The Out-of-Touch Adults' Guide to Kid Culture: The 'Dusting Challenge'
This week’s Out-of-Touch guide is brought to you by the letter "M" for misinformation. We have TikTok challenges that probably don’t exist, hacks for not paying back your student loans that definitely won't work, and a meme videos about bacon and avocado that has nothing to do with food, all meant to illuminate the dark chasm between what adults think is happening and what’s actually going on. So let's grab a flashlight and let's go!
TikTok tricks for getting rid of student loans
If your college-age kid thinks they’ve discovered a cool hack to get out of paying student loans, they haven’t. There are a bunch of videos like this one that purport to demonstrate "one cool trick" to get out of repaying money the government lends for education. Two of these four tricks flat out won’t work. The other two could work, but the cure may be worse than the disease.
Disputing student loan charges: You can challenge your student loan debt (or any debt) with credit reporting agencies. The agencies might temporarily remove the debt from your report until the dispute is settled, but you have to keep paying during the dispute period, and you will almost definitely lose. Then the loan will reappear on your credit report.
Filing a privacy report: Some contend that the recent activity of DOGE violated the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), and that loan-holders can use that violation to discharge student debt. They can’t, and there (probably) wasn't a violation of FERPA. A lawsuit is in progress to determine if DOGE violated the Privacy Act of 1974, but FERPA applies to schools distributing private info, not federal agencies. Here’s how Andrew Miltenberg, who defends college students as a partner at Nesenoff and Miltenberg, put it: “It is complete fiction that at this moment in time you can get your loans forgiven for a FERPA violation.”
Never leaving school: Since the repayment schedule for subsidized federal student loans doesn’t begin until six months after you finish school, theoretically, one could continue to stay in school at least half-time and never pay anything back. This one is legit, but requires adopting an entire lifestyle, and if you keep borrowing for more school, you keep locking yourself in further to education. And what has education ever done for anyone?
Just not paying it back: This isn’t advisable as it will kill your credit rating, but they can’t throw you in jail, you know? At least not yet.
Why is everyone saying “Bacon Avocado”?
If you hear your kids saying “bacon avocado” lately, do not be alarmed. It's not a new drug or sexual practice. They're not planning to make you a sandwich either. Bacon avocado is a harmless meme that’s taking off on TikTok. It’s a bait-and-switch video format that works like this: You post a video promising to say “bacon avocado” is quickly as possible. Then you slow down the playback to reveal a different message.
The secret words can be anything from advice:
To a personal ad:
to random vulgarity:
If you’d like to see more, there are a ton of bacon avocado videos here.
What is “The Dusting Challenge”?
If you hear your kid talking about “The Dusting Challenge,” you should be alarmed—but you probably won’t hear them talking about it. Like many media reports of “dangerous online challenges,” going viral, what’s actually "going viral" is the hysteria, not the challenge. Like most reports of online dangers, this is a mix of tragedy with misinformation. The tragedy: On June 1, Arizona 19-year-old Renna O’Rourke died of “sudden sniffing death syndrome” from inhaling computer dusting spray to get high. The misinformation: Media sources are reporting that the death was part of a “TikTok trend” or “an online trend” called “The Dusting Challenge.”
Even though some sources report “Dusting Challenge” videos are getting “millions of views,” I can't find any such videos on TikTok. There are reposted news reports about “the dusting challenge on TikTok,” but no videos of kids participating in something called “The Dusting Challenge” or encouraging each other to inhale computer dusting spray. TikTok locks down harmful content quickly these days, besides, so framing something as “The XXXX Challenge” isn’t even a thing anymore. A more realistic perspective: Kids have always huffed things to get high (spray paint, airplane glue, etc.), it's dangerous and stupid, but kids do dangerous and stupid things without a social media campaign encouraging it.
What does IWEL mean?
A new acronym is growing in popularity on TikTok comment sections this week. IWEL means “I wouldn’t even lie.” Another variant: IWL, or “I wouldn’t lie.” So “IWEL” is in. “No cap” is out.
It’s interesting how many youth slang words are meant to convey the idea of telling the truth—no cap, dead ass, etc.— as if in response to the misinformation being spread everywhere, by everyone.
In a broader sense, IWEL is the latest “internet only” acronym that include classics like “LOL” (“laughing out loud) and newer entries like YWLTSMHBYC (“you will live to see manmade horrors beyond your comprehension") OK, kids aren’t really using that last one, but they should be.
(If you’d like more definitions of current slang, check out my glossary: “’Aura Farming,' 'Huzz,' and Other Gen Z and Gen Alpha Slang You Might Need Help Decoding.”)
Viral video of the week: Black widow vs. Venus Flytrap
Unlike the dubious challenges and bogus hacks above, this week’s viral video delivers exactly what it promises: pure results. The problem with many burning internet questions is that they can't ethically be tested—who’s going to volunteer for "100 men vs. one gorilla?” That's what makes insect YouTuber TerraGreen's video so satisfying. In Black Widow vs. Venus Flytrap, he takes the age-old debate of poisonous spider vs. carnivorous plant and settles it with real experimentation. He also tests flies and crickets against cheap flytraps versus expensive ones as a bonus. Spoiler: It ends exactly how you'd expect, with black widows being trapped and digested by flytraps. It’s not like spider venom works on plants. But ultimately, any excuse for footage of flytraps munching on spiders is good enough.