The Out-of-Touch Adult’s Guide to Kid Culture: What’s Going on With Dungeons & Dragons?

This week’s out-of-touch guide features three prominent young influencers: One may have abandoned a pig, one is accused of being a pig, and the third is MrBeast. Plus, TikTok’s death row meals trend is dissected, as is the anger of our nations’ nerds.

Pugilist Paul’s problematic pet pig Pearl

Let’s talk about Logan Paul’s pig, wanna? Paul, an online superstar and “boxer,” adopted a baby pig nearly two years ago. This week, animal sanctuary Gentle Barn posted a video on TikTok reporting that they’d rescued that same pig. It was apparently abandoned, nearly dead, in a field. The sanctuary nursed Pearl back to health and pointed out that many people adopt what they think are “teacup pigs” that turn out to just be pigs — huge animals that demand a ton of care.

Of course, some people leapt to the conclusion that Paul callously abandoned his former pet when it grew too large, but the truth seems to be more complicated. According to Paul, he re-homed his pet pig before he moved to Puerto Rico two years ago. From there, Pearl was re-homed again, supposedly without Paul’s knowledge, and that’s how she ended up abandoned. No matter who was at fault, the story has a happy ending: according to Gentle Barn, Pearl made a full recovery and is enjoying her new life with others of her pot-bellied kind. Also, I had bacon for breakfast, so I’m not entirely sure what the fuss is about.

All Gas No Brakes’ Andrew Callaghan’s accused of sexual misconduct

Gonzo reporter Andrew Callaghan’s career was taking off. The 25-year-old got his start on YouTube reporting on some of the more bizarre corners of our culture for his channel All Gas No Brakes, including conspiratorial hippies at the Conscious Light Expo, conspiratorial “scientists” at the Flat Earth Convention, conspiratorial UFO-enjoyers at AlienCon, and non-conspiratorial furries at Midwest Furfest. Callaghan recently got called to the majors, HBO, with This Place Rules, an incendiary documentary about conspiratorial insurrectionists.

But Callaghan’s spaceship seems to be crashing to earth in a tawdry way: He is being accused of sexual misconduct by at least two women. These are currently unsubstantiated claims, but Callaghan didn’t exactly deny them in a statement a representative made to TMZ. It reads: “Andrew is devastated that he is being accused of any type of physical or mental coercion against anyone. Conversations about pressure and consent are extremely important and Andrew wants to have these conversations, so he can continue to learn and grow,” along with a suggestion that the accuser’s real motivation is money.

Is TikTok’s “death row meal” trend racist?

The latest trend on TikTok sees young people considering what they’d eat for their last meal on earth. Set to the soundtrack of Lil Yachty’s “Gucci Flip Flops” and tagged #deathrowmeal, these videos contains dream menus for TikTokers’ final repasts. As you’d expect, most of them are pretty gross, but it’s not the unrefined palates of youth that are the problem. According to some, referencing prisoners on death row is tasteless and racist, as most people doing the trend are white, while people of colour are massively overrepresented on actual death rows. Maybe it’s just not something to joke about or use to express your appreciation of Jolly Ranchers?

Dungeons & Dragons players are revolting

There’s an uprising going on in the geekier corners of the gaming world. The Dungeons & Dragons community is rebelling against Wizards of the Coast, the parent company of D&D, in such numbers that cancellation requests for D&D’s online service have reportedly crashed the company’s servers. The issue is Wizards of the Coast supposedly updating their policy regarding third-party content. The homebrew community has been creating, sharing, and selling material based on Wizards’ rules and property pretty freely for years, seemingly with their approval — if you want to make your own module, go ahead — but documents leaked to Gizmodo suggest Wizards of the Coast was planning to make substantial changes to its Open Game Licence, adding a ton of restrictions, including requiring people who make over $US750,000 to pay royalties to the company. In response to the backlash, Wizards has cancelled a scheduled announcement about their OGL. I, for one, cast magic missile.

Viral video of the week: We’re Rebuilding an Orphanage in Africa!

Influential young people aren’t all alleged pig-abandoners, accused sex pests, and tabletop role-playing nerds. MrBeast, for instance, has never abandoned a pot-bellied pig (that I know of) and doesn’t even have a “controversies” subhead on his Wikipedia page. He also is trying to use his YouTube following of 127 million to do some good in the world, whether it’s planting trees or cleaning up the ocean.

In this week’s viral video We’re Rebuilding an Orphanage in Africa!, Beast’s people travel to South Africa to rebuild an orphanage plagued with an asbestos roof and a general lack of funding. Beast is aided by a corporate sponsor, of course, so it’s not like anyone is doing anything only out of the goodness of their hearts, and the whole thing could seem a little exploitive if you’re of that mindset — it seems like content more than altruism — but still, I don’t imagine any of that matters to the orphans who are getting a new roof.