Pratique du Shadowing: The Viral "Dot Cakes" Are The Dumbest Trend Yet - Apprendre l'anglais à l'oral avec YouTube
B2
At this point, it has to be a social experiment, right?
252 phrases
Si les phrases sont trop courtes ou trop longues, cliquez sur Edit pour les ajuster.
1
At this point, it has to be a social experiment, right?
2
It has to be a social experiment to see just how many people are mindless sycophants
3
and have just enough groupthink mentality to chase after a viral product.
4
Because why are people lining up outside of stores, once again, and losing their minds over a cake in a cup with sprinkles?
5
Guess what I have?
6
11 dot cakes.
7
So let's try them.
8
I finally got the viral dot cakes and I have every flavor to try.
9
Okay, so I came home today
10
and I brought my mom none other than the viral dot
11
cakes I'm like you're never gonna believe what I got for us to try and what did you say?
12
What is that?
13
She has gold in her hands and she doesn't even know it I'm like, oh my god, everyone on the internet is gonna attack you
14
and get you canceled because you know no to dot cake is Yes, there is a new dessert that's making its rounds on the internet the viral dot cake
15
It's basically a mini cake in a cup.
16
It's topped with frosting and covered in rainbow nonpareil sprinkles.
17
The original craze came from the Dot Cakes Bakery in Long Island.
18
And then it spread to the Butterfield Market, which is an upscale market that's in Manhattan in New York City.
19
And that's where people have been lining up.
20
I'm talking lines wrapped around buildings.
21
And these cakes have been selling out all because of TikTok hype and they cost $11 each.
22
Again, we're talking about a cake.
23
But it's aesthetic, you see.
24
It's ASMR, you see.
25
trying the viral dot cake white cake with the sprinkles
26
so let's get into it
27
and see what all the hype is about this is what
28
people do are we not exhausted yet let's talk about the viral dot cakes
29
and why people losing their minds over it says a lot more about our culture than anyone wants to admit
30
I like cake, actually.
31
I love cake.
32
I love me a cake with sprinkles, but I also know that I can spend $1.50 on a Betty Crocker cake mix, and some sprinkles maybe cost probably $5,
33
icing another $5, and I can make that at home by myself and make plenty.
34
I can probably make 25 of them, Or better yet, I can channel my inner Nara Smith and make it from scratch for a fraction of the price.
35
I will gladly spend money on a cake from a local bakery.
36
But what I'm not going to do is wait online outside
37
for hours in the heat for a damn cake in a cup.
38
And the crazy part is that people are openly admitting that it tastes like a store-bought cake mix.
39
And yet they're still going crazy over it and they're willing to pay $11 for it just because it's a trend.
40
If I could describe them, I would say they taste like a box cake mix, but super fluffy and moist.
41
And then it's like a can of Betty Crocker Funfetti frosting from the store.
42
This reminds me of like when you would make cupcakes for your class in like middle school.
43
It would taste like this.
44
It tastes like box cake mix.
45
With the box icing as well.
46
It's almost like the stop and shop buttercream that we love.
47
My conspiratorial brain low-key is telling me that they're paying people at this point.
48
Like they are paying people to stand in these lines and make it look like these cakes are going viral.
49
And then the other sheep see it on social media and then they say, oh my God, this is going viral.
50
Oh my God, I have to get it too.
51
Like I feel like that is my conspiracy theory, but I can't prove it.
52
I mean, there was a whole segment on Good Morning America where they're like, we just have to try the viral dot cakes.
53
And it was so cringe.
54
So Michael couldn't wait, but our super producers managed to get us some.
55
But you can't just dig in.
56
First you have to listen to that sweet sound it makes
57
when you did this is what the influencers do you dig you gotta Yeah, you gotta listen to it.
58
You hear it.
59
Okay.
60
Now Michael is so over it He's like okay if you guys are gonna pay me millions of dollars, I guess the smooth cake take a bite.
61
What do you think?
62
Like am I supposed to really believe that that was organic like it's just like the heaven right?
63
Oh my god We have to do it like all the influencers do it.
64
This seems like a paid operation to me, like please.
65
But let's just assume that people are organically losing their minds over these dot cakes.
66
What does that say about our culture?
67
There's been a lot of backlash, particularly from Mexicans, who are saying that these cakes are just gentrified cortadillos.
68
Have you guys seen them colonize cortadillo and they are calling it dot cake?
69
They are selling the original Mexican bread that we grew up with
70
and they're putting it in a cup and they're calling it dot cake, you guys.
71
This is a true Mexican staple at any bakery.
