Night School is best viewed on the Substack website.
Welcome to Night School Week 18! I want to give a special thank you and hello the my new subscribers from the TikTok Researcher group.
As you may have noticed, I changed the release day for Night School from Fridays to Mondays. This was necessary for my schedule and I hope it will be a nice way for you to start the working week….Depending on how cursed the content is, of course.
Hail Seitan if you want to
It seemed like millions of people discovered Seitan this week. It all started on my feed with the video below, which has over 1 million likes (and counting). It is my guess that the quick cuts and “aesthetic” ASMR quality aided in catching my attention and the video’s overall popularity.
Many others followed the trend, trying their best to create the chicken-like substance. I saw countless users trying to trick their husbands into eating it or trying to convince others to give up eating meat.
A National Park Conspiracy Theory and QAnon
This week I was inspired by an episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Ghost of a Podcast. The episode discussed QAnon infiltration of the spiritual community via TikTok. Episode Linked Here.
It inspired me to discuss this specific National Park conspiracy theory that I have seen over the past couple of months. The theory surrounds a documentary, Missing 411, which covers missing persons cases in National Parks around The United States. There is a spreading belief in “feral people” living in the woods of National Parks who are stealing hikers/campers and eating them. Let me take you through the videos I found as I went through the “rabbit hole” to understand it.
It started with this video from user @thepresentbeliever:
Then user, @coincidence.theorist, stitched the video:
Based off of my deep dive, it appears that the above video was claimed to have been deleted, although it currently remains uploaded. I saw other screen recordings of it that had notifications popping up promoting the idea that it had been originally deleted by TikTok. The below video is one of them. Interestingly enough it was uploaded by user @qnicorn__ , which to me indicated a connection to QAnon by simply including “Q” in their username.
A reaction to seeing the “deleted” video from @lisamichelle15
Because TikTok videos are filtered through the “For You” feed without context, it is easy to see how quickly this information spreads through the endless scroll without deeper research.
Here is user @keighttt_ calling out the conspiracy and attempting to debunk it:
There are many more videos on this particular topic. To find them I recommend searching under the hashtags: #nationalparksconspiracy and #missing411.
The Return of Carpet Cleaning + CleanTok
Back in Week 2 I discussed cleaning videos made by children which were tutorials on how to remove makeup out of carpeting using other beauty products. It has since evolved into removing condiments and food using actual cleaning chemicals. Many comments on these videos have raised concerns about mixing chemicals which can be extremely dangerous, especially without gloves.
These videos connect directly to “cleaning TikTok” or “CleanTok” which is often dominated by videos of professional cleaners sharing quick cut videos cleaning extremely dirty spaces:
Many CleanTok videos share tips on how to best clean one’s home and can be very helpful! I have however seen countless videos taking inspiration from CleanTok but with an excessive amount of chemicals, often mixing them in a dangerous way. Some do appear to parody CleanTok but the heavy chemical use remains.
@sheridansummers
This account showed up on my feed a few weeks ago and I followed it because the content was just bizarre. You can go into their profile @sheridansummers and find question and answer videos which lifts the veil a bit. The videos appearing out of context on my feed felt slightly unhinged. It is in the unflattering lighting, the banal but intimate details of life and the way the primary person behind the content speaks to the camera/audience and their spouse as if they are one and the same.
Below is an example of sharing their dinner. The lighting in these as mentioned before, often makes the food appear quite unappealing.
And another one:
Scared of bugs
My arachnophobia got the best of me recently at work and this video made me feel seen.
Redbubble Shitposting
I could go off discussing this video, but I’ll spare you for the moment. Let’s just say it tickled my Alt Lit, Flarf & macro image memories from 2011-2015
Taylor Lautner
I simply cannot escape the Twilight Saga renaissance on TikTok no matter how hard I try. This video in particular I felt was important to screen record because the hashtags include "#god #jakepaul and #jakepaulisgod” There is a particular humor here that I cannot quite describe, if you know you know. If you DON’T know, you are truly blessed but linked here, is a video explaining Jake Paul by D’Angelo Wallace.
All that preamble for this:
And with that, please enjoy this bop: Myun Myun by Chakra
Thank you for reading. Hop into the comments or find me on Twitter if you would like to discuss any of the content featured here.
See you all next week!
Why do you qualify the theory of feral people” living in the woods of National Parks" a conspiracy theory ? Conspiracy from which people against which people ?