The Out-of-Touch Adults' Guide to Kid Culture: What Is Fambushing?

If you’re a grown-ass person confused by the un-grown-ass among us, I hope this week's trip down the rabbit hole of Gen Z and Gen Alpha culture brings you a step closer to enlightenment. Allow me to tell you why man-on-man phone calls are so popular and hilarious right now, the meaning of the word "fambush," and why you're seeing so many disturbing videos of Will Smith eating spaghetti.

Calling your friend and saying “goodnight” is a wholesome, hilarious prank somehow

A couple weeks ago, TikToker Miranda Faye posted this video of her boyfriend calling his friends to say "goodnight." (I love the guy who answers, "What's up, bitch boy?" immediately. So dude.)

Overall, it's a poignant video that really says something about how men relate to one another. It's also hilarious, and exactly the kind of thing that kicks off a trend. It didn't take long for dudes all over to start calling their friends for no reason other than to say "good night" and/or "sweet dreams," resulting in videos like this one:

I love the guy who responds, "The fuck are you talking about?" and how all of his friends seem ready to call the police; this is how unusual it is for men to call each other at bedtime to say "good night."

Here's my absolute favorite example:

The dude trying to keep from laughing, paired with his friends' reactions, is gold. If you want to enjoy an endless stream of these videos, waste some time on the #goodnight hashtag.

A lot of commenters on TikTok connect this to the "male loneliness epidemic" or view friends calling friends as something men should do. But I think that's looking into it too deeply. For the most part, the friends in these videos immediately ask the callers "are you ok?" with real concern—I'm not seeing a lot of male loneliness here. And there's something great about the trait of not talking to your friends about personal things unless it's really important. The real male loneliness sufferers are the many guys out there who don't have any pals they can gently prank on video.

What is fambushing?

Since I'm covering wholesome trends this week, let's talk about fambushing. The word combines "family" and "ambush" and refers to young people checking where their parents are on location-sharing apps so they can get some free food—you see mom at Chipotle, you're gonna ask for a burrito. Starbucks too:

According to a rep from family-location-sharing app Life360, teenagers who use the app are more likely to check what their parents are doing than parents are to check their kids' locations. This seems wholesome and encouraging at first, but if I project back to my own youth (long before cell phones) I'd probably be using to check where my parents were so I wouldn't get caught doing whatever I was doing.

Forgotten Cher and Future collaboration disgusts nation

Sometimes Gens Z and A dig up a delightful piece of popular culture from the past to highlight how awesome it is. That is not the case with Cher and Future's cover of Sly's "Everyday People." Nine years ago, these two very different artists collaborated with producer Zatoven on a Gap-sponsored ad featuring hilariously awkward chemistry, a total lack of effort from all involved, with an entirely cynical vibe. It's so terrible that it quickly becomes fascinating. The more times you watch it, the more cringe details you notice, and before long you've fallen into a rabbit hole of awful from which you cannot escape.

Anyway, the video made no ripple when it was produced and quietly slept on YouTube for nearly a decade. But a few weeks ago, the kids noticed. And they started tearing it apart.

"I love the way future sings in lower case and she’s just yelling in his face," posted TikToker Maliha Zahid. "Why does future sound dehydrated