what I learned from teaching this year
just kidding, it's my review of skibidi toilet
The great mystery of teaching this year was figuring out what the heck Skibidi Toilet was.
My Gen Alpha students are reclusive, drawing fan art of appliance-headed people in suits. When asked to describe their artwork, they say matter-of-factly, “This is TV/Speaker/Camera Man.”
Skibidi Toilet’s fandom extends all the way from kindergarten to fifth grade.
Season One is about a minute long, but there is a lot going on. Each episode features a creepy head jerkily spinning and popping out of a toilet, singing a sped-up mash up of Timbaland’s Give it To Me and Biser King’s Dom Dom Yes Yes (which is, incidentally, where the name of the series comes from — the lyrics “so give it to me,” sped up, is skibidi). It escalates quickly — episode 1 (11 seconds) features just one guy’s head coming out of a toilet, episode 2 (15 seconds) introduces heads popping out of urinals, episode 3 (14 seconds) has a giant toilet, surrounded by lots of little toilets, and episode 4 (a whopping 26 seconds) opens in a fancy restaurant serving poop as the toilets come in …to take over. I think. I’m not sure what I watched.
Future seasons set up a war between the toilets and the appliance-headed people (all the fan art in my classroom is only of the latter), and skipping ahead, the videos become more and more detailed and cinematic in quality. No English language is required to access the series, which explains why my students who are recent immigrants from China are also fans.
The series is an example of machinema (a portmanteau of machine & cinema), which uses real time computer graphic engines to create movies. The creator faithfully credits the creators of various map/people/etc assets in the description of each video, which I think shows more integrity than most adults producing work on the internet. I think Skibidi Toilet is a modern low-brow example of bricolage, art created from things that just happen to be available. The things available here were, I guess, Counterstrike maps and Timbaland’s song.
During dinner, eleven-year-old Livi told me, “My art teacher banned Skibidi Toilet.”
“Why?” I inquired politely. I wondered briefly, with some panic, if I too should have banned Skibidi Toilet.
“Because she says it’s annoying.”
“Oh. Is it annoying?”
She shrugged.
“It’s kind of annoying,” she said with some finality.
some things to look forward to
🖍️ Playful kid art on April 6th (til the end of the school year) - Come by and see all my elementary students’ (non-Skibidi-Toilet) art work at the Pao Arts Center in Chinatown. The opening reception (4/6 Sat, 2-4pm) will have juice boxes & snacks & an activity based on one of my favorite art lessons (fun fact: I used this exact activity for my first ever demo lesson when interviewing to be an art teacher for my very first art teacher position about a decade ago…)!
🧚 Luminous queer Asian theatre realness on May 23rd - Be sure to check out the opening show of NÜWA IN FAIRYLAND! I was so honored to be able to design the key art for this wonderful gaysian show about Shakespeare, adoption, and identity.
📚 New stickers and zines on June 8th - Come to Boston Kids Comics Fest! I’ll be there peddling my wares (alongside some young artists!)
☀️ Yummy collabs in Summerrrrrr - We have more holu x Rubato collaborations coming down the pipeline this summer!
😋 NOODLE & BAO’s Book Launch on October 15th! And of course, if you can’t wait, you can always pre-order.
🍉 And, of course, I’m still drawing for Cartoonist Coop’s E-Sims for Gaza campaign. Here’s how it works — you donate an E-sim, you take a screenshot of your donation (including the amount) and then you pick an artist to redeem a cool prize. Mine is a limited-palette drawing, which I’ll work on for an amount of time that is commensurate with the donation amount.
& the best part is…if you don’t like that, you don’t have to pick me; there are a lot of other amazing cartoonists to choose from! :)
some things i’m enjoying and want *you* to enjoy
Eggplants! I’m like, super into cooking and eating eggplants these days. I just had the Nam Prik Makheua (kinda like a spicy Thai green chili eggplant dip) from Boon Noon Market and it was AMAZINGGGGG. I’ve also been cooking eggplant a lot. With ground meat sandwiched in between & fried, in green curry, lightly fried with a miso-soy dipping sauce…
I’ve been reading tons of books, and here are just a few titles that I’ve really enjoyed:
So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed (Jon Ronson) - This was a hilariously written yet highly educational non-fiction book about online mobs & public shaming.
The Water Outlaws (S.L. Huang) - queer genderbent remake of 水滸後傳 (The Water Margin/Outlaws of the Marsh, aka my dad’s favorite of the “Four Chinese classics”). Both the original and this version are about a group of outlaws rebelling against the government. Fun stuff!
Pet & Bitter (Akwaeke Emezi) - these are actually TWO books. The first is about redemption/justice/retribution & the monsters we don’t see. The second is about art and our places in the revolution. I loved them both so much!
wow