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      On TikTok, Movie Critics Go By Any Other Name

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      On MovieTok, reviewers can reach an audience of millions and earn tens of thousands of dollars per post. “Critics,” they say, are old news.Maddi Koch loves to spread the gospel about a good movie. Her favorites are little-noted thrillers with few stars but juicy concepts or dig-your-nails-into-the-sofa plot twists.On TikTok, where Koch has three million followers (and goes by Maddi Moo), her review of “What Happened to Monday,” about a dystopian world where seven identical sisters share a single identity, has drawn over 24 million views. “If I were to die tomorrow, I’d watch this tonight,” she raved.Koch, who is a senior at Virginia Tech and is sometimes paid by film companies to promote their work, says she makes videos to connect people and to spare them “the pain of arguing over finding a movie or not knowing what you’re really looking for.” (Most of her videos, including the “What Happened to Monday” review, are not sponsored.) When asked, she’ll describe herself as a “random girl” who loves movies, a “content creator,” or, sure, even an “influencer.”But one title that she would never use might be the most obvious: “Critic.”“I just don’t see myself in that light,” she said.Koch, 22, is among dozens of personalities on TikTok, along with peers like Straw Hat Goofy and Cinema.Joe, who reach millions of people by reviewing, analyzing or promoting movies. Several earn enough on the platform — from posts sponsored by Hollywood studios (many have taken a break from working with them since the actors’ strike), through one of TikTok’s revenue sharing programs or both — to make their passion for film a full-time job, a feat amid longstanding cuts to arts critic positions in newsrooms.But the new school of film critic doesn’t see much of itself in the old one. And some tenets of the profession — such as rendering judgments or making claims that go beyond one’s personal taste — are now considered antiquated and objectionable.“When you read a critic’s review, it almost sounds like a computer wrote it,” said Cameron Kozak, 21, who calls himself a “movie reviewer” and has 1.5 million followers. “But when you have someone on TikTok who you watch every day and you know their voice and what they like, there’s something personal that people can connect to.”On MovieTok — as the community is known — the most successful users generally post at least once per day, with videos typically ranging between 30 and 90 seconds. Many attempt to capture the viewer’s attention within the first three seconds (“This movie’s perfect for you if you never want to sleep again,” begins Koch’s review of the hit horror film “Barbarian”) and speak directly to the camera, with screenshots from the film in the background.Many creators, most in their 20s or early 30s, specialize within a particular niche. Joe Aragon (Cinema.Joe, 931,000 followers) is known for his breakdowns of coming attractions; Monse Gutierrez (cvnela, 1.4 million followers) and Bryan Lucious (stoney_tha_great, 387,000 followers) demystify and rank horror films; Seth Mullan-Feroze (sethsfilmreviews, 256,000 followers) leans toward art house and foreign cinema.Unlike film departments at major metropolitan newspapers or national magazines, individuals on MovieTok generally don’t aspire to review every noteworthy film. And while most expressed admiration for traditional critics’ grasp of film history, they tended to associate the profession as a whole with false or unearned authority.“A lot of us don’t trust critics,” said Lucious, 31. He was one of many who pointed to the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, where the scores of “Top Critics” often differ widely from those of casual users, as evidence that the critical establishment is out of touch. “They watch movies and are just looking for something to critique,” he said. “Fans watch movies looking for entertainment.”MovieTok creators are not the first in the history of film criticism to rebel against their elders. In the 1950s, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and other writers of the journal Cahiers du Cinéma disavowed the nationalism of mainstream French criticism. In the 1960s and ’70s, the New Yorker critic Pauline Kael assailed the moralism associated with Bosley Crowther, a longtime movie critic of The New York Times, and others. And movie bloggers in the 2000s charged print critics with indifference or hostility to superhero and fantasy films.