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Comedian summarizes 'Romeo and Juliet' plot in Gen Z slang and it's seriously brilliant

This might just be the best Shakespeare plot summary ever.

Richard Franks/Instagram

Shakespeare slaps in Gen Z slang.

High schoolers have been studying Shakespeare plays for generations, grappling with the bard's language as they learn to appreciate his brilliance. The further we get away from Shakespearean English, though, the more challenging it is for young people to understand it, giving teachers the formidable task of helping their students relate to 400-year-old English.

What better way to prep them for it than to translate Shakespeare's storylines into their language?

That's what comedian Richard Franks did by summarizing "Romeo and Juliet" entirely in Gen Z slang, and teachers are praising him for it. Watch him leave no crumbs:


From Juliet seeing Romeo as "an absolute snack" to the Capulets and the Montagues "beefing hard" to "it's giving bruh, just check your messages" when Romeo mistakenly believes Juliet's really dead, it's modern translation perfection.

It's meant to be comedy, but it has real educational value

English teachers in the comments were thrilled to find a fun, engaging way to introduce "Romeo and Juliet" to their students:

"As an English teacher, this is going into my lesson on R&J with Year 9 next week. 💥"

"I'm humiliating year 10 with this first thing Monday morning."

"This is brilliant. I had a professor who would sit on the edge of his desk and tell us all about The Canterbury Tales. Just the major highlights, some interesting background and then say go read it. They are such hilarious raunchy tales that everyone went off, struggled through the Middle English and read it. I was an English teacher and this is how you keep them engaged. Amazing."

"I have spent 40 years working with high school in college students, editing, papers, grading papers, and this honest goodness is the best explanation of Romeo and Juliet I have ever heard. I am laughing tears.😂😂"

"As someone who has majored in Shakespeare, this is downright hilarious 🤣"


via GIPHY

A lesson in Shakespeare, but also a lesson in Gen Z slang

People are also loving Franks' skit as much for the Gen Z slang lesson as the other way around:

"This is beyond brilliant because it works two ways: kids can understand Shakespeare, and olds can understand kids. The level of your intelligence and comedic genius is off the charts!"

"You think you're teaching Gen Z Shakespeare. But really you're teaching Gen X modern slang. Thank you for your service."

"As a 52 year young Olds, I actually finally understood some of the new young slang taken in the context of the play recap!"

"YAAASSS!!! 😂 My knowledge of Shakespeare was translating the Gen Z lingo for me 😅"

"This is the best break down of Romeo and Juliet I've ever heard...And I'm Gen X 😂."

This is not Franks' first foray into translating Shakespeare into Gen Z. He also has a Macbeth breakdown that's equally brilliant:

Arguably, that one's even more impressive as "Macbeth" is a harder plot to follow in many ways than "Romeo and Juliet."

As one commenter wrote, "This is brilliant - and beyond the humor, it is a fascinating study of language. Shakespeare as written is not really anything close to any kind of modern English at all, and even many familiar words had different meanings or usages/connotations. But the story itself, if we can manage to understand it at its core, is tragic and brilliant. Language is constantly evolving—if he were alive today, I bet Shakespeare would get an enormous kick out of this.👏👏👏"

Shakespeare probably would have loved this

Several commenters shared that they thought Shakespeare would enjoy this, and considering the way he played with language, invented words and used slang himself in his writing, they may be right. Language is ever-evolving, but few people in history have had more of a direct impact on the English language than Shakespeare. As much as English has changed since the late 1500s, there are many words widely believed to be created or first used by Shakespeare that we use regularly today, including "lonely," "rant," "obscene," "gossip" and more.

So Gen Z's distortion or invention of words to communicate is right up Shakespeare's alley. The famous poet and playwright didn't just invent words but created phrases we use today as well. "Breaking the ice" and "heart of gold" are Shakespeare's babies, so Gen Z phrases like "main character energy" are basically giving Shakespeare vibes.

via GIPHY

From an educational standpoint, Franks' videos are great for illustrating how ideas can be expressed in various ways, even when people speak the same language, in addition to helping hook young people into Shakespeare's stories by putting the plot into terms they relate to. What a fun jumping off point for a lesson on Shakespeare, all from the mind of a comedian. Shakespeare would surely be proud.

