There is a gift shop and arcade across the street, but people flock to the church instead. They approach the pulpit, passing their parents and other mourners in the pews as they walk by. There’s a conveyor belt on the pulpit. They sit down and wait patiently as it slowly carries them into an open grave. Face-down in the dirt, there is nothing but darkness. 

After a few moments, they’re hit with blinding light as they fall into heaven and land atop a pile of bodies. They approach the pearly gates looking for salvation, but instead, they are mercilessly dumped into hell. Hell is a room of doors. After trying several without success, they finally open a door that has a portal back to Earth. They step on the platform to go home, rinse, and repeat.

This is a typical day at Joshman901 Roblox Funeral Home, Crematory & Grave Yard, the main attraction of the game “Funeral Home and Graveyard!” The game, created by user @zonex, is one of the most popular funeral home games on Roblox.

“Funeral Home and Graveyard!” has gotten over 3.3 million visits and has been saved or favorited by 33,584 users since its creation in 2018. Many Roblox TikTokers also promote the game on their channels. “We’re doing my funeral today,” a voice assistant will say as the TikTokers’ avatars enter the church.

Though the game is the first result to come up after searching “funeral” or “funeral home” on Roblox, users play a variety of different funeral games. Some games are dedicated to hosting funerals for real people like XXXTentacion and Prince Philip; others are elaborate funerals for fellow users who haven’t really passed.

These funerals are an extension of Roblox’s church role-play community. Many players use Roblox to express their religiosity, and there are numerous church groups on the platform for both role-play and genuine services. When a player decides to leave the church role-play, other users host a funeral for them as a farewell party. 

Some users take it upon themselves to create funeral home games to host these funerals. They advertise their services on TikTok and accept clients and job applicants through Discord and other platforms. For at least one gamer, the funeral role-plays are practice for the real world. Others play with more ephemeral intentions.

Just killing time

Roblox is a gaming platform that hosts 24 million user-generated games or “experiences.” The platform, launched in 2008, surged in popularity during the onset of the pandemic with an increase of almost 10 million daily active users. Usage has continued to increase from 33.4 million daily active users after the initial boost in 2020 to 47.3 million in the third quarter of 2021.

“People come to Roblox around the world for entertainment, play, fashion, work, learning, and much more,” a Roblox spokesperson told the Daily Dot. “We provide an innovative platform for creation that gives people the freedom to create anything they can imagine, experience anything they want, and be anyone they want to be within our guidelines.”

One Roblox funeral home is the All People’s Funeral Home of Atlanta Georgia—not to be confused with the real-life All People’s Funeral Home located in Houston. The funeral home’s founder, Jamie Wooden is a 16-year-old from Atlanta who told the Daily Dot that he’s been playing Roblox for seven years and creating Roblox games for the past three or four.

Wooden created his church and funeral games for kids, typically between the ages of 10 and 12, who needed something to do in their spare time. Though Roblox has a chat function, the players communicate via the messaging platform Discord to plan before entering the role-playing games.

“We’ll communicate with each other on having church worship night, Bible study, and all of that,” Wooden told the Daily Dot. The players don’t just role-play going to church, however. Wooden created several games for children to be able to act out their dream careers. 

Currently, Wooden works with 24 other 16-year-olds all based in Atlanta to run the organization.  For all seven role-play games—funeral home, church, police, lawyer, doctor and EMS, firefighter, and nurse—there are 632 members, 256 of which are involved in the funeral role-play. 

“They do this just to have fun and so they can get ready for the real world because some kids actually want to be pastors, funeral home directors, and police officers,” he said.

Wooden’s collection of Roblox games is similar in concept to Wannado City, an IRL indoor theme park in Florida. The park was a miniature city where children could earn money role-playing different careers, then save the cash or spend it around town. Wannado City closed in 2011, but Wooden has brought the concept into the new decade. 

“We have different categories,” Wooden said. “A firefighter category, a funeral home, a hospital—just different job careers. It’s actually getting them ready for the real world and we role-play out the real thing that is going to be happening, like the paperwork and everything that you would have to do to work at these jobs.” 

A lot of Wooden’s knowledge about these different careers comes from firsthand experience. 

“I am a part of a real church and have family members that are preachers and funeral home directors,” Wooden said. For the jobs that he’s unfamiliar with, Wooden turns to Google, Wikipedia, and other sources to discover what being in those careers entails. He has also been taking notes on the career day presentations he’s gotten at school from a young age.

When Wooden started making Roblox games in middle school, he simply made whatever came to mind. He created his virtual Wannado City a few years ago, and he was inspired to add the funeral home role-play when the pandemic hit. Since he and his friends were bored and unable to see each other, they decided to make Roblox games for younger kids going through the same thing. 

“We just felt like that is something that we needed to do and create for them so they'll have something to do,” Wooden said. “We know the pandemic has been stressful on all of us, so we really know that it's really difficult on them that they can't be around their friends.” 

Wooden and his friends offer guidance while allowing the younger kids to run the show. 