“There’s always this denigrating of those so-called ‘other’ critics as somehow elitist and old-fashioned while presenting yourself as the new avant-garde,” said Mattias Frey, head of the department of media, culture and creative industries at the City University of London and the author of “The Permanent Crisis of Film Criticism.” He defined criticism, by any name, as “evaluation grounded in reason,” citing the philosopher Noël Carroll.Juju Green, known as Straw Hat Goofy on TikTok, said he is on a “mission to combat film snobbery.”Alex Welsh for The New York TimesJuju Green, a 31-year-old former advertising copywriter, sees himself as on a “mission to combat film snobbery.” Known as Straw Hat Goofy, Green is the most prominent member of MovieTok, with 3.4 million followers and an emerging side career as a correspondent and host. His most popular video, in which he identifies Easter eggs in Pixar movies, has nearly 29 million views.Seven years ago, Green started a movie-themed channel on YouTube — which favors longer, more produced videos — but abandoned it after the birth of his first child. On TikTok, he found that he could reach an enormous audience with relatively little effort. He said one of his first videos on the platform, a post from January 2020 about Tom Holland’s performance in “Avengers: Endgame,” received over 200,000 views in about an hour.“I had a feeling like I was meant to do this,” he said. Green quit his advertising job last year.Without the salary of a news organization, MovieTok creators earn money by partnering with entertainment companies. A sponsored post promoting a film or streaming service can be worth anywhere from $1,000 to $30,000.Green’s clients have included Disney, Paramount and Warner Bros., among others. In January, Universal paid him to create a post at an N.F.L. game promoting the movie “M3GAN” that received nearly seven million views — part of a marketing campaign that helped the film earn $30.2 million in the United States and Canada on opening weekend, about 30 percent more than box office analysts had predicted.It is impossible, of course, to make a direct link between TikTok influencers and ticket sales. But there are signs that the impact can be considerable. Sony executives have cited MovieTok campaigns as one reason for the strong performance of “Insidious: The Red Door,” which cost $16 million to make and has taken in a surprising $183 million worldwide.Being paid by the studios presents an obvious conflict of interest. Creators may be reluctant to speak negatively about the products of a company that pays them (or might). While traditional news organizations, including The Times, sell ads to movie studios, they do not allow critics, reporters or editors to accept compensation from them and generally keep editorial and business operations separate.Carrie Rickey, who was the film critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1986 to 2011, said she refrained from working too closely with studios to avoid even the “appearance of impropriety.”“It would mar my reputation as an independent writer,” she said.Many on MovieTok have evolved an ad hoc code of ethics — accepting payment only for trailer announcements or general recommendations, for example, rather than true reviews — but recognize accusations of bias as an occupational hazard.“I always try to be super transparent with my viewers,” said Megan Cruz (jstoobs, 535,000 followers), noting that she is careful to identify gifts and sponsorships in her videos. “We do exist in this in-between space and I think it’s important to clarify whenever you’re getting any kind of advantage.” (By law, paid endorsements on TikTok must be labeled; but gifts, including swag boxes and travel to red carpet events, are not always disclosed.)Cruz, 34, echoed other MovieTok reviewers who said they dislike doing sharply negative posts and would be unlikely to slam a movie whether they were in business with the studio or not. She said she generally prefers to deliver negative opinions in the form of a “compliment sandwich,” preceded and followed by more positive remarks.Megan Cruz, known as jstoobs on TikTok, said, “I always try to be super transparent with my viewers,” noting that she is careful to identify gifts and sponsorships in her videos. Alex Welsh for The New York Times“It pains me to say that this movie, by and large, did not work for me,” she said, in a review of the horror-comedy “Renfield.” Cruz then added: “There are a lot of individual elements of this film that really do work.”Another source of income is TikTok itself. Since 2020, the platform has shared revenue with accounts that meet eligibility requirements. Gutierrez said that between sponsored posts and payouts from TikTok she has made as much as four times the salary of her previous job as a substitute teacher.After Hollywood actors went on strike in July, many creators stopped working for the studios in solidarity. SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, issued guidelines for influencers last month discouraging them from accepting “any new work for promotion of struck companies or their content.”Green, who had previously implied that he would continue working as usual, subsequently walked back those comments. He said in a recent interview that he had turned down eight proposals to work with struck companies and would continue to do so for the duration of the strike.“It was a mistake that I made and I completely own that,” he said.The lack of Hollywood work has prompted many creators to pivot to other subjects, such as independent films and anime. But with or without the studios, those interviewed for this story said their obsession with dissecting movies would remain.“I like to call it professional overthinking,” Green said.Brooks Barnes More