72
and if you want to get the real thing get the real cortadillo guys it's
73
so crazy how cortadillo mexican bread or cake is going super viral
74
but now they're being called dot cake people are buying
75
11 at the same time
76
because they just never had something like this now we've been
77
growing up with this since we were like like i can't even remember it was before i was even born
78
that this is the thing in our community
79
and now it's like wow i made the viral dot cake
80
look at how delicious this looks i cannot wait to try
81
it this is like i've never seen this before it's incredible
82
so good i'm just kidding it's a f***ing cortadillo a mexican pink cake it's delicious we've had this for years.
83
It's not a dot cake, but it is delicious.
84
We've also had these for forever, also delicious.
85
Are dot cakes and cortadillos identical?
86
Are they exactly the same?
87
No, I don't think so.
88
But I think harping on whether or not they're identical misses the point.
89
I think Mexicans have the right impulses because they're looking at this dessert and they're saying, wait a minute, this is something that is nothing new.
90
This is something that's been around for decades and yet people are going crazy about it.
91
What's different?
92
What makes it different?
93
Well, what makes it different is because it's being channeled through the aesthetics of whiteness.
94
Whether or not you believe that cortadillos and these dot cakes are exactly similar,
95
we all know that variations of cakes with sprinkles on it have been around forever.
96
But now because it's being sold through the right aesthetic channels, because it's in the right neighborhoods, it's being sold by the right kind of businesses,
97
and it's also being sold to the right consumer, now it's a must-have.
98
This is precisely why people are annoyed.
99
It's a reflection of how Americans, particularly those of the less melanated hue, lack actual hobbies.
100
They lack a relationship to food that is actually rooted in culture and history.
101
Some influencer, usually one with a bland personality who's never actually had to be interesting to survive, is going to say, it's worth the hype.
102
Go get it.
103
It's a must have.
104
What's his name?
105
Dottie Snack says, oh my God, you guys.
106
We have to get the viral dot K.
107
But yeah, once that influencer declares that we all need to go get it, then thousands of people move in formation.
108
They stand in the line and then they go on to repeat the same phrases.
109
And I'm like, do you guys actually really like this?
110
Or are you just manipulating yourself into thinking that you like it because everybody else likes it?
111
It really boils down to a matter of privilege.
112
If you have more disposable income, if you have more generational wealth, if you have more access to leisure, if you have the proximity, because proximity is so important,
113
if you have proximity to these gentrified neighborhoods that these viral crazes are often sold at, you can waste your time and money in ways that other people just can't.
114
Waiting in line for a viral cake is very much a privilege.
115
Building your entire personality around these novelty purchases requires a certain level of a cushion.
116
You have to believe there's always going to be more money, there's always going to be more time, and there's always going to be more space in the cabinet in order to keep chasing these trends.
117
If you're a normie person living in, I don't know, West Farms in the Bronx or the east side of Buffalo or really any working class neighborhood, you're not afforded these kinds of luxuries.
118
These are not the kinds of things that you're going to be living and dying for.
119
These are not the ways that you're going to spend your time.
120
You're not spending your afternoon waiting in line for a dot cake just because it went viral on TikTok.
121
You're thinking about rent.
122
You're thinking about whether your check is going to to stretch until Friday.
123
These are the worries of real working class people.
124
Of course, there's going to be people who are working class
125
and want to emulate the lives of these people that they see on TikTok that have endless money and endless time.
126
Obviously, that's going to be a part of the crowd.
127
But nevertheless, by and large, it takes privilege to be waiting in these lines and chasing after these viral products.
128
One person's little tree is another person's hourly wage.
129
There's two people right now in New York who are experiencing the city completely differently.
130
So when we talk about all of these viral trends, we have to also talk about the class conditions that make it possible.
131
This is also why all of these viral markets and other viral hotspots, they're located in very specific locations.
132
They're always in upscale neighborhoods.
133
They're always in gentrified city corridors.
134
You know, those places that have the sterile corporate aesthetic, that.
135
The Butterfield Market, where the dot cakes are being sold, is in the Upper East Side.
136
They have two locations in the Upper East Side.
137
Whether you know this from being a native New Yorker like myself, or you just grew up watching Gossip Girl, also like myself, the Upper East Side is an enclave for the wealthy.
138
It is the epitome of affluence.
139
and when a lot of these markets go viral they're going viral precisely
140
because they represent this affluent aesthetic this desire for access a
141
lot of people it doesn't even matter whether it's a dot cake
142
or whatever else as long as it's being sold to them
143
through the aesthetics of whiteness of upper class urban upscale gentrified
144
whiteness that's why they want it the product is almost beside
145
the point that's where you get the metal lane in tribeca that's where you get all the Erewhon locations
146
that are in the gentrified parts of LA.
147
Let's just put it this way.
148
If these dot cakes were being sold in West Farms or in Hunts Point in the Bronx, no one is going to want them.
