In Which I Explain TikTok Things To Non-TikTok Users
Yung Gravy made out with Addison Rae’s mum at the VMAs
Rapper Yung Gravy, real name Matthew Raymond Hauri, has used TikTok to great effect when marketing his music, including getting songs like “oops!” and “Betty (Get Money)”, which samples “Never Gonna Give You Up” to trend on the app. Alongside this, he’s built up a solid fanbase thanks to his brand as a smooth-talking, yet respectful, young (he’s 26) and attractive (he’s white and blonde) white guy.
One thing he’s become known for besides his music is his… fondness for hot mums. It’s such a strong part of his image that he held a contest where users who recorded videos of themselves dancing to “Betty” would have the chance to win their mums a date with the rapper.
Enter Sheri Nicole Easterling, Addison Rae’s mum. Addison Rae is one of the most-followed TikTokers in the world, known primarily for her dancing videos and friendships with other TikTok stars like the D’Amelio sisters and members of the Hype House. Last year, she starred in a Netflix remake of She’s All That titled He’s All That, which currently has a score of 30% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Easterling posted a few videos flirting with Hauri last month, which caused her ex, Addison’s father Monty Lopez, to repeatedly challenge Hauri to a boxing match for… Easterling’s affections, I suppose? It was incredibly uncomfortable.
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Hauri simply responded to those challenges by saying, “I’m a grown man, I’m not going to fight you over TikTok drama. You’ve got one of the most successful daughters in the world and you decide to act half her age to get some attention while embarrassing your whole family. So grow up, get some help, and if we cross paths in real life, don’t do anything stupid.”
It’s only a matter of time before Lopez issues further challenges, because Hauri brought Easterling as his date to the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday night, where they were filmed kissing on the red carpet and during the ceremony. Perhaps Hauri felt compelled to flex his MILF-loving bona fides.
Whether the entire thing is a publicity stunt or not, it has succeeded in making me feel bad for a TikTok influencer, so good job to everyone involved, I guess. Sorry to Addison that your parents are so weird and blatant in their attempts to piggyback off your success.
“So you guys are beefing over your imaginations?”
For you to understand what I’m about to describe, you need to understand what #shifttok is. Here’s an explainer from my pal Charlotte Colombo, and here’s a feature from another internet culture friend, Jessica Lucas, where she interviews ‘permashifters’ seeking to escape our reality for good.
Essentially, shifting means travelling to an alternate reality, or ‘dream (or desired) reality’, colloquially referred to as a ‘DR’, in your dreams. From what I’ve seen, shifters are overwhelmingly young women seeking to shift into realities where cultural products like Harry Potter and Stranger Things are real.
Stranger Things shifttok is how I was first exposed to the phenomenon, because I’m on Stranger Things Tiktok anyway and the algorithm figured I’d be interested. It features young shifters attempting to ‘shift’ to Hawkins, Indiana, the fictional setting of the show, and sharing their experiences about their attempts, both successful and otherwise, as well as things like script ideas (shifters like to script scenarios before attempting to shift, I assume to provide the experience with more structure so things don’t go off the rails like in typical dreams) and advice for how to get started with shifting.
In her piece for Insider, Colombo interviewed several former shifters who said they were drawn to the practice as a form of escapism, particularly in the early days of COVID-19 and its associated lockdowns. In my experience, it’s definitely that, but it’s also the result of feeling so consumed by a piece of media that it dominates your every waking, and evidently resting, thought. You love the worlds the Duffer Brothers or She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named have created, you’ve run out of fanfics to read, and people on TikTok keep talking about shifting — why not try it out? What’s the worst that could happen?
It does seem to be largely harmless, and fairly similar to daydreams I’d have as a 7-year-old where my bed was the door in Titanic and young Leo DiCaprio and I had to share it to ensure we both survived, although at no point did I believe that Jack Dawson was actually in my bedroom, or that I’d somehow found myself in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in 1912. Others have compared it to lucid dreaming or meditation. My point is, this kind of escapism isn’t in and of itself unusual, although the insistence that it’s a legitimate and real practice would certainly seem unusual to those on the outside looking in.
Colombo spoke to former shifters and mental health professionals who voiced concerns about people relying on shifting more and more as a form of escapism and how it can become an unhealthy coping mechanism, with one shifter explaining that she stopped after it became an obsession that saw her losing interest in her everyday life. This lines up with videos I’ve seen where shifters bemoan the fact that since they’ve met and fallen in love with Draco Malfoy or Steve Harrington in their DR, they have no interest in dating in their current realities, and they don’t believe that any real men could compare (no comment on Draco, but I agree with them on the Steve Harrington front).
All of that context brings us to the current shifttok drama, which kicked off when two popular shifttokkers accused a third of lying about having shifted to Hogwarts. At least two of these users have around half a million followers each, which is a truly astonishing reach for young women posting about visiting alternate realities. I’m not sharing their names or usernames because while they have popular TikTok accounts, they’re not public figures and this isn’t particularly newsworthy.
The idea that one can determine who has and hasn’t ‘shifted’ is fascinating to me, though, considering the whole thing seems to be a huge exercise in faith, and demanding proof would essentially cause the entire house of cards to crumble. Is everyone not just taking people at their word that they’ve visited these dream realities? Is everyone not engaging in the tiniest amount of self-delusion by believing this is possible in the first place? Why bring demands for verification into it?
All of this was just an excuse to share the quote used in my subheading, “So you guys are beefing over your imaginations?” because it made me laugh and laugh and laugh. Oh and this.
If you’re interested in learning more about shifting, here is an actual academic article on the subject.