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      Hollywood Strike Leaves Influencers Sidelined and Confused

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      Despite not being in the actors’ union, many content creators are passing up deals to promote films or TV shows because they don’t want to be barred from the guild or face online vitriol.Deanna Giulietti is not in the actors’ union, but she turned down $28,000 last week because of its strike.Ms. Giulietti, a 29-year-old content creator with 1.8 million TikTok followers, had received an offer to promote the new season of Hulu’s hit show “Only Murders in the Building.”But SAG-AFTRA, as the union is known, recently issued rules stating that any influencer who engages in promotion for one of the Hollywood studios the actors are striking against will be ineligible for membership. (Disney is the majority owner of Hulu.) That gave Ms. Giulietti, who also acts and aspires to one day join the union, reason enough to decline the offer from Influential, a marketing agency working with Hulu.The union’s rule is part of a variety of aggressive tactics that hit at a pivotal moment for Hollywood labor and shows its desire to assert itself in a new era and with a different, mostly younger wave of creative talent. “I want to be in these Netflix shows, I want to be in the Hulu shows, but we’re standing by the writers, we’re standing by SAG,” Ms. Giulietti said. “People write me off whenever I say I’m an influencer, and I’m like, ‘No, I really feel I could be making the difference here.’”That difference comes at a cost. In addition to the Hulu deal, Ms. Giulietti recently declined a $5,000 offer from the app TodayTix to promote the Searchlight Pictures movie “Theater Camp.” (Disney also owns Searchlight.) She said she was living at home with her parents in Cheshire, Conn., and putting off renting an apartment in New York City while she saw how the strike — which, along with a writers’ strike, could go on for months — would affect her income.Representatives for Searchlight and TodayTix did not respond to requests for comment. Hulu and Influential declined to comment.The last time Hollywood’s screen actors and writers went on strike, social media platforms and the $5 billion influencer industry didn’t exist. The actors’ union began admitting content creators in 2021 and still has only a small number of them, but questions have quickly emerged around how the union’s dispute with the major Hollywood studios will affect popular internet personalities.The union’s message that content creators will be blocked from membership if they provide work or services for struck companies has sent many scrambling. A number of creators have pledged support for writers and actors and circulated “scab” lists of influencers who promote new releases or appear at related events. Others have been frustrated or confused by instructions from a union that doesn’t protect them, and that some had never heard of.SAG-AFTRA, which represents some 160,000 movie and television actors, approved a strike on July 13. The division with the studios is driven largely by concerns about compensation in the streaming era and artificial intelligence. They joined screenwriters, who walked off the job in May, the first dual shutdown since 1960. During the strike, actors are not able to engage in publicity efforts for their projects or appear at film festivals or events like Comic-Con.Influencers have become crucial to the entertainment industry in recent years, especially during the pandemic, building buzz and promoting products. They post videos to hype new TV shows and movies, appear on red carpets and at events like the MTV Video Music Awards, and unbox products tied to film and television characters. Typically, as in the case with Ms. Giulietti, outside agencies hire creators on behalf of the studios.“If I were to help the big studios amid this, I’m just hurting myself in the future,” said Mario Mirante, a comedian with 3.6 million followers on TikTok.Marshall Scheuttle for The New York TimesNow those activities, besides limiting their career ambitions, could lead to internet backlash, with one nonunion influencer already posting an apology video for appearing at a recent Disney movie premiere. Others have posted promotional videos anyway, without backtracking or pulling the content. At least one creator posting from a recent premiere opted to turn off their TikTok comments, possibly to avoid potential criticism. On the flip side, videos from creators about jobs and events that they rejected in solidarity with actors have racked up praise and views on TikTok.“We don’t have power to make decisions for the talent, but we will in this moment recommend not engaging with struck work or struck companies on paid or organic projects,” said Victoria Bachan, president of Whalar Talent, a unit of a creator commerce company that works with more than 200 content creators. She added that young creators were also more apt to be supportive of unions and organized labor.Still, Whitney Singleton, a 27-year-old with 1.2 million TikTok followers, has been frustrated by what is being asked of her. She had never heard of SAG-AFTRA until the past couple of weeks. Ms. Singleton, using the moniker @KeepUpRadio, has attracted fans by singing and rapping about her favorite video games like Fortnite and streaming herself playing video games. It has been her full-time job for three years. She has collaborated with struck companies like Amazon in the past.“I really do value creators, and I want them to get what they deserve,” Ms. Singleton said. “But it’s really hard for me to just be finding out about an organization and being expected to fall in line with their initiative when I feel like it’s new to me and the influencer space.”She said some influencers were being asked to turn down five-figure deals, and that “the majority of creators I’ve talked to about it feel it’s unfair that as nonunion members, they’re being included in this conversation.”Ms. Singleton was invited to an early screening of the “Barbie” movie and said that while it wasn’t a paid promotion, the union’s guidelines for promoting the movie were “what I would deem murky.” Ultimately, she decided to post about the event, for which she dyed her hair pink.“I actually got no negative feedback, it was all positive,” she said. “For a moment, I felt a bit scared and put in a corner with these requirements because I respect creators in all industries, but I wouldn’t be being true to my heart if I had let those things stop me from living my life and sharing the content.”The union did not respond to questions about the criticism or about how many influencers are included in its membership. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates on behalf of the biggest studios, has said its offers to the writers and the actors were “historic” improvements on their previous contracts.The reality for many creators is that they dream of someday achieving a level of fame beyond the smartphone screen, making the threat of blacklisting by Hollywood’s most powerful union an ominous one.Mario Mirante, a 28-year-old comedian on TikTok with 3.6 million followers, recently posted a popular video about turning down a deal to promote a show based on his support for actors and writers and his long-term ambitions. Mr. Mirante has hoped to work in Hollywood since childhood, and even has a tattoo of Jim Carrey as “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” on his arm.“That’s a lot of influencers’ goal and aspiration and why they do it,” said Mr. Mirante, who lives in Las Vegas. “We love to entertain and express ourselves, and that’s the Super Bowl, that’s the ultimate, being in a movie or a TV show.”Mr. Mirante has previously been paid to promote the movie “Champions” starring Woody Harrelson and a product tied to the “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise. “If I were to help the big studios amid this, I’m just hurting myself in the future, if that makes any sense,” he said. “Of course I’m not a part of it right now, but they’re fighting for basic rights, livable wages, not to have their A.I. likeness taken.”Krishna Subramanian, a founder of the influencer marketing firm Captiv8, said studios might need to pivot away from creators during the strike and get agencies to make more traditional display ads to place on Facebook and other sites.Simone Umba is a TikTok creator with more than 300,000 followers who primarily posts about TV shows and movies but has paused making such videos. She said that many influencers felt that they were “stuck in the middle,” but that most were opting to side with the union even as invitations and deals piled up.“We knew we were going to get approached, and it’s like we’re in a really messy family feud,” Ms. Umba, 26, said.She added, “Regardless of if you want to join the union or not, you don’t want to be one of those people that was willing to take a check instead of standing in support of people fighting for actual livable wages.”Ms. Umba said that it had been painful to miss out on posting about the star-studded “Barbie” movie after this summer’s marketing bonanza and that she had declined to attend an early screening of the film in Atlanta. She and a friend were messaging recently after trailers for “The Marvels” dropped, agonizing over their inability to post.“We were texting each other back and forth, like, this is so hard,” she said. She said she was prepared to hold out for months but was already thinking of holiday releases. She crossed her fingers, held them up and said, “Please, please, don’t let it get to Christmas.” More

