It feels like the internet has been an especially wild place this year. There’s been “hub-sons,” drinking beer over ice, banana bread and performative men. It only makes sense that one of the most recent trends on TikTok is to share some pretty serious life stories — while talking like a caveman.
Here’s what that looks like.
User @rjarchivess shares a story of his first fight, saying: “Me gay. Him straight. Him had girlfriend. Me and girlfriend besties. Girlfriend let’s me snap him back. Girlfriend lets me pull a prank on him.” My favorite part about this one is the idea of a bunch of cavemen using the word “besties.”
“Dad no like me. Dad hate me. Dad jealous I famous on TikTok.”
“Me pregnant? Me scared. Me terrified.”
Essentially, each of the sentences is reduced down to its simplest form, mostly with one-syllable words. Very primitive. The original creator of this trend is unknown, but videos under the hashtag “caveman storytime” on TikTok have gained millions of likes since it started trending at the beginning of the month.
There’s Never Been a Better Time to Be a Dull Man
Gather ’round, men with nerdy hobbies and unstereotypical interests. Society’s “dull” is the new “incredibly attractive.”In some ways, a trend like this is simply harmless and funny. No one actually talks like this in real life, right? It’s an anachronistic juxtaposition, to talk about serious modern-day issues and slang using an outdated tone. I can admit I laughed at first. It’s also very much in Gen Z fashion to use humor to cope with relatively serious life situations. It’s something many people do to a certain extent. But Gen Z’s exposure to an increasingly chaotic world amid a booming social media era has given them a plethora of information accessible at their fingertips. They can bond with other people, and they can also desensitize themselves to serious topics via memes and viral trends.
But the kicker for me actually lies in the comments, where people admit to the language being easier to understand: “Me like caveman story. Me easy understand.” “Me understand well.” “Me like cave man story telling.” “Me start to like cave man story.”
Clearly a lot of it is satirical and getting in on the joke, but what does it say that many young people are enjoying how easy these videos are to comprehend? It feels a lot like good ol’ brainrot. It’s a word that’s become popularized within the past year or so, referring to someone who spends a lot of time online — so much that it seems like their brain could be literally rotting. Hours of numbing, mindless scrolling and tuning into short-form videos has wrecked attention spans and productivity in young people, so it only makes sense that something so short and to the point resonates just as easily.
Needless to say, my generation may be cooked, but I did enjoy this video that calls out everyone participating in the trend for not speaking correct caveman dialect.
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