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Filling out forms by yourself for the first time is an adulting milestone.
It's easy to poke fun of young people complaining about "adulting," but in truth, everyone runs the How To Do All The Grown-Up Things gauntlet at some point. Some adult things we pick up intuitively, some things we figure out through trial and error, and some things have to be explicitly taught.
But there are some things that fall into the gap between what kids need to know and what parents think to teach them, and many of those things are found on forms at the doctor's office. A viral post from a mom sharing texts from her 17-year-old son on his first solo trip to the doctor provides a perfect illustration of that fact and it has people everywhere rolling.
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"My 17 year old went to the doctor alone for the first time," the post from @wisco_cheryl reads. "Here are the frantic texts I got…he barely survived."
With "I'm Just a Kid" by Simple Plan playing in the background, we see a series of texts from the son:
"What do I even say when I get there"
"What's my social security number"
"What's DOB"
"Nevermind I got it"
"They gave me so many papers to write on"
"They're gonna touch my nustack"
"Nvm fault alarm" (He meant "false alarm.")
And for her part, Mom responded with a half dozen laughing emojis followed up by a hand and peanut emojis.
Joy Laughing GIF by Biteable Giphy
The son's texts are funny in part because they're totally to be expected. Seriously, at some point, you run across acronyms like DOB for the first time—how are you supposed to know what it means? Maybe you figure out by context, or maybe you have to ask, but it's not like that's something they teach you in school. And the social security number? At some point, every American has to commit their social security number to memory, but you just don't until you do.
And that's just the basic stuff. Forms can be legitimately confusing beyond that. Heck, I have my own adult children and I still find myself baffled by questions on forms at the doctor's office sometimes. What the heck does co-insurance even mean? Do I have it? No idea. I don't think I do, but maybe I'm wrong? Insurance details remain a mystery decades into adulthood.
So naturally, a teen who is just starting to walk the path of adulthood is going to have a million questions, and it's truly fortunate when young people have parents they're able to text and ask all their "silly questions" when needed.
Young people need adults to help them figure things out without judgment.Photo credit: Canva
With compassionate hilarity, people in the comments shared their own examples of not-quite-adult mishaps from their lives and their kids. It did not disappoint:
"At 21 I said my occupation was white and it still keeps me up at night. I'm 32."
"My son text me 'what's my maiden name' for the application for a job."
"While at urgent care, my son wrote 'mom' on the line asking for his primary care provider."
"My brother asked my mom when his last menstrual cycle was when he went to the doctors by himself for the first time."
"One time kid i hired back in the day filled out 'Next of Kin: Mom' and then 'Relationship: Good' on a onboarding packet. lol."
"My son when asked if he had the chicken pox shot 'I don't think so I'm not around chickens' 😂😂😂😂"
The chicken pox shot has nothing to do with actual chickens. Giphy GIF by Black Women Love Dogs
"I help my dad raise my siblings (5) . when my brother was 17 he went to see his primary. she told him that he had sinusitis. he came home crying thinking it was cancer 🤣🤣🤣🤣"
"When I was buying my first car, they asked for my insurance and I handed them my health insurance card💀still haunts me to this day. My dad was so embarrassed lol"
"When I applied for a job at 16 for the skills area I wrote 'I can do the splits' I was applying for a job at the mall"
"My teens act like they know everything, until it’s time to fill paperwork. 🤣🤣🤣"
Sometimes teens need a little help as they're transitioning into adulthood.Photo credit: Canva
But one doctor's office worker had the best response of all:
"As someone who works in a drs office I’m always so proud of the teens. You can tell they’re nervous but they do such a good job 😊."
That's what we love to see—an acknowledgment that these young folks are doing alright as they learn the million little things they need to learn to go out on their own in the world. Here's to the parents and other grown-ups who remember what it was like to not know things and help the kids out, even when their questions might seem silly to us.
People have found a really great active listening technique in a super strange place.