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      Are You Ready? Gen Z Is Bringing Nu Metal Back.

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      Bands like Deftones and Slipknot are resonating with younger fans, thanks to TikTok, the Y2K revival and, of course, enduring teenage angst.When Deftones’s hit “Change (In the House of Flies)” blared out of Tyson Burden’s car stereo in April 2020, he started to choke up. It wasn’t the tune’s familiar growls or the teenage nostalgia it prompted that made him almost cry; it was his 15-year-old daughter, Nia LaVey Burden, sitting in the passenger seat and reciting the words to the song.“She knew all the lyrics, and my mind was blown,” said Mr. Burden, 39, a retail manager in Jacksonville, Texas. Turns out, Nia had discovered the band on TikTok a few months earlier. After the initial shock, he joined in, and the two threw their heads back and belted out the chorus.“It was just this really magical moment between parent and child where we love the same thing,” he said.Tyson Burden, right, started choking up when his daughter, Nia LaVey Burden, started reciting all the lyrics to Deftones’s “Change (In the House of Flies).”Tyson BurdenNia is part of a growing group among Generation Z that is listening to nu metal for the first time. The subgenre, considered one of the most accessible forms of metal, blends a heavy sound with elements of hip-hop, funk and alternative rock (think: Slipknot, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park and Kittie), and its lyrics often tackle dark subjects like pain, depression and alienation. Once popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it has now found a second life among young listeners, thanks to TikTok, the Y2K revival and, of course, enduring teenage angst.For Asher Nevélle, listening to nu metal is inspiring. “You feel like you can do anything,” said Mr. Nevélle, 25, a musician based in Los Angeles who performs under the stage name Freak. “It’s this ‘I don’t care’ attitude. Like, you can look at me, you can stare at me, you can judge me, but I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing.”Silver chains, overly lacquered liberty spikes, pants so big they put ball gowns to shame — part of nu metal’s appeal is its flamboyant style, and celebrities have taken note. Billie Eilish is topping her oversize outfits with baseball caps à la Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit; Machine Gun Kelly is gelling his hair up into five-inch stalagmites; and in June, Justin Bieber was spotted in a pair of baggy wide-leg JNCO jeans.Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit once blew up a boat live on MTV.George DeSota/Newsmakers, via Getty ImagesBillie Eilish is known for wearing oversize outfits, often topped with a baseball cap à la Mr. Durst.Mauricio Santana/Getty ImagesRenee Dyer, 19, fell in love with nu metal fashion before the music. She doesn’t think a person needs to dress a certain way to be considered a fan, but her clothing choices are heavily inspired by nu metal. “It makes me feel as though I’m living in that era,” said Ms. Dyer, a retail associate who lives in Toronto. Among her favorite pieces are JNCO jeans and Tripp NYC pants. (“The bigger the jeans, the better!” she said.)During nu metal’s initial explosion, visual aesthetics were central to the scene by design, said Alex Strang, a cultural analyst at Canvas8, a market research agency. Bands adopted flashy costumes and provocative stunts to distinguish themselves and grab people’s attention. “If you’re TRL,” Mr. Strang said, referring to a television program popular in the early aughts, “and you see this weird thing with people rapping and shouting and being angry, and some people in boiler suits or wearing masks, you’re going to want to put it on TV, right?”Nu metal’s embrace of shock value led to a plethora of theatrical antics, such as when Mr. Durst blew up a boat live on MTV and when members of the band Mudvayne attended the Video Music Awards with fake bullet holes in their heads. More than two decades later, these bits are now ripe for recirculation on social media. For example, one popular Twitter account run by Holiday Kirk, a music journalist, posts bite-size clips of absurd moments in nu mental history, frequently garnering tens of thousands of views.On the internet, “everybody has access to everything all the time,” Mr. Strang said. “And so Gen Z kids will just cherry-pick the best bits of a bunch of different genres and be into everything and like everything. It’s like a bricolage in action.”Historically, nu metal has appealed to outsiders who felt a strong emotional connection with its gloomy subject matter. The most die-hard fans felt protective over their favorite bands and did not like the idea of “normies,” or people who were conventional or popular, listening to nu metal. In the 1990s, “either you were all in or you were a poser,” said Lynn Thomas, 53, a longtime Deftones fan from Pittsburgh, whose 21-year-old daughter