149
If they're being sold out of a bodega, you think anyone's going to want them?
150
They wouldn't be going viral.
151
There's this desire to get these viral products to feel like you belong to the class of women with endless leisure, with a clean aesthetic beige apartment.
152
The people that want to buy upscale or luxury gourmet groceries, like the fact that these are even concepts that exist.
153
Even food is now a status symbol.
154
French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu once famously wrote in Distinction that quote, taste classifies and it classifies the classifier.
155
What does that mean?
156
What you like or what you project to like also tells people where you're positioned socially
157
or where you perform where you want to be positioned, if that makes sense, right?
158
Because it's all a performance.
159
It's not authentic, it's a performance.
160
And so you have these spaces that are built for consumption as a performance.
161
Why are these cakes going viral is because they are so aesthetic, because they're so colorful, because they photograph well,
162
again, because of that ASMR effect of putting your spoon up against the sprinkles.
163
They are designed for people to post them online.
164
They're designed for the person who specifically buys things to signify their taste, both figuratively and literally in this case.
165
They're designed for the people that use the the city as a backdrop for their content, aka influencers.
166
So when you go to the Dot Cake Bakery, when you go to the Butterfield Market,
167
Erwan, Meadow Lane, you're there to produce evidence of your proximity to taste.
168
And a lot of these spaces often only exist because a lot of marginalized people were pushed out.
169
I mean, the Upper East Side is a perfect example.
170
The Upper East Side previously was an enclave for the working class, for working class immigrants.
171
But now these gentrified neighborhoods are now for just people who want to use the city as a mood board.
172
And the workers behind the counter, the people who are actually making the cakes, the people who are actually waking up at the crack of dawn to open up these markets, okay?
173
The people who are cleaning up the market to make it aesthetic enough for you to take pictures
174
and videos and film content in there, they're rendered invisible.
175
They are never the center of the fantasy, of the aesthetic.
176
It really is commodity fetishism 101.
177
And it's like, you cannot make this up because in this, meet the team video at the Butterfield Market.
178
Of course, the head manager is a white man and every other employee doing the menial labor is black or brown.
179
Like you cannot make up the racial capitalism dynamics in this particular establishment.
180
The owners are white.
181
I feel like that goes without saying.
182
And it's like in this video, they were just like, smile, just pretend like you love your exploitation.
183
We're all just one big happy family.
184
They're like performing it for social media.
185
And it's just like, are we not seeing it?
186
It relies on the labor of the working class,
187
but people are also trying to get as far away from the working class as possible by shopping at these upscale markets.
188
We just cited Bordieu earlier, but another French philosopher, Henri Lefebvre, who developed the concept of the right to the city,
189
he also understood how the modern city has been reorganized to center people who value consumption above all else,
190
particularly corporate consumption.
191
He wrote that quote, the urban core becomes a high quality consumption product for foreigners, tourists, people from the outskirts and suburbanites.
192
It survives because of this double role as a place of consumption and consumption of place.
193
This is exactly what's happening here.
194
The Upper East Side is very much a part of the product.
195
The upscale market is very much the product to consume.
196
All of that is being packaged.
197
All of that is being sold and it's exhausting because it never ends.
198
We should resist it.
199
I'm not saying that you can't ever enjoy a cute cake, but like please enjoy it because you enjoy it, not because an influencer told you to.
200
Please actually go to your local, not trendy, non-aesthetic bakery.
201
The best bakery in my town doesn't even accept credit cards.
202
The lady that owns it makes all of the cakes and it's so non-aesthetic, but her cakes are good as hell.
203
But in all seriousness though, it's a crisis of culture.
204
Whenever we see all of these just random items going viral at this point, I think they're going to start selling oxygen in a bottle
205
and if the bottle is aesthetic it'll go viral
206
but seriously it is a crisis of culture when people are
207
so hollowed out
208
that a damn cake in a cup becomes a mass event
209
that's sad that's very sad like there are pleasures in life
210
that don't require a performance this is what we should be striving for
211
and returning to not the next viral cake or the next viral cup or the next 24 Carrot Gold, La Boo Boo Dubai Chocolate.
212
We need to have the ability to want something because we genuinely want it.
213
I've said this before, but even our obsession with charts and data, like there are whole Twitter stand pages dedicated to what number,
214
every album, every song is on the billboard, Hot 100.
215
And it's like, oh, like you need someone's permission.
216
If it didn't chart high enough, then I don't want to listen to it.
217
If there's no influencer valorizing it, then I don't want to buy it.
218
If it It won't look aesthetic enough in my bathroom and it doesn't have cute enough packaging, then I don't want it.
219
We have to recover our ability to think for ourselves.
220
And it might sound small, but it's not.
221
Because every time we refuse to let the market decide our desires, we're reclaiming a piece of ourselves from capitalism.