“A lot of them have laptops and they’ll download this app called Roblox Studios and they can create different things,” Wooden said. “They'll have the limo, the hearse; they'll have horse and carriage; they'll have plenty of things that they just can role-play out the whole funeral.”

Roblox allows players to do things like select music, cross the deceased’s arms, and open and close the casket. For the things Roblox does not allow them to do, like filing paperwork, the players will type in the chatbox. They write out actions like embalming and writing up death certificates.

The players also create funeral announcements for the deceased. Using a third-party website called PosterMyWall, “they'll take screenshots of the character and they'll actually make a picture like an [announcement] and they'll make up a life story,” Wooden said.

Members of All People’s Funeral Home of Atlanta Georgia and other Roblox funeral homes post announcements to TikTok to publicize their upcoming funerals and encourage people to solicit their services or join their staff. These posts are sometimes met with criticism.

“We had a video that we had posted and a lot of people like ‘ah that’s weird that you all letting the kids playing this,’ but it's actually the kinda thing that the kids want,” Wooden said.

'Playing dead'

While some may find it strange that children are hosting fake funerals online, it’s actually quite normal, according to Dr. Sachin Shah, a U.K. psychiatrist and founding member of the Gaming the Mind blog.

“Kids play, and they role-play, and they role-play a whole variety of scenarios,” Shah told the Daily Dot. “Death is just another part of the life span that kids do role-play.”

Shah notes that such play is so common that there’s a term for it that you are probably already familiar with, even if it only now just crossed your mind: “playing dead.”  

“Roblox clearly has just given people tools to take it to the next level of having a very well kitted out funeral home instead of just having a cardboard box for a coffin, which maybe kids would do,” Shah explained.

Shah also said that role-playing death is actually beneficial, especially for kids facing death or bereavement. 

“Play helps kids just practice for the real deal,” he said. “You might imagine that the kids on Roblox, having done all these funerals, are going to cope a whole lot better at a real funeral than for a kid who a funeral is a complete mystery, and they don’t know what to expect.” 

Because of these benefits, child therapists are following their patients to virtual landscapes. 

“It used to be that you’d give them dolls, you’d give them puppets, you’d give them a sandbox—but therapists are using things like bespoke software or Minecraft to play out these kinds of scenes,” Shah said. “That’s just going to be a sign of the times because kids now are very good at using computer games, so why not engage with them on that basis?”

Several of the children Wooden games with have told him that he’s helped take away their fear of death. One boy started playing with Wooden for that particular reason. The 10-year-old allegedly helps out his parents at their family-owned funeral home in New York.

The boy allegedly told Wooden that he has to fold blankets and that he gets scared when he has to see dead bodies with his father. Wooden assigned him the task of embalmment to get him comfortable with what he would have to do at home. 

“That young boy, now he actually goes to his father and helps him fix up the little casket with the people in there,” Wooden said.

Beyond teaching them how to cope with death, Wooden’s funeral game has a large impact on the players’ lives. 

“I know so many kids that have DMed me telling me ‘thank you for doing this, this is a job that I really wanted to do’ and ‘you really inspired me to do this job and inspired me to continue to love this job,’” Wooden said. “It makes me want to do even more for them.”

Working to the bone

They love playing so much that they were frustrated when a bug forced Roblox to shut down for almost four days starting Oct. 28, which is believed to be the longest outage in the platform’s history. The kids conduct themselves like professionals, so they were concerned about having to push back funerals and viewings and potentially upsetting grieving families. 

“I just try to keep them boosted and I was like for the time being just get some more funerals and start planning,” Wooden said. He also offered them extra “role-play money" to get them to focus on planning upcoming funerals instead of the fact that they couldn’t play.

Role-play money is not the official currency of Roblox; in fact, it doesn’t exist in the game at all. The official currency of Roblox is Robux. Robux have to be purchased with real-world dollars, and prices range from 99 cents for 80 to $99.99 for 10,000. Role-play money is currency exclusive to Wooden’s staff that he invented to make the role-play experience more real.

“They get paid 500 RP a week so they can like go pay their light bill,” Wooden said. The kids also have to pay phone and car insurance bills, among others. “I'm actually getting them ready for the real world with the things that they have to do and getting paid. It's actually a learning experience for them while they are having fun.”

In addition to offering greater compensation to cheer the kids up, Wooden also made the ultimate sacrifice: death. On Oct. 27, Wooden’s Roblox character, Dr. Jamie Green, died due to COVID-19 complications.

“I killed my Roblox character because I wanted them to do him right,” Wooden said. “This was when the shutdown came and I was like I'm just gonna kill my Roblox character and I want y'all to do this and I want y'all to plan his funeral to see if yall still got what y'all got.”

Wooden allowed the boy whose family owns a funeral home to handle his character’s services. He opened up Mourning Glory Funeral Home and held services for Green on Nov. 6. Wooden attended the service with a different avatar to maintain the integrity of the role-play.

Unfortunately, Green’s funeral did not go as well as planned because there were a lot of new members in attendance. However, the group has hosted seven funerals since then and is steadily improving. 