discovered the band on TikTok.A growing group among Generation Z is listening to nu metal bands for the first time, including Deftones …Bridget Bennett/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images… and Slipknot.Jose Sena Goulao/EPA, via ShutterstockBut now many Gen Zers are more concerned with sociopolitical issues such as abortion and L.G.B.T.Q. rights, “rather than, ‘Who am I hanging out with at the field party this weekend?’” Mr. Thomas said.These spaces may be less exclusionary now, but fans say there is still a sense of gatekeeping among nu metal heads — whether it’s older fans looking down on the newly initiated, or pretension from people of all ages about the bands they deem uncool. Since discovering the subgenre in January, Jay Katze, a 17-year-old high school student in Bradenton, Fla., has connected with some fellow listeners on the internet, but he has also been called a poser, a term he finds “silly” and “childish.”“Who do you expect to support the band you love if you’re pushing out anyone else who shows interest?” Mr. Katze said.Since discovering nu metal this year, Jay Katze, a 17-year-old student in Florida, has connected with other fans on the internet, but some of them have called him a poser — a term he finds “silly” and “childish.”Jay KatzeOff the internet, fans are also creating physical spaces to cultivate the nu metal community. For the past two years, Sam Gans, 31, and Danielle Steger, 38, both die-hard nu metal fans, have organized sold-out “Nu Metal Night” dance parties in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. People go “absolutely nuts” with their fashion at these quarterly events, Mr. Gans said, showing up with gelled and colored hair, studded belts, JNCOs, chain wallets and face paint.“There were people doing back flips off the stage,” Ms. Steger said of one New York party in March. “There was a whole row of headbanging, moshing.” One man kept asking the D.J.s to play “that one song” so he could propose to his girlfriend, Mr. Gans said. Nobody could hear him and figure out the name of the song — so the man never went through with the proposal.The nu metal wave isn’t lost on popular artists today, either. Grimes, 100 gecs, Rina Sawayama and Demi Lovato have introduced elements of the subgenre into their sound, and some bands who were part of the initial nu metal explosion are feeling the impact as well.In May, Kittie performed its first new song since 2011 at Sick New World, a music festival in Las Vegas featuring almost entirely nu metal bands. The group went on indefinite hiatus in 2017, but bookers started calling again in the fall of 2021 because of renewed interest, said Mercedes Lander, 39, Kittie’s drummer.“It did take a little bit of talking into,” Ms. Lander said of the offer to reunite. But one year after the initial request, Kittie got back together. “When we stepped onstage, I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, this is how it’s supposed to be. This is what I’m supposed to be doing,’” she said. “This is a fantastic feeling.”In May, Kittie performed its first new song since 2011 at Sick New World, a music festival in Las Vegas featuring almost entirely nu metal bands.Greg Doherty/Getty ImagesTo Ms. Lander, it makes sense that the songs she wrote with her older sister, Morgan Lander, when they were teenagers still resonates with people. “It just kind of proves that teenage angst is timeless,” she said.Morgan, 41, Kittie’s frontwoman, shared the sentiment. “That’s not to say there isn’t still a fire and anger in us now — yeah, we’re still pissed,” she said, jokingly.Mr. Burden, the retail manager in Texas, said that after discovering his daughter was into Deftones, he showed her more of the band’s discography — particularly the album “White Pony,” which he loved as a teenager. And in May 2022, he even found himself at a scene he had dreamed about for over 20 years: screaming, headbanging and thrashing at a Deftones concert alongside hundreds of sweaty, decked-out fans. He just never imagined that he would be standing next to his daughter. More

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      Popcast (Deluxe): Fans Misbehaving at Concerts, and Pinkydoll’s NPC TikTok

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThis week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, includes segments on:The recent scourge of concertgoers throwing things at pop stars onstage and how Adele, Harry Styles, Bebe Rexha, Drake and others have responded; plus the ways in which the stage/crowd barrier has become more porous in recent years, in both directionsThe TikTok streamer Pinkydoll, who has honed an NPC-style of performance that has been earning her thousands of viewers, and thousands of dollarsNew songs from Troye Sivan and Militarie Gun (as performed by Post Malone)Whether there’s still a Mason-Dixon line divide in pop music consumption, especially as it relates to hip-hop and countrySnack of the weekConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. More

