Shadowing Practice: The Viral "Dot Cakes" Are The Dumbest Trend Yet - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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At this point, it has to be a social experiment, right?
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At this point, it has to be a social experiment, right?
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It has to be a social experiment to see just how many people are mindless sycophants
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and have just enough groupthink mentality to chase after a viral product.
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Because why are people lining up outside of stores, once again, and losing their minds over a cake in a cup with sprinkles?
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Guess what I have?
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11 dot cakes.
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So let's try them.
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I finally got the viral dot cakes and I have every flavor to try.
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Okay, so I came home today
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and I brought my mom none other than the viral dot
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cakes I'm like you're never gonna believe what I got for us to try and what did you say?
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What is that?
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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
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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
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It's basically a mini cake in a cup.
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It's topped with frosting and covered in rainbow nonpareil sprinkles.
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The original craze came from the Dot Cakes Bakery in Long Island.
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And then it spread to the Butterfield Market, which is an upscale market that's in Manhattan in New York City.
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And that's where people have been lining up.
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I'm talking lines wrapped around buildings.
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And these cakes have been selling out all because of TikTok hype and they cost $11 each.
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Again, we're talking about a cake.
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But it's aesthetic, you see.
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It's ASMR, you see.
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trying the viral dot cake white cake with the sprinkles
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so let's get into it
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and see what all the hype is about this is what
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people do are we not exhausted yet let's talk about the viral dot cakes
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and why people losing their minds over it says a lot more about our culture than anyone wants to admit
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I like cake, actually.
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I love cake.
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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,
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icing another $5, and I can make that at home by myself and make plenty.
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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.
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I will gladly spend money on a cake from a local bakery.
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But what I'm not going to do is wait online outside
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for hours in the heat for a damn cake in a cup.
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And the crazy part is that people are openly admitting that it tastes like a store-bought cake mix.
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And yet they're still going crazy over it and they're willing to pay $11 for it just because it's a trend.
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If I could describe them, I would say they taste like a box cake mix, but super fluffy and moist.
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And then it's like a can of Betty Crocker Funfetti frosting from the store.
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This reminds me of like when you would make cupcakes for your class in like middle school.
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It would taste like this.
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It tastes like box cake mix.
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With the box icing as well.
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It's almost like the stop and shop buttercream that we love.
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My conspiratorial brain low-key is telling me that they're paying people at this point.
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Like they are paying people to stand in these lines and make it look like these cakes are going viral.
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And then the other sheep see it on social media and then they say, oh my God, this is going viral.
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Oh my God, I have to get it too.
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Like I feel like that is my conspiracy theory, but I can't prove it.
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I mean, there was a whole segment on Good Morning America where they're like, we just have to try the viral dot cakes.
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And it was so cringe.
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So Michael couldn't wait, but our super producers managed to get us some.
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But you can't just dig in.
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First you have to listen to that sweet sound it makes
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when you did this is what the influencers do you dig you gotta Yeah, you gotta listen to it.
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You hear it.
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Okay.
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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.
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What do you think?
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Like am I supposed to really believe that that was organic like it's just like the heaven right?
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Oh my god We have to do it like all the influencers do it.
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This seems like a paid operation to me, like please.
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But let's just assume that people are organically losing their minds over these dot cakes.
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What does that say about our culture?
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There's been a lot of backlash, particularly from Mexicans, who are saying that these cakes are just gentrified cortadillos.
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Have you guys seen them colonize cortadillo and they are calling it dot cake?
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They are selling the original Mexican bread that we grew up with
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and they're putting it in a cup and they're calling it dot cake, you guys.
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This is a true Mexican staple at any bakery.
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and if you want to get the real thing get the real cortadillo guys it's
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so crazy how cortadillo mexican bread or cake is going super viral
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but now they're being called dot cake people are buying
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11 at the same time
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because they just never had something like this now we've been
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growing up with this since we were like like i can't even remember it was before i was even born
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that this is the thing in our community
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and now it's like wow i made the viral dot cake
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look at how delicious this looks i cannot wait to try
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it this is like i've never seen this before it's incredible
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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.
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It's not a dot cake, but it is delicious.
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We've also had these for forever, also delicious.
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Are dot cakes and cortadillos identical?
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Are they exactly the same?
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No, I don't think so.
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But I think harping on whether or not they're identical misses the point.
