This week, the younger people are using nitrous oxide to make delicious whipped cream, being proud of themselves for under-consuming, and engaging with The Costco Guys for some reason.
Galaxy Gas is the brand name of a company that mainly sells nitrous oxide, but it’s quickly becoming a slang term for the substance itself. Nitrous, a mind-altering drug if inhaled, seems to be having cultural moment with younger reprobates. While there isn’t any hard data on whether abuse of N2O has actually risen, awareness of the substance is definitely on the upswing. According to a source, Kanye is addicted to it, and you could spend all day looking at vids of young people huffing nitrous or commenting on its use, if you wanted.
Nitrous is one of those “gray area” drugs. The laws vary from state to state, but it’s legal in most situations. If you find a dentist who is old and hip enough, you can get a root canal while high on nitrous. You can also use nitrous to make Belgian waffles and Hollandaise sauce. You use nitrous to make your race car faster too.
In many states, anyone can buy nitrous canisters, but in some states, sales are limited to adults. Nitrous oxide is generally only illegal to possess if you’re using it to get high (it says right on the site "It is illegal to purposely inhale our product"), but it’s rarely prosecuted though, because maybe “I’m not getting high, officer, I’m making dessert” is a credible defense. Nitrous-powered whip creams like Reddi-Wip are on sale everywhere even though they’ll get you as high as anything if you misuse them.
Whether they call it Galaxy Gas, whippets, or hippy crack, getting high on nitrous is not new. People have been huffing N2O to get high since the 1700s when “laughing gas parties” were popular among the British elite and mystics like William James did it for spiritual purposes. Deadheads love it, and so do Phish fans, frat boys, and Jugglalos. So in that sense, it brings people together. Its recent rise in popularity is sure to result in some serious hand-wringing in the near future, so be on the lookout.
If you’ve been seeing the word “Augusted” around lately, it means to be dumped by your summer love. It’s usually not seen in an “I’m heartbroken” way, but more bittersweet, like, “Our affair turned out to be a summer fling, and now it’s August. Oh well. It was fun.”
Like all good things, “Augusted” originated with Taylor Swift, specifically her song “August” from 2020’s Folklore. It’s gone on to become a TikTok hashtag full of videos illustrating the concept, usually focused on the moment of realization of being Augusted, accompanied by Swift’s song. Often there’s running along the beach.
An offshoot of minimalism, “underconsumption core” is a trending aesthetic/lifestyle based on using the things you have for as long as possible and avoiding buying new things until it’s absolutely necessary.
Spikes in inflation have always resulted in people saying “Guess I’m not going to buy things then,” but the promotion of the idea on social media—people making a whole thing out of it—is new. It explains the “core” part of underconsumption: Influencers are showing off their mismatched glassware, old blow dryers, and jeans with holes in them online. It’s a nice counterpoint to the consumption-focuses vibe of many online people.
Some might argue that using things until you have to buy a new one isn’t “underconsumption core” as much as “living life in a normal manner,” but cultural trends have shifted away from older ideas like “thrift is good” toward the acknowledgement that we are, at some level, dependent on consumerism, and if we all stopped churning the economy by buying new stuff, the wheels might stop turning. (I am more a “lazy core” person who barely notices how old anything is and doesn’t buy anything new because it takes effort.)
"We’re Costco Guys" are A.J. & Big Justice, a father-son duo from Boca Raton who have gone screamingly viral lately by posting videos about Costco, chain restaurants, and other bullshit on Instagram and TikTok. Millions of people have watched their videos (presumably of their own free will) and enjoy the way they eat food, holler “Boom,” and explore what exactly makes them Costco guys and not some other kind of guys.
Rizz, as you probably already know, is slang for “charisma.” A rizzler is “one who has charisma;” and The Rizzler is a member of the extended Costco Guys clan. He’s a little fella who’s becoming a breakout star because—man, I don’t know. Just because. I guess people like his performance in the Guy’s most recent viral video where everyone takes turn saying “Just give me my money” and cheering until it’s the victim’s turn, who doesn’t get any cheers.
I don’t like this shit. I don’t like when they make rap songs. I don’t like how they look into the camera. I don’t like the way they get paid to advertise things. I don’t like how relentless they are. They’re so energetic, and it’s all gross to me and makes me queasy. I think I’m not a Costco guy.
Apparently I’m not the only non-Costco guy around, because this week’s viral video, We’re Costco Guys, is from arch internet animator Meat Canyon who imagines a dark-but-funny fate for Big Justice that sees him packed off to Indonesia to pick cocoa beans, a world away from his overfed family. More than just a skewering of a grotesque American trend, Meat Canyon’s video asks viewers to consider how it is that Costco can sell everything for so little. Where does all this cheap stuff come from? And how complicit are consumers for the cruelty committed so we can have hot dogs that cost $1.50 and say “boom!” after we eat a Double Chocolate Chunk Cookie that costs $2.49?