You can follow Richard Franks on Instagram for more comedy.

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Joy

Comedian humorously nails the reality of modern adult friendships

"Would I turn up at their house unannounced?"

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

Getting together as adults can be…tricky.

When you're a kid, friendships just sort of happen. The kids in your neighborhood, school, place of worship, sports or other activities are the pool of kids you pull friends from, and friendship in childhood mostly revolves around sharing common interests and having fun playing together. As you move to the teen years, friendship becomes more about "hanging out" and bonding over emotional things, and then adulthood comes along and throws the whole concept of friendship all out of whack.

As you become entrenched in career and family and full-on-grown-up responsibilities, friendships can be harder to maintain, at least in the way we're used to. Time becomes a trickier commodity to manage, and what friendship looks like changes. That's not good or bad, it just…is.

via GIPHY

Comedian Jake Lambert hit the nail on the head with a bit about various realities of modern adult friendship, pointing to relatable friendship norms such as:

Not really knowing what your friend does for work:

"What's my best friend's job? Something to do with numbers…I once heard them use the phrase 'project manager.'"

"No, I don't know exactly what they do for work, but I do know about every single one of their colleagues, who they hate and who's sleeping with who."

What forms the basis of adult friendship:

"Are we friends because we like the same things? No, we're not children! We're friends because we hate the same things."

The reality of rarely getting together:

"Oh we hang out all the time. What is it now, September? Well the last time I saw them was…I wanna say June? But we talk every day. I mean, not on the phone, on WhatsApp. I mean, not on WhatsApp, but we send each other memes on Instagram. But we message properly as well. Like we'll message to say we need to catch up soon, and then we do catch up, within about two or three months."

Unannounced visits? No thanks. Unannounced phone calls? Also no.

"Would I turn up at their house unannounced? No, not unless I wanted to give them a panic attack and completely ruin their day. I mean, I wouldn't even call them without a text to warn them first. You know, that's real friendship."

via GIPHY

People totally related and added their own friendship realities to the mix in the comments:

"Say what you will but not talking to a person for months and picking up like you never stopped talking when you finally get together is a new level of friendship unlocked 🙌❤️🤣😂"

"Texting to warn them before calling is friendship!!!!!!!!!! It is!!!!!!💯"

"I wouldn’t even call them without a text to warn them first is my love language."

"Also, you have known each other for 10 years and have 3 photos together."

"The shame of how accurate this is 😂😂😂😂😂😂"

Adult friendships may be challenging to maintain fully, but they're still valuable and research shows that we may be missing out on some of their benefits. According to one analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s "American Time Use Survey" Americans are spending significantly less time with friends—and more time alone—than we did a decade ago. From 2014 to 2019, the time we spent with friends dropped by 37%. Then the pandemic hit, and we all know how that turned our social lives upside down. The most recent data, from 2021, showed even more of a drop in friend time, from a little over 4 hours a week in 2019 to a little less than 3 hours a week in 2021.

Spending time alone doesn't automatically mean feeling lonely—some people genuinely prefer to spend time by themselves—but humans are social creatures in general and research shows we are facing an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. A few reasons might be how increasingly online our lives have become, how anxious and exhausted many of us feel, and the connections that got disrupted during the pandemic. Whatever the reason, a whole lot of people are lonely these days.

via GIPHY

Nurturing friendships in-real-life could be a way to counter that. Focus on quality over quantity. You don't have to have a ton of close friends—focus on the ones you share similar values with and who bring out the best in you. Even if you don't have time to get together often, check in regularly with more than just a meme. Even a simple, "Hey, I'm thinking about you and wondering how you're doing," can go a long way. Scheduling get-togethers on a monthly basis (a first-Saturday-of-the-month set coffee date or something) can make it easier to see one another rather than always trying to coordinate schedules. Long-distance friendships can be trickier, but we do have loads of technology to communicate long-distance and don't underestimate those "We need to plan a get-together" messages. Acknowledging that you miss one another and want to see each other despite the difficulty of actually making it happen means something.