222
Obviously, there's more work to be done within our communities and on a mass political scale, obviously.
223
I just want to make that clear.
224
In order to do that work, it takes reshifting of one's mindset as an individual.
225
In order to dismantle things on a systemic level, we also have to confront ourselves as individuals.
226
And the ways that we think or the ways that we don't think for ourselves, it requires us to examine the rituals that make us obedient little consumers.
227
This is something that we talk about all the time on this channel.
228
We have to look beyond what an influencer said was trendy, what a corporation said was trendy.
229
my final words is
230
that the goal should always be to build a world where
231
we don't have to buy ourselves through the marketplace I think you've got it and
232
that my friends that's all I've got for you today I'd
233
love to hear from you though the comment section is always
234
where the conversation continues I want to hear from you in
235
the comments down below what are your thoughts on the dot
236
cake what are your thoughts on all of these viral trends
237
and if you like this video definitely give it a thumbs up
238
and if you really liked it and you want more content like this definitely hit
239
that subscribe button
240
if you want to see what I'm up to outside of
241
YouTube you can follow me on my social media profiles down here as well as my Patreon.
242
My video that I really loved, I loved it so much about Almond Moms.
243
It recently got demonetized for all intents and purposes.
244
It's not demonetized exactly, but it got age restricted, which basically kills your video.
245
It's really hard to be a creator who doesn't just talk about surface level issues.
246
We're very limited on what we can and cannot say on this platform.
247
And so that's why Patreon is so important to me.
248
As someone who really doesn't take sponsorships, I really would appreciate your help to help me continue creating content like this.
249
So if you wanna support me, definitely consider signing up for my Patreon.
250
You can sign up for as little as $1.50 a month or $5 a month if you're feeling a little bit more generous.
251
And besides all that, I can't wait to see you all next time.
252
And thank you all so, so much for watching.
Télécharger l'application
Notation IA pour chaque phrase que vous prononcez
TRENDING
Populaires
About This Lesson
In this lesson, you will engage in English speaking practice by exploring the viral trend of "dot cakes." You’ll refine your listening and speaking skills while delving into social commentary and cultural observations that surround this dessert phenomenon. This exercise is particularly beneficial for those looking to enhance their fluency in conversational English and prepare for scenarios like the IELTS speaking practice.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Viral trend: A phenomenon that becomes extremely popular, often through social media.
- Mindless sycophants: People who follow trends without critical thought or personal opinion.
- ASMR: Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, often used in contexts where visual or auditory triggers create a relaxing feeling.
- Sprinkles: Small pieces of candy used for decoration on confections, particularly cakes.
- Cultural commentary: Insights or opinions regarding societal trends or behaviors.
- Box cake mix: A pre-packaged mixture for baking cakes at home.
- Fluffy and moist: Describing the desirable texture of baked goods.
- Qualitative experience: The subjective assessment of an experience, often based on personal taste or enjoyment.
Practice Tips
To make the most of this lesson using the shadowing technique, follow these simple steps:
- Slow Down: Start by listening to the video at a slower speed to catch the nuances of the speaker’s tone and vocabulary. This will aid comprehension, especially when dealing with fast-paced dialogue.
- Repeat Phrases: Pause the video frequently, repeating key phrases immediately after you hear them. Focus on mimicking the speaker's intonation and rhythm, as this encourages natural speech patterns.
- Engage Emotionally: Pay attention to the emotional undertones in the speaker's voice as they discuss the trend. Attempt to convey similar emotions when practicing, as this enriches your speaking style.
- Record Yourself: Use a shadowing app to record your practice sessions. Listening back can help you identify areas for improvement, particularly in terms of fluency and pronunciation.
- Discuss the Content: Afterwards, engage with a friend or teacher. Discuss what you learned or your opinions on the concept of viral trends, reinforcing the vocabulary and phrases from this lesson.
By focusing on these tips and employing the shadowing technique, you can significantly improve your speaking skills and boost your confidence in casual conversations about contemporary topics!
Qu'est-ce que la technique du Shadowing ?
Le Shadowing est une technique d'apprentissage des langues fondée sur la science, développée à l'origine pour la formation des interprètes professionnels. Le principe est simple mais puissant : vous écoutez de l'anglais natif et le répétez immédiatement à voix haute — comme une ombre suivant le locuteur avec un décalage de 1 à 2 secondes. Les recherches montrent une amélioration significative de la précision de la prononciation, de l'intonation, du rythme, des liaisons, de la compréhension orale et de la fluidité.
☕ Offrez-nous un café
ShadowingEnglish reste 100% gratuit grâce à votre soutien. Les coûts des serveurs et de l'IA sont élevés — votre café nous aide à continuer ! 🙏