There is an art to being a good listener. Physically using your ears to hear what someone is saying, and your brain to process it, is only part of the battle. You also have to show the person you're talking to that you're listening and that you care. Asking questions is a great way to keep the conversation flowing and let your talking partner know you're engaged. But what if you're socially anxious, shy, or just can't think of anything to say? It's harder than it seems, especially when meeting new people!
The solution is easy. Just take a page out of Solid Snake's book. Who's Solid Snake? Just a former Green Beret, special ops solider, spy, assassin, and the protagonist of the popular Metal Gear Solid video games. You might wonder what the heck Solid Snake, aka David, knows about active listening. It turns out, quite a lot.
The "Solid Snake conversation method" is taking the world by storm. It's part trend, part meme, and 100% effective.
Solid Snake is here to help your social anxiety! Giphy
You don't need to know anything about video games to understand where the method comes from. Suffice it to say, Metal Gear Solid is a plot-heavy game series, full of cut-scenes that feature lots of dialogue and exposition.
It's become a bit of a joke in the gaming world that Snake, a man of few words, tends to fall back on one particular conversational technique over and over: He repeats, or echoes, bits of what the other characters say. It adds emphasis to important points, creates good conversational pacing, and allows the plot and dialogue to continue on smoothly.
Here's a (made up) example:
"Snake, we've got to get the blueprints!"
"The blueprints?"
"Yes, the bad guys are constructing a devastating bomb!"
"A bomb?"
"Indeed! You'll find the prototype in that bunker over there."
"A bunker?"
You get the idea. You can watch it in action here.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Why does this random video game character speak in this strange cadence? And why are people stealing it to use in real life?
You might think this dialogue is just a clunky tool for exposition or the result of bad writing, but you'd be wrong!
The Metal Gear Solid games are written and developed in Japan by a team led by legendary developer Hideo Kojima. Though translated into English and created in part for an American audience, the games feature a lot of bits and pieces of Japanese culture.
Frequent repetition and conversational echoes are extremely commonplace in Japanese. It's part of a polite active listening technique called "Aizuchi," which refers to frequent interjections to show interest, engagement, reassurance, and politeness.
Aizuchi includes interjecting with words or phrases (or their equivalents) like "I get it," "Yeah," "Really?" or even repeating back parts of the original speaker's words, a la Solid Snake.
According to Niko Smith at FluentU, "Perhaps you already use some of these interjections in conversation. While your friend is [telling you a story]... you might nod a few times or throw in a surprised 'No way!' or 'What happened next?' [Aizuchi] works in a similar way, but it’s more relentless. As the listener in a conversation, you might find yourself doing just as much talking as the speaker."
Smith adds that in America, young people are often taught specifically not to interrupt or speak while someone else is talking. In Japan, doing so frequently—in the right way—is a sign of respect and interest.
Better yet, Aizuchi doesn't require the listener to be particularly brilliant in conversation, charismatic, or creative. Even socially awkward people, or anyone who clams up in social situations, can muster a few polite interjections!
This technique exists outside of Japanese culture, too. In fact, it's a well-known wat to keep conversations flowing effortlessly, give you time to think about what you're going to say, and make your conversation partner feel heard and appreciated.
It's no surprise that people familiar with the game have been trying the technique in real life for years. In 2023, a viral 4chan post helped popularize the idea, and more recently a (now deleted) post on X went super viral referencing how effective the "Solid Snake conversation method" is for meeting new people.
The technique is hitting home with young people, especially gamers and the chronically-online, which makes for a really productive and much-needed discussion.
Gen Z has grown up with social media taking the place of many in-person interactions, screens everywhere, and of course, the COVID years. All of these factors affect the way they communicate with each other, especially in real life:
Maddy Mussen writes for The Standard, "Gen Z slang is all about shutting people out. It’s an inside joke, the more unintelligible the better. It’s in keeping with its etymology. When your whole modus operandi is being exclusionary, it doesn’t make for a lot of meaningful conversation."
It would be an unfair blanket generalization to say young people only speak in brainrot and have no idea how to operate in the real world. But Gen Z is racked with social anxiety to a far greater degree than previous generations. They need all the tools and practice they can get when it comes to operating in the real world and speaking to people they don't know well.
