July 8, 2022

A lunchtime TikTok break. I've got 8 selections. Let me know what you like.

1. Feeling really blessed and lucky to hear the northern bobwhite.

2.  Joe Biden explains sex.

3. The interior decoration style of various men, based on their clothing style.

4. A woman is mystified by the phenomenon that is pick-up basketball.

5. A cathedral of milk and other AI-generated images.

6. I don't usually select videos about dementia, however good they are, but this one is an exception — about remembering love.

7. The most steadfast sister comforts her brother.

8. Certified vibesmith teaches you how to vibe professionally.

51 comments:

Lurker21 said...

Biden impression: excellent, but how much does it cost to get an actual pair of cheap aviator sunglasses?

Ann Althouse said...

Comments must relate to the selected videos. If you have general things you want to say about TikTok, put them in one of the daily open threads.

Jefferson's Revenge said...

I like knowing that there are people like the bobwhite woman in this world. We need more of that. The generic ironic hipsters in some of the others, we could do with less of them. The father/daughter one was uncomfortable to watch but understand it's importance.

Quaestor said...

Number Eight. :(

I'm sure Mr. Ricky Gourmet considers himself cool, ironic, and witty. However, he's a total wet blanket, the complete lead balloon, compared to this vibe artist.

Yancey Ward said...

Definitely not the first woman I have ever seen who didn't grasp how pickup sports run and, increasingly, I see men, usually sallow/pale and/or obese, who don't understand it either.

MadisonMan said...

"The in-unit kitchen shower is to die for." That elicited a grin.
I have to ask about the brother/sister poolside though: WHERE ARE THE PARENTS. What kind of lame parent sees their kid upset and says "Oooh...TikTokTime!!" And all the comments are all "Oh this is so sweet, the sister is so cool" Ugh.
A small child should not be given the job of comforting their sibling -- that is mom/dad's job.
The guy dancing while drinking iced coffee out of a pyrex measuring cup -- I think he must live in Portland.

Bob Boyd said...

Wow, good stuff today! I laughed, I cried...

Quaestor said...

Number One :)

Well, maybe, maybe not. When I was a lad I could bob-white with enough verisimilitude to coax the quail from the field to our back door. Later, I would call them from cover and let Flirty Gertie, my red tail, neatly bop them. So that excitable lady may not be hearing a bird, it could be time-traveling Quaestor.

BTW, only the cocks bob-white, which is their territorial/mating call. The hens are generally silent, including the hen-to-cock transbirds. Wishing don't make it so.

gilbar said...

i try NOT to watch these (that's RIGHT China! you do NOT Own ME (not yet))
But, i did watch the pickup basketball one, and it explains SO MUCH about america..

Rhhardin i take BACK, a Lot of the stuff i said about you!! Women shouldn't vote!

reader said...

No. 2 - The words were Biden but the voice was Matthew McConaughey.

No. 4 - I thought that was very funny. That would be very stressful to me, choosing to relive as an adult getting picked for a team in high school PE.

No. 7 - So sweet. My sister wouldn’t have pushed me in but she would have been thinking about it. Consoling me would have been out of the question. When my sister and I took swimming lessons together I failed the first session.

reader said...

Parents aren’t supposed to comfort their kids during swimming lessons. In my experience they’re usually kept behind a fence.

Quaestor said...

Number Two :)

Very good, mr_bigbux, very good indeed. However, your shades are too rectilinear to be considered SloJos. I have a pair of Foster-Grant aviators, but I don't wear them, far too embarrassing, unless I've mislaid my much-preferred do ya punk wrap-arounds.

Narr said...

I only watched the dress/interior design one. Way too gay. Men of Fashion, indeed. I'll bet they're tricky wrestlers too. (Points for i.d.-ing the allusion.)

Nancy said...

Thank you Ann.
The bobwhite girl is lovely.
Likewise brother and sister.
Father with dementia moved me to tears. I am so afraid that someone I love is heading there.

CJinPA said...

“Feeling really blessed and lucky to hear the northern bobwhite.”
It’s enjoyable to watch someone genuinely excited about something, even if you don’t share the excitement.

“Joe Biden explains sex.”
Captures his sound and essence. Funny.

“The interior decoration style of various men, based on their clothing style.”
Nice premise, but I don’t get most of the references.


“A woman is mystified by the phenomenon that is pick-up basketball.”
I LOVE this. I’m a sucker for when women learn an insight to men’s lives are intrigued. And she didn’t follow the Althouse Rule.

“A cathedral of milk and other AI-generated images.
Neat.

“I don't usually select videos about dementia, however good they are, but this one is an exception — about remembering love.”
Compelling, but still a tad exploitive.

“The most steadfast sister comforts her brother.”
Made me tear up, but I still wish someone, the videographer maybe, made a move to check on that boy.