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      ‘Canon Event’ TikToks Use a ‘Spider-Verse’ Phrase That Almost Didn’t Make the Film

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      The “canon event” videos play on the film’s idea of certain events in life being immutable. But the directors nearly went a different way with the concept.In one video, an older brother watches with dread as his younger brother gets a perm. In another, a girl agonizes while her 10-year-old sister buys a maroon lifeguard hoodie.“I can’t interfere, it’s a canon event,” read the captions on the videos, as an ominous audio clip plays in the background.Those TikToks, a mixture of concern and schadenfreude, are a few of the thousands of videos powering a trend that has catapulted a new phrase into the pop culture lexicon: the “canon event,” a pivotal moment that must happen in order for people to mature into their future selves. It’s a concept that draws on the music and plot of the animated blockbuster “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” But that language almost didn’t make it into the film.“A canon event is something that’s unfortunate at the time it happens, that turns out to have happened for a reason,” said John Casterline, a 19-year-old creator who has three and a half million followers on TikTok.

      @h1t1 character development ♬ Libets Delay by The Caretaker – Alt Tik Tok Sounds The videos play with this concept by spotlighting those disappointing, mortifying or simply weird moments that we wish we could change: breaking up with a high school sweetheart, getting kicked out of a friend group, adopting an embarrassing hairstyle.Choosing to see these events as immutable canon and posting about them on TikTok is a form of group catharsis — a recognition that it’s precisely because of those moments that we’ve become who we are today.“Since you get to know that people have this shared cringey, awkward experience, you don’t feel alone,” said Josh Referente, a 20-year-old creator on TikTok who has more than one million followers and who has posted several canon event videos. “It helps you process it a lot better. It was a step in your life that helps you move toward the right direction.”The phrase “canon event” isn’t entirely new — in comics culture and superhero fandom, canon has long meant those elements of a character’s story that are part of a shared fictional universe.But the phrase was popularized by “Across the Spider-Verse,” which has topped $600 million at the box office worldwide. In the film, Miles Morales travels to a universe full of other Spider-People and learns that each one is destined for a series of “canon events,” including the loss of a parental figure and the death of a police captain. To interfere with any of these canon events is to invite the destruction of the entire multiverse.

      @itsteresasong its me, im the girl #canonevent #toweltime ♬ Spider-Man 2099 (Miguel O’Hara) – Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – Daniel Pemberton Originally, the film wasn’t going to include any mention of a canon event, Kemp Powers, one of the film’s three directors, said in an interview. The team had settled on “convergence event,” but that term confused the early focus groups who saw the movie, so they switched to canon instead.“One of the funny things about it is the whole idea of the canon event was something that we were worried people weren’t going to understand right till the last minute,” Powers said. “So the fact that not only did they understand this concept but that it took on a life of its own, I thought was really entertaining.”Powers, who does not have a TikTok account, said that for a while he didn’t know social media was running with the concept. After the film’s release, he was sitting in Los Angeles International Airport when he heard two people cracking jokes about canon events.“And I’m like, ‘That can’t be about our movie.’ You know what I mean? I was just like, that’s weird,” he said.But soon friends and even his two children started sending him TikToks.

      @benesherick You must let it happen, it is a Canon Event🗣️ #Inverted ♬ blue hair – 𓆩❤︎𓆪 “If you’re so lucky to put something out in the world that connects to people, it’s a reminder that it immediately doesn’t belong to you anymore,” he said. “You have no idea what they’re going to do with it.”The canon event videos follow a specific formula. They feature a scene or a caption that captures an awkward or regrettable real-life moment accompanied by a snippet from a portion of the score, “Spider-Man 2099 (Miguel O’Hara),” and include the parenthetical phrase: “It’s a canon event. I can’t interfere.”The score was composed by Daniel Pemberton, who said that segment was the product of a synthesizer being run through a variety of algorithms to end up with a “punchline” bit of audio.He said he faced his own canon events while composing the music.“I had to fail a lot within this score with ideas that didn’t work until I found ideas that really did,” he said.For Pemberton, it’s natural that the idea of a canon event has resonated with so many people.“I don’t really do a lot of social media but I think there has always been a projection of unattainable or unrealistic lifestyle that I found quite toxic, and the thing I like about canon event is, it’s giving people a bit more ownership over the truth of their lives,” he said. More

