but fitting take on the "everybody's already done it" trend. Yeah, but do the other girls have a thicc literal tail that bounces in recoil?
Just some helpful brainstorming, not indulgent fantasizing. :)