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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.
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This is something that's been around for decades and yet people are going crazy about it.
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What's different?
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What makes it different?
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Well, what makes it different is because it's being channeled through the aesthetics of whiteness.
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Whether or not you believe that cortadillos and these dot cakes are exactly similar,
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we all know that variations of cakes with sprinkles on it have been around forever.
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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,
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and it's also being sold to the right consumer, now it's a must-have.
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This is precisely why people are annoyed.
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It's a reflection of how Americans, particularly those of the less melanated hue, lack actual hobbies.
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They lack a relationship to food that is actually rooted in culture and history.
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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.
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Go get it.
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It's a must have.
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What's his name?
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Dottie Snack says, oh my God, you guys.
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We have to get the viral dot K.
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But yeah, once that influencer declares that we all need to go get it, then thousands of people move in formation.
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They stand in the line and then they go on to repeat the same phrases.
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And I'm like, do you guys actually really like this?
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Or are you just manipulating yourself into thinking that you like it because everybody else likes it?
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It really boils down to a matter of privilege.
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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,
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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.
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Waiting in line for a viral cake is very much a privilege.
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Building your entire personality around these novelty purchases requires a certain level of a cushion.
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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.
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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.
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These are not the kinds of things that you're going to be living and dying for.
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These are not the ways that you're going to spend your time.
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You're not spending your afternoon waiting in line for a dot cake just because it went viral on TikTok.
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You're thinking about rent.
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You're thinking about whether your check is going to to stretch until Friday.
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These are the worries of real working class people.
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Of course, there's going to be people who are working class
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and want to emulate the lives of these people that they see on TikTok that have endless money and endless time.
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Obviously, that's going to be a part of the crowd.
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But nevertheless, by and large, it takes privilege to be waiting in these lines and chasing after these viral products.
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One person's little tree is another person's hourly wage.
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There's two people right now in New York who are experiencing the city completely differently.
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So when we talk about all of these viral trends, we have to also talk about the class conditions that make it possible.
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This is also why all of these viral markets and other viral hotspots, they're located in very specific locations.
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They're always in upscale neighborhoods.
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They're always in gentrified city corridors.
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You know, those places that have the sterile corporate aesthetic, that.
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The Butterfield Market, where the dot cakes are being sold, is in the Upper East Side.
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They have two locations in the Upper East Side.
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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.
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It is the epitome of affluence.
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and when a lot of these markets go viral they're going viral precisely
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because they represent this affluent aesthetic this desire for access a
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lot of people it doesn't even matter whether it's a dot cake
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or whatever else as long as it's being sold to them
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through the aesthetics of whiteness of upper class urban upscale gentrified
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whiteness that's why they want it the product is almost beside
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the point that's where you get the metal lane in tribeca that's where you get all the Erewhon locations
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that are in the gentrified parts of LA.
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Let's just put it this way.
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If these dot cakes were being sold in West Farms or in Hunts Point in the Bronx, no one is going to want them.
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If they're being sold out of a bodega, you think anyone's going to want them?
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They wouldn't be going viral.
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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.
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The people that want to buy upscale or luxury gourmet groceries, like the fact that these are even concepts that exist.
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Even food is now a status symbol.
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French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu once famously wrote in Distinction that quote, taste classifies and it classifies the classifier.
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What does that mean?
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What you like or what you project to like also tells people where you're positioned socially
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or where you perform where you want to be positioned, if that makes sense, right?
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Because it's all a performance.
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It's not authentic, it's a performance.
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And so you have these spaces that are built for consumption as a performance.
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Why are these cakes going viral is because they are so aesthetic, because they're so colorful, because they photograph well,
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again, because of that ASMR effect of putting your spoon up against the sprinkles.
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They are designed for people to post them online.
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They're designed for the person who specifically buys things to signify their taste, both figuratively and literally in this case.
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They're designed for the people that use the the city as a backdrop for their content, aka influencers.
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So when you go to the Dot Cake Bakery, when you go to the Butterfield Market,
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Erwan, Meadow Lane, you're there to produce evidence of your proximity to taste.
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And a lot of these spaces often only exist because a lot of marginalized people were pushed out.
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I mean, the Upper East Side is a perfect example.
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The Upper East Side previously was an enclave for the working class, for working class immigrants.