Friendships as adults may have some comical quirks, but they're still important to our well-being and life enrichment. Keep sending those memes and get together when you can. You'll rarely regret making the effort.

You can find more from Jake Lambert on his Instagram page here.

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Humor

Sexist heckler gets humiliated in front of his own daughters

This didn’t end well for the wannabe heckler.

Image from YouTube video.

How to become the butt of a joke.


In case you were wondering, don't mess with comedian Steve Hofstetter.

The stand-up comic posted a video of himself recently shutting down a heckler who didn't like Hofstetter taking a break from his routine to praise Jessica Mendoza, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and Stanford graduate, who last year became the first female to call a professional baseball game.

"Next!" the heckler shouts. At first, Hofstetter is caught off guard but then he tries to give the guy a chance to explain what he found "offensive" about celebrating this historic moment in sports. "You and I can talk later," the anonymous guy says, directly challenging an earlier warning from Hofstetter to not approach comedians after shows.

Once the guy refuses to explain why he's offended, Hofstetter asks him to leave, saying not only is he being a jerk but he's not at least willing to stand up for his own beliefs. Then things get weird. It turns out the heckler is at the show with his family, including his daughters. "You have daughters and I was standing up for women's rights and you were offended by that," Hofstetter says. "I hope the rest of you are going to be okay later."


Unlike some heckler videos that drag on and on, this one is maybe most amazing in the way he gets shut down before he can even really get started.

The whole video is funny, inspiring and just a classic example of a comedian taking down a heckler. Like near the end, when Hofstetter addresses a common trope of someone questioning why a male comedian needs to stand up for women's equality.

"As it turns out, I actually have a genetic history of women in my family," he says. "If you want to be a real man then respect the women in your life."


This article originally appeared on 04.26.19

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Kids

An elementary school had picture day on St. Patrick's Day and hilarious chaos ensued

It's not easy being green.

via Henry Burrows/Flickr

A young girl posing in front of a green screen.

When I was a kid growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, on school picture day you posed in front of a backdrop that resembled something you’d see in a Sears portrait studio. But these days a lot of school photographers pose children in front of green screens so their parents can choose a background later.

The process is called “chroma keying” and it’s used for dropping digital effects into movies. The problem is that if you wear green in front of the screen, part of you will disappear when the new background is added.

Sugar Grove Elementary in Indianapolis, Indiana ran into some serious problems earlier this month after it decided to have picture day on St. Patrick’s Day. The school had scheduled its spring photos twice but the dates were changed due to inclement weather.

A few days after the photo shoot, parents got a real shock when the photo proofs arrived and their kids were partially invisable in the photos. They had floating, disembodied heads, and their clothing seemed to blend into the background of the shots.

Amanda Snow, the mother of a kindergartner at the school, thought the proofs of her son were hilarious so she posted them in a local mothers’ group asking if anyone else had the same issue.

“Honestly, I just couldn’t wait to see other parents’ pictures, and it ended up being a hilarious fiasco. Just because it’s so funny,” Snow said. After Snow’s post, the photos began pouring in.

A girl became one with a flower bed. One young boy blended into the fence near a pasture. Another boy was cut in half by a dirt road. After the photos were sent to parents, the school's principal sent a message home saying, "Don't worry, the photography studio can fix this in post-production."

Snow's son was understandably confused by the photos.

"It was kind of hard to explain to him what was happening because he's 6, but as soon as he saw all the different options, he was just laughing because it looks like he's a fence or looks like he's a field," Snow said. "So he thought it was really funny."

The photos came with a warning from Inter-State Studio, the company that took the photos.

"The image is not the final product because it gets fixed in post-production," the company said. "We appreciate the opportunity to respond to this specific instance. Everyone has had such a good sense of humor about this!"

The photos have been so memorable that Snow wants to keep the original proofs. "I might reach out to the company and see if I can get the unedited ones because honestly they've brought me so much joy and laughter over the last days,” Snow told WKYC.

The botched photo shoot goes to show that sometimes doing things the old-fashioned way is the right way to go. Let’s hope that the next time the school has a photo shoot on St. Patrick's Day they remind families to send their kids with an extra set of clothes.


This article originally appeared on 3.29.22

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