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      in Music

      On TikTok, Pop Music Speeds Up

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicTikTok moves fast: the content stream is relentless and easy to scroll through, and music is often sped-up to accompany it. Listening to pop hits there can be disorienting — the music is familiar, but the pace can be unsettling. Seemingly endless remixes from the nightcore and plugg music scene help shape the sonic experience of the app.This movement is also creating a new class of hit. A sped-up version of Miguel’s “Sure Thing” became a staple on the app a couple of months ago, propelling the 12-year-old song to the Top 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and to the top of the Billboard pop airplay chart. The Arizonatears Pluggnb Remix of Lil Uzi Vert’s “Watch This” hit the Hot 100 in February. Almost every artist of note has had their music sped up by a relatively anonymous producer and fed into the app.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about how TikTok reframes listening habits, what fast music achieves that regular-speed music can’t, how musicians are grappling with this new kind of (sometimes unsolicited) attention and how labels are already capitalizing on the trend.Guest:Elias Leight, senior music reporter at BillboardConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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      in Theater

      Catching Up With Hillary Clinton at “Bob Fosse’s Dancin’”

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      The former secretary of state celebrated the opening on Broadway and shared her thoughts on those drag show bans.On Sunday night, Hillary Clinton, fresh from attending the opening night of “Bob Fosse’s Dancin’” on Broadway at the Music Box Theater, swept into the Rosevale Cocktail Room at the Civilian Hotel on West 48th Street.As candles flickered on tables, with miniature models from productions like “Hadestown” and “Dear Evan Hansen” displayed on a back wall, a few dozen guests at the private after-party sipped glasses of white wine from the bar. Mrs. Clinton mingled among guests including David Rockwell, the architect and Tony Award-winning show designer who designed the hotel; the actress Jane Krakowski; Huma Abedin, Mrs. Clinton’s longtime aide; and the “Dancin’” director, Wayne Cilento.“I loved it,” she told Mr. Cilento, who also danced in the original 1978 production of the show. “The dancers were so charismatic and magnetic. That energy was so needed.”Mrs. Clinton had attended the opening at the invitation of Rob Russo, a co-producer on the show who has worked with her in some capacity for nearly two decades. He hardly had to twist her arm, though: Mrs. Clinton, a noted Broadway superfan, has seen numerous shows in the past few months, including “POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive” in July, “The Phantom of the Opera” in December and, last week, the new revival of “Some Like It Hot.”From left: Jamie DuMont, Nicole Fosse and Rob Russo. Mr. Russo, a co-producer of the show and a longtime associate of Mrs. Clinton’s, was the one to invite the former secretary of state to the show’s opening.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesSo when asked to consider the idea that a touring production of the latter show, in which two men dress as women to escape the mob, could be banned from playing in a state like Tennessee, which recently passed a law limiting “cabaret” shows, part of a wave of legislation across the country by conservative lawmakers against drag performances, Mrs. Clinton’s reaction was clear.“It’s a very sad commentary on what people think is important in our country,” Mrs. Clinton said. “I hope that it goes the way of the dinosaur because people will recognize that it’s just a political stunt.”The range of shows that could potentially be banned under such legislation — such as Shakespeare plays, in which a number of characters cross-dress; “Hairspray,” the popular musical in which the protagonist’s mother is usually played by a man in a dress; and “1776,” whose current touring company features an all-female, trans and nonbinary cast, was, she said, “absurd.”“I guess they’re going to shut the state borders to anything that is Shakespearean?” she said. “Are we going to stop exporting any kind of entertainment?”Ms. Fosse, far left, the daughter of the director-choreographer Bob Fosse, talked to a dancer in the show, Yeman Brown.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesAt around 9:10 p.m., Mrs. Clinton departed the party. Some guests followed her lead, while others moved upstairs to the Starchild Rooftop Bar & Lounge on the 27th floor, where Nicole Fosse — the daughter of the director-choreographer Bob Fosse and the actress Gwen Verdon — and Mr. Cilento, the director, were hosting a second party for the show’s creative team and cast of 22 dancers.The dancer Karli Dinardo wore a sleeveless silver gown with cutouts by the Australian designer Portia and Scarlett, while Yeman Brown donned a green Who Decides War cathedral sweatshirt with cutouts across the front. They sipped “Dancin’ Man” mocktails — roots divino bianco, cucumber, pink peppercorn and lemon-lime soda — and munched on “Fosse’s Breakfast” (granola) and shrimp cocktails furnished by waiters on silver platters. (For those with less highbrow tastes, there were also bags of M&M’s by the bar with the dancers’ names printed on them.)Karli Dinardo, a dancer in the show.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesKolton Krouse, who leads the number “Spring Chicken.”Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesKolton Krouse, a nonbinary dancer in the production whose face-slapping kicks earned a shout-out from the New York Times critic Jesse Green in his review, wore an asymmetrical black dress, gold heels, glittering gold eye shadow and bright red lipstick.“I wanted to do a modern take on Ann Reinking’s original trumpet solo dress,” they said of their sparkling one-shoulder gown.Mx. Krouse, who is among a cast of dancers that is noticeably more diverse in age, ethnicity, body type and gender presentation than a typical Fosse cast, said the best part of the new production was that “we can all be ourselves while we’re doing it.”Mr. Cilento said he purposefully sought a more diverse cast for the revival.“I did a very eclectic, really exciting group of dancers because I felt like you had to embrace the whole culture and not just make it, you know, white bread,” he said.Mx. Krouse, who leads the number “Spring Chicken” in the show, said: “It’s weird doing a show where I can be me, and it’s OK.”M&M’s celebrating the show’s opening night featured dancers’ names.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesQuick Question is a collection of dispatches from red carpets, gala dinners and other events that coax celebrities out of hiding. More