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But now these gentrified neighborhoods are now for just people who want to use the city as a mood board.
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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?
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The people who are cleaning up the market to make it aesthetic enough for you to take pictures
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and videos and film content in there, they're rendered invisible.
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They are never the center of the fantasy, of the aesthetic.
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It really is commodity fetishism 101.
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And it's like, you cannot make this up because in this, meet the team video at the Butterfield Market.
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Of course, the head manager is a white man and every other employee doing the menial labor is black or brown.
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Like you cannot make up the racial capitalism dynamics in this particular establishment.
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The owners are white.
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I feel like that goes without saying.
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And it's like in this video, they were just like, smile, just pretend like you love your exploitation.
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We're all just one big happy family.
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They're like performing it for social media.
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And it's just like, are we not seeing it?
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It relies on the labor of the working class,
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but people are also trying to get as far away from the working class as possible by shopping at these upscale markets.
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We just cited Bordieu earlier, but another French philosopher, Henri Lefebvre, who developed the concept of the right to the city,
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he also understood how the modern city has been reorganized to center people who value consumption above all else,
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particularly corporate consumption.
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He wrote that quote, the urban core becomes a high quality consumption product for foreigners, tourists, people from the outskirts and suburbanites.
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It survives because of this double role as a place of consumption and consumption of place.
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This is exactly what's happening here.
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The Upper East Side is very much a part of the product.
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The upscale market is very much the product to consume.
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All of that is being packaged.
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All of that is being sold and it's exhausting because it never ends.
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We should resist it.
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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.
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Please actually go to your local, not trendy, non-aesthetic bakery.
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The best bakery in my town doesn't even accept credit cards.
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The lady that owns it makes all of the cakes and it's so non-aesthetic, but her cakes are good as hell.
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But in all seriousness though, it's a crisis of culture.
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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
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and if the bottle is aesthetic it'll go viral
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but seriously it is a crisis of culture when people are
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so hollowed out
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that a damn cake in a cup becomes a mass event
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that's sad that's very sad like there are pleasures in life
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that don't require a performance this is what we should be striving for
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and returning to not the next viral cake or the next viral cup or the next 24 Carrot Gold, La Boo Boo Dubai Chocolate.
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We need to have the ability to want something because we genuinely want it.
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I've said this before, but even our obsession with charts and data, like there are whole Twitter stand pages dedicated to what number,
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every album, every song is on the billboard, Hot 100.
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And it's like, oh, like you need someone's permission.
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If it didn't chart high enough, then I don't want to listen to it.
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If there's no influencer valorizing it, then I don't want to buy it.
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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.
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We have to recover our ability to think for ourselves.
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And it might sound small, but it's not.
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Because every time we refuse to let the market decide our desires, we're reclaiming a piece of ourselves from capitalism.
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Obviously, there's more work to be done within our communities and on a mass political scale, obviously.
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I just want to make that clear.
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In order to do that work, it takes reshifting of one's mindset as an individual.
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In order to dismantle things on a systemic level, we also have to confront ourselves as individuals.
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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.
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This is something that we talk about all the time on this channel.
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We have to look beyond what an influencer said was trendy, what a corporation said was trendy.
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my final words is
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that the goal should always be to build a world where
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we don't have to buy ourselves through the marketplace I think you've got it and
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that my friends that's all I've got for you today I'd
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love to hear from you though the comment section is always
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where the conversation continues I want to hear from you in
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the comments down below what are your thoughts on the dot
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cake what are your thoughts on all of these viral trends
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and if you like this video definitely give it a thumbs up
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and if you really liked it and you want more content like this definitely hit
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that subscribe button
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if you want to see what I'm up to outside of
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YouTube you can follow me on my social media profiles down here as well as my Patreon.
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My video that I really loved, I loved it so much about Almond Moms.
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It recently got demonetized for all intents and purposes.
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It's not demonetized exactly, but it got age restricted, which basically kills your video.
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It's really hard to be a creator who doesn't just talk about surface level issues.
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We're very limited on what we can and cannot say on this platform.
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And so that's why Patreon is so important to me.
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As someone who really doesn't take sponsorships, I really would appreciate your help to help me continue creating content like this.
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So if you wanna support me, definitely consider signing up for my Patreon.
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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.
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And besides all that, I can't wait to see you all next time.
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And thank you all so, so much for watching.
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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!
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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