“Certified vibesmith teaches you how to vibe professionally.”
Probably a good inside joke, but over my head.

Lash LaRue said...

Number one. Very tasty when fried and served with milk gravy.

Temujin said...

1) I like a woman with simple tastes. "Here Honey. Happy Birthday. I got you a bird pin."
2) Biden guy. Nah.
3) Interior decoration styles of various men. Pretty funny stuff. "The in-unit kitchen shower is to die for."
4) Pick-up Basketball. Would have won if not for #6. The woman vs man perspective on this is pretty funny.
5) AI generated images. Fun and interesting for a couple. Then not.
6) The winner. This topic always hits me. Losing one's memories of family, friends...life...self...nothing is more cruel.
7) Very cute. Big sisters are a blessing.
8) Ricky Gourmet is actually pretty funny. But what goes through someone's head to feel the need to work on that routine and work on it, and tweak it to get to the point of videoing it to put up on TikTok? I don't get the mentality of doing that.

Temujin said...

As a PS...I'm not a bird guy, but my stepson out in Washington is. He turned me onto the Merlin app. And now I found out my new neighbor is also a bird guy and uses the Merlin app for sightings. I don't use it for sightings. But I use the Sound ID feature when I'm walking my dog at 6:30am and the birds are coming alive in waves- as if it's a competition. I turn on the Merlin ID and it tells me what I'm hearing. It's pretty cool actually. And now I know the sounds of various birds that live in the South Florida Gulf area. Interestingly, the most common sounds every morning: the Northern Mockingbird and the Northern Cardinal. I guess maybe they've been misnamed?

The coolest are the Red-Bellied Woodpecker and the Black-Bellied Whistling Duck, especially as a couple of them are flying just a few feet over your head.

Amy said...

Didn't watch them all but the dementia one was very moving.

Amy said...

Didn't watch them all but the dementia one was very moving.

Yancey Ward said...

I am of two minds about the dementia video- my father died with dementia, but he wasn't quite as lost as the guy in the video- he never forgot who I or my mother were, but he did forget which versions of us we were. For example, he thought I was the much younger version of myself and the same for my mother. I don't mind talking about it, but I don't think I would have posted a video of it ever.

Yancey Ward said...

It is impossible to parody Joe Biden- just see today's clip where one of his staff flunkies tries to convince people Biden didn't say what he just said.

Curious George said...

Ha the basketball one was so funny. I played pick-up basketball at the local Y and other places until I was 40. It's so popular that the gyms were often so packed that once you got to play, you either won or went home because you wouldn't get to play again. Because of this that last basket was tough to get because the opposing team would just foul you...HARD! Most games were won by a longer jumpshot.

Scott Patton said...

Chicken Nuggets at a Michelin star restaurant. The AI knew to be simple (how else would it look?). Was that a statement?

John Holland said...

MadisonMan said, "WHERE ARE THE PARENTS."

Well, for most of human history, this is how you learned to be a good parent: by looking out for your siblings. Call it on-the-job training/apprenticeship.

(And for the youngest sibling, you get them a dog and make them take care of it.)

Oh, and I loved the basketball one. Watched that several times. Laughed out loud, brought back good memories, but of street hockey instead of bb.

Skipped the dementia one. I find they remind me too much of my grandmother's last months, a very sad time.

Steve said...

I remember laughing at my parents for not understanding the youth culture of the 80s when I would have been a professional vibester. It wasn’t that they didn’t understand l, they just wanted no part of it.

EAB said...

Pickup basketball was very funny. Does highlight one area of difference between men and women.

Reminded me of the reactions I’d get in NYC when I’d describe commuting via “casual carpool” from East Bay into SF. “You mean you just get into a random car with a stranger???” “It’s free?” “Aren’t you scared?” “I could never do that…it’s too weird. That’s creepy.”

Also reminded me of when my husband was playing a pick up game in college and someone broke his nose throwing an elbow. A couple of guys dropped him off at ER and then went back to the game. I remember saying, “no one stayed with you?” “Nope…it was fine.”

Richard Dolan said...

Interior decoration - hands down.

Bob_R said...

MadisonMan - Kids who are always comforted by their helicopter parents rather than their peers grow up to be adults who don't understand how a spontaneous pickup game of any kind works.

Bob_R said...

Thanks for avoiding dementia videos. This wasn't that bad, and I still couldn't make it through. Been there. Done that.

Brian said...

The pickup basketball one was good. I like how flabbergasted she is. It's the definition of 2 movies.

She thinks there are no rules, but he does point out that there are rules. They are just implied. To her rules are things on paper that have to be agreed upon beforehand. To the guy the rules are derived through trial and error. "What if the losing team doesn't give up the court?" That's obviously happened in the past as he points out the solution. They rebalance the teams.