If they, or anyone else, can take a useful tip from their favorite video game character, there's nothing wrong with that at all.
Californians love-hate relationship with Gavin Newsom is comedy gold
Gavin Newsom is a name most people know whether they live in California or not. But in case you're new here, Gavin Newsom is the governor of California, which is essentially like being the president of a country given the size of the state. Due to his role, good looks and politics on many things, he's an easily recognizable figure that is often romanticized.
Of course the romanticization could be because he looks more like a movie star than a governor but the people who live within the state he governs have feelings about people's infatuation with him. Everything is often rose colored when you're outside looking in. When Californians started taking to social media to explain their relationship with the governor, the average social media user was unprepared.
Gavin Newsom; Gavin Newsom Trump; California governor; California; Gavin; Newsom; love-hate Gavin NewsomPhoto by Frederic Poirot/Flickr
The conversation first started in comment sections of people from states with problematic leaders making swooning videos over Newsom's handling of political attacks on his state. Comment sections became flooded with Californians expressing very conflicting responses within a singular sentence. When pressed for a better explanation on why his constituents didn't like him but also felt passionately about their like for him, the responses became comical.
"Gavin Newsom is Godzilla in the movies where he's on your side against another kaijuu but still has beef with us," one person writes.
"He may be a monster, but he is our monster," another says.
"The enemy of my enemy is technically, my friend, if my friend was also evil and not a good person and also my enemy," someone laments.
What is it exactly that Gavin Newsom has done to make people love to hate him? No one ever really says explicitly what it is. In the current context of America, it seems that people dislike him due to his swift shift on homeless encampments in California. Once the United States Supreme Court ruled that states were legally allowed to fine and jail people experiencing homelessness, Newsom reversed course on the protections homeless individuals had in California.
The phrase, "Gavin Newsom hates two things, Republicans and homeless people, and he's all out of homeless people" has appeared multiple times under videos of him roasting political opponents. But for some people, the love-hate relationship started much earlier in Newsom's political career. In 2003, the then 36-year-old Newsom was elected mayor of San Francisco and while his policies were progressive, he knocked plenty of things over and put his feet up on the political coffee table.
People accused him of being more focused on his public image than his actual job. Given that he looks like he could be on the cover of a romance novel, it was probably easy to lean into that notion while discounting the good he was trying to do. Granted, a young Newsom didn't help muffle the criticism with the choices he was making in his personal life like marrying television commentator and lawyer Kimberly Guilfoyle, posing for fashion magazine spreads and lashing out at the media according to San Francisco Chronicle.
While there doesn't seem to be much talk about Newsom attempting to project a Hollywood perfect image nowadays, people still love to hate him.
"Republicans are afraid of Gavin Newsom but so are we kinda," someone says.
"Gavin Newsom cares about people in the way that vampires care about their food source," one creator relays.
"Gavin Newsom the typa guy to protect you from other people's wrongdoings just so HE can be the one to ruin your life" another writes.
"He’s like a well groomed well fed cat and we are just the house mice he allows to stay bc he is bored." one person jokes.
"Existing under Newsom is like driving by a cop that already has somebody pulled over, like 'oh thank god, he's already busy'" a commenter laughs.
One person reminds others that it's a good thing to criticize politicians, "like yes we're joking about it, but also this is exactly how we SHOULD be acting about our politicians. applaud and support when they do things we agree with, but never ever forget the ways they can turn on us."
Is Gavin Newsom upping his public presence because he's planning a 2028 run for president? Eh, probably. But based on the thirst trap videos people are creating of California's governor, people may be willing to overlook the hate part of Californians' relationship with him. One woman admits, "I want this man to lead America just so we get to see him often."
When it comes to this oxymoronic relationship, one Californian wraps up the sentiment, "Patrick Bateman of democrats is sending me. We have a love-hate relationship with Gavin and right now it's love!! Thank you for having our backs like a leader!!"