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      in Music

      “The White Lotus” Dance Remix is the Hottest Club Song

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      Variations of the spine-tingling intro music have played at rave parties, Australian music festivals and Sundance.On a recent club night in Chicago, a high-pitched woman’s voice that sounded like a gobbling turkey — dropping acid — brought everyone to the dance floor. Some people swayed, twisting their hips and twirling their hair in a hypnotic lock step. Others pumped their fists and jumped up and down. One woman let out a high-pitched scream, as though she’d just spotted Chris Hemsworth at the grocery store.The tune was the EDM dance remix of “Renaissance (Main Title Theme),” the wordless title music that plays over the opening credits of Season 2 of “The White Lotus,” the hit HBO Max series about a group of wealthy people who vacation at the luxury resort — and the people who serve them.Since the second season, set in Sicily, began in late October, remixes of the oscillating harp notes, written by the Chilean Canadian composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer, have spread across TikTok, SoundCloud and in the EDM community. Remixes are now playing in clubs and at music festivals. Last weekend, at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, Diplo unveiled his own mix at 1:30 a.m. “Renaissance” is a variation on the series’s Season 1 theme, “Aloha! — Main Title Theme,” also by Mr. Tapia de Veer,  which features drums and bird songs (that season was set in Maui) and won an Emmy for best original main title theme music. “Aloha” had the same choppy melody, though it did not take off on TikTok or spawn a club following like “Renaissance.”What’s different about Mr. Tapia de Veer’s new beat? Here’s how the song became a crowd-pleasing anthem.Wait, doesn’t everyone nowadays just skip past a show’s theme song?Aah, the “skip intro” button debate. When it’s the intro song to “The Big Bang Theory?” Yes. When the composer has won an Emmy? Your loss.When did the song take off on TikTok?After the first episode of the new season dropped Oct. 30, someone realized: The high-pitched yodeling was danceable. And unlike the Season 1 variation, “Renaissance” climaxes to a throbbing EDM beat near the one-minute mark (the entire song runs 1 minute and 38 seconds long).Over the next few months, thousands of videos flooded the platform, with users setting the ethereal earworm to their own kooky dance moves, frying eggs and lawn manicuring.Why can’t I get it out of my head?Edward Venn, a professor of music at Leeds University in England, broke it down for British GQ in the fall: “It’s the way that the initial minor chord moves to the major — offering a sense of hope, of respite — only for it to slide back, continually and unstoppably, to the threatening implications of that minor chord,” he said.So how did it get into clubs?For weeks, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram users have been sharing videos of partygoers dancing ecstatically as the twisted operatic notes soar through basement bars and packed clubs.The rapper and “Euphoria” star Dominic Fike closed a set at the Terminal 5 music venue in Manhattan with the eerie melody in December, the latest instance of a tune from TV becoming a party staple (we see you, Wednesday Addams and your jerky, infectious “Goo Goo Muck” dance).Where else has it shown up?It turns out that the operatic discothèque sound bath — punctuated by human screeches — works just as well on a large scale as a small one. The Killers opened several stadium shows in December with the song.Days before the show’s finale, a music festival in Australia played the song, to which many in the crowd of thousands of bucket-hatted and fanny-packed revelers tried to vocalize — erm, sing? — along.A heart-pounding remix of the ululating anthem even made an appearance at the end of a “Saturday Night Live” skit last weekend, played by another pop culture phenom: the killer robot doll M3gan, the newly minted camp horror icon with some dance moves of her own.What are some of the best remixes?One popular mash-up features Jennifer Coolidge and her meme-ready rant: “Please, these gays. They’re trying to murder me.”  Another, unveiled by the Dutch DJ Tiësto at a Miami Beach club on New Year’s Eve, makes you want to bang your head until you can’t feel your face. And there is a luscious tech house beat by Westend that will have your stereo shaking.“It captured the feral nature that’s inside all of us and that especially comes out on the dance floor,” said Tyler Morris, a New York-based DJ and music producer who spins under the name Westend. “Every time I play it in my DJ sets, it’s a showstopper.”How do you dance to it?Fist pumps, waving arms and synchronized — or not — flailing limbs, seem to be popular. The robot — or even a fast-moving zombie imitation à la “The Last of Us” — might work well here.Any word on the theme music for Season 3?While the show has been renewed for a third season, there’s no word yet on the next resort destination. The only thing that might be more popular than the EDM “Renaissance”? A K-pop version. More