The anthropological pinnings of this dichotomy are so interesting to me. The alpha males hammer out the rules implicitly through competition. If there is no competition nobody would come so they do rebalance teams. Non-competitive males self-select out since there are no rules and by definition they don't want to compete.

The woman laments for how there should be a structure, and how she would bring drinks for people that may have forgotten theirs. This underpins her desire for the group coming together. To be friends who know each other. To have a piece of paper with everybody's name on it so you know who people are before passing the ball to them. This is a kind of nesting instinct. A specific call for a non-competitive environment.

But to the guys that would kill the game. He laughs about how he doesn't even know the other peoples names. These aren't friends. They are competitors. Even on his own "team". He doesn't go just for exercise, or for basketball. He stresses that the games "are competitive".
He's almost offended that anyone would consider it not competitive.

Jake said...

Oof. Thanks for reminding me why I don't use tik tok.

Quaestor said...

"Number one. Very tasty when fried and served with milk gravy."

I'm partial to quail pie.

Mark Sundstrom said...

I'm still at the Northern Bobwhite. Love the enthusiasm; as a birder I totally get it I only have two of those birds ever, and not since 2014. Makes me want to go look for one. Thank you.

Stephen St. Onge said...

        Four was best.  But three, five, six, seven, and eight are all top-notch.

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lyle said...

AI generated images. Holy moly!

sharecropper said...

The Bob White call is my favorite.

I grew up with quail all around our north Louisiana home, and then in southern Arkansas there was an abundance also. In the mid 1990's they became scarce and are now rare. Though I live in rural Arkansas, the only time I hear one is the one on my iPhone ringtone. A great loss.

Kay said...

The last one is the clear winner for me. But shout out to #3 as well.

Zavier Onasses said...

Most Althausians are, methinks, conservative/libertarian and ChiComophobes. TicToc is reputed to be a data gathering means for the ChiComs.

Am I correct in understanding that when one points a browser from one website to another, the succeeding website knows just-departed site? (This is why I routinely access Amazon via the "here" button upper-right on Althouse.)

If so, then the ChiComs need only monitor the feed from Althouse to build an enemies list. Asking for a friend. Personally, I do not do TicToc.

Ann Althouse said...

@Zavier

Thanks for using the Amazon link, which is a special url with my name in it. So that’s why that works these TikTok links are just the standard url that anyone would get but I don’t know what ways may be possible to track you. Obviously there’s a lot of info gathering on line.

Rosalyn C. said...

Loved the pick up game tik tok. I, too, had no idea how they work. Very cool.

Also, the dementia one and the comforting sister. Both so tender.

Fred Drinkwater said...

I still play pick-up ball, of a sort ( not basketball). Everyone cooperates. It's about 70% women. There's occasionally a couple men or women who want to run the courts by different rules, but they never last long. There are other facilities with different rules, so folks sort themselves to the suitable places pretty easily.

Marc in Eugene said...

The pickup basketball game, #4.

The bobwhite call, #1, was nice, sure, but my attention wandered because when I was a child in SW Ohio (ca late 50s, early 60s) there were plenty of the birds and their call was familiar i.e. nothing to fall into tears over. But there was a family acquaintance named Bob White, the editor of the local weekly newspaper, and I remember being confused about who or what the adults were talking about.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Most of these were good. My two favourites, Biden impression and pickup basketball.

wildswan said...

I liked the steadfast sister. Where are the parents? Well, I expect that is the brother's problem.

RoseAnne said...

Pick-up game turned out to be my favorite. She wasn't as clueless as I expected from the title and both seemed to be good sports on the topic.

The brother and sister were cute and video improved by choice of music.

Rocketeer said...

Just a hunch, but I’m betting that Ricky Gourmet doesn’t know how pickup basketball works.

Bob said...

Robert Ruark's coming-of-age book The Old Man and the Boy, which is set in and around the town of Southport, North Carolina, tells of young Ruark's life growing up mentored by his maternal grandfather, the titular Old Man. They fished and hunted, with entire chapters dedicated to quail, how to find them, how to work the pointer dogs, how to shoot them, and how to preserve the farm fields so that quail would always be around. The stories take place in the 1920's and early 1930's, and conclude with the death of the Old Man. The stories were orginally magazine articles that Ruark wrote for Outdoor Life.

stlcdr said...

There’s a movie “the big year” 2011 about birders trying to spot the most birds in a year. I’d say it catches the vibe of #1. A fun movie (just watched it last night, then saw that TikTok!)

Susan in Seattle said...

Really late to the comments.
I like so many in this round. The relationships with the siblings and the father with dementia are akin to my own life. The woman trying to understand pick up basketball was amusing, as I can see myself in her as she's trying to demystify how the 'all of it' works. The AI art was interesting and I chuckled over Monet's rendering of a strip mall. The Bob White was well done. I went to college with a guy named Bob White. I need not say more.
It was hard to pick a favorite.