PJ Vogt

Like do they actually believe all the edgelord things they're saying?

Are they playing up their edgelordiness for attention?

Do they actually know the difference?

Whatever.

But if you just look at it as a business model, it's basically like you have this guy.

He behaves in provocative ways to get attention, which works.

Yeah.

You're a teenage boy, you're scrolling TikTok, you're scrolling reels, you see this guy like saying the N-word, you're like, oh my God, what an asshole.

And then the second thought you have is, his face looks better than mine.

And so it's like, he's bringing you to the car crash of his behavior, but then the thing you get curious about is his advice about how to be a gigachat.

They're like convincing a person who's 18 to have the anxieties of a person who's middle-aged.

Oh, God.

That's insane.

It's so confusing for me because, like, I'm both more disconnected from this internet than the last one, but also...

The main way that I experience teenage boys is, like, I have stepkids and they have friends.

I'm constantly, like, driving them places or they're, like, doing sleepovers or whatever.

And it's weird.

I look at this stuff and I'm like, oh, my God, that seems horrible for, like, an average 15-year-old kid's, like, ideas about sex.

ideas about race, ideas about women.

But then I see the teenage boys in my life, and, like, they seem self-conscious.