Chances are, you’ve heard a slang term with which you’re unfamiliar. Perhaps your child came home one day using words like “rizz” or “drip.” Maybe you’ve just seen it used online.
Just as mountain snowfall creates the mighty Mississippi River, slang starts off small before gaining momentum as more and more people use it. But like a river, slang can often be traced back to its source.
And for the cryptic use of “skibidi,” its source traces back to Alexey Gerasimov of the YouTube channel DaFuq!?Boom!
Gerasimov’s channel grew from 1 million to more than 37 million subscribers in 2023 alone. The reason for the channel’s exponential growth in viewership? It’s his ongoing web series known as “Skibidi Toilet.”
The series, animated using Valve’s Source Filmmaker (SFM) software, features a rather unusual premise: the world is under siege by a seemingly sentient alien race known as “skibidi toilets,” who appear as toilets with heads. These toilets infect humans, turning them into skibidi toilets, too.
However, these toilets aren’t taking over the world without a fight: an opposing faction, known as the Alliance—humanoids with televisions, speakers, CCTV cameras or other tech devices in place of their heads—wages war to protect the world (or what’s left of it) from the skibidi toilets.
How does that help you learn what “skibidi” actually means? Well, it doesn’t, since the nonsense word doesn’t have any true meaning. But that summary might help you learn a little of what your child might be watching.
For all the strangeness of Gerasimov’s channel, some of its videos do depict members of the Alliance risking their lives and sacrificing themselves to save other people.
The channel’s “Skibidi Toilet” series is sometimes used as an example for what some are calling “brainrot.” As The New York Times defines it, “The term refers primarily to low-value internet content and the effects caused by spending too much time consuming it.” And, based on that definition, I’d agree that this content fits that bill.
There’s an identifiable story being told through “Skibidi Toilet”’s nearly 100 episodes. Both sides of the struggle find wins, losses, equipment upgrades and more. And a mysterious figure just may be controlling more than he seems. But the content predominantly focuses on the first-person viewpoint of various silent camera-headed protagonists—typically just before they’re killed.
And true to a war, we see many soldiers from both sides perish. Various skibidi toilets are flushed down their own drains. Others are stabbed, smacked with spiked maces or shot through the head. A few are burned down to their skeletal structures. Likewise, many camerapeople are eaten, crushed, blown up or decapitated. While the deaths aren’t terribly gruesome (the models are predominantly taken from the popular video game series Half-Life), blood and bruises are often still visible.
Some characters models may be frightening for younger viewers. The faces of each skibidi toilet are often stretched in various inhuman ways. And when they attack people, their faces likewise contort and twist.
It should also be noted that the series isn’t DaFuq!?Boom!’s only content. Its oldest videos contain animated parodies and spoof videos. These can likewise contain violence, and many of them have foul language, including the f-word and s-word. And in the “Skibidi Toilet” series, characters display their middle fingers at enemy combatants.
There’s a high chance that your grade-school child’s heard something related to “skibidi” at some point. While the word itself may be harmless nonsense, it may motivate them to search out the popular YouTube series for themselves. And DaFuq!?Boom!’s toilet-laded battleground likely won’t be the place you want your child visiting.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
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