“They are actually in more training we’ve been giving them, so they’re pretty much getting better at it now,” Wooden said. “They have improved a lot over those couple of weeks.”

Wooden is very proud of his staff members and their growth. “At the end of this year, in January, we will have a graduation for the ones that have really been putting up the work,” Wooden said. “I actually go log into their account and I'll buy some Robux for them. I'll buy them 400 Robux and I’ll tell them ‘Good job. You all can do this.’” 

There are typically 10 graduates a year, but there will be 15 this year because so many new members have joined the role-play.

“This organization, it’s not going anywhere,” Wooden said. “It’s gonna get even bigger because as soon as [the members] turn 16, they can work with [Wooden and his friends] and they’ll help the other kids out with their projects.”

Wooden said he spends about five hours a day, five days a week working on the role-play. He could be doing many other things with his time now that the world is no longer under lockdown, but the role-plays are a labor of love. 

“I just love those kids so much,” he said. “They are so funny. They bring me joy when I’m having a bad day and I bring them joy when they’re having a bad day. I love those kids with all my heart … I wouldn’t change my thing that I'm doing for the world.”

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People on the internet are speculating that Rihanna is pregnant—again. This time, the rumor started after the singer was declared a National Hero of Barbados on Tuesday. Twitter users are reacting to the news with disbelief and, of course, memes. 

After being deceived before, many users refused to believe the rumor and instead poked fun at how often it’s spread. 

“Rihanna just became the first person to be pregnant for 6 consecutive years,” one user wrote. Another tweeted, “Does Rihanna know she’s pregnant?” with a picture of a worn-out Bugs Bunny drunk on carrot juice. 

Others are playing into the rumor and mourning the loss of their non-existent chances of being with Rihanna. Several have tweeted about the news with the “not to be dramatic, but I wanna die” meme from Silk Sonic’s “Smokin Out The Window” video.

Some have also used the image of Drake crying in his “Laugh Now Cry Later” video to express their sadness that they didn’t father the rumored baby. Others have tweeted that Drake, along with Chris Brown and Tyler, the Creator, is one of the many men who would be devastated if Rihanna had a child with ASAP Rocky. Rihanna confirmed that she was dating the "Fuckin' Problems" rapper in September.

Fans are also disappointed that there may be a baby on the way but that she hasn't released new music after several years of anticipation. “Rihanna would rather release a new baby than an album,” one user wrote. 

Some fans are still holding out hope that new music is coming, tweeting that Rihanna is indeed pregnant—pregnant with an album.

Despite the overwhelming amount of disappointment, some memes have been supportive. Many users have tweeted congratulations to ASAP Rocky for having “won life."

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A TikTok posted Sunday of a white man selling Harriet Tubman Demon Slayer comics at Comic-Con went viral with 580,000 views and 101,000 likes by Monday. 

The 5-second video, posted by @thereaijasonderulo, shows a white man and a Black man working at a booth with a banner behind them advertising Harriet Tubman Demon Slayer. The video zooms in on the white man while the popular “Ain’t no fucking way boy” audio by TikTok user @5starrr.lando plays. 

Many commenters felt that the comic was disrespectful. They found it especially problematic that a white man could be profiting from Black trauma. 

“I swear white ppl will never stop profiting off blk pain and struggle,” wrote @sishais. “Is any money going to the blk community besides that blk dude there?”

“That Black dude” is David Crownson, the author of the comic. Some commenters said that Crownson being Black made the situation worse, as he should have known that the concept was a “no-no.” 

“That shit looks disrespectful and stupid,” wrote @jojohellxx. “Idgaf if a black dude made it.”

Other commenters felt there was nothing wrong with the comic. Several found the concept intriguing and expressed interest in watching an animated adaptation of the comic. One user even wrote that people should be happy because the comic would get kids interested in history.

“This is a way for the younger generation to get interested in history and learn about historic figure like Harriet Tubman and learn of the past struggles for the black community,” @wolfman559f wrote.

Several commenters also made a connection between the comic and the 2010 book and 2012 movie Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Some argued that if Lincoln could hunt vampires, Tubman could slay demons. Others argued that both concepts were silly. 

“Just as silly as Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter and George Washington Carver vs the gnomes,” @defaul_t wrote.

The Daily Dot reached out to @thereaijasonderulo and David Crowson via TikTok comment.

Update 11:11am CT, Dec. 28: David Crownson, the author of Harriet Tubman Demon Slayer, gave context to the video in a phone interview with the Daily Dot.

“The white dude in the video is my childhood best friend,” Crownson said. “He was just there to assist me with carrying my books, carrying my banners, and just assisting me with the convention.” Crownson’s other two assistants, whom one commenter called white, are also Black.  

Crownson said the premise of Harriet Tubman Demon Slayer is that Tubman is an “all-powerful ninja warrior” in addition to being the historical figure people are familiar with.

“Basically, white slave owners can’t stop her because she's an all-powerful demon slayer, so they team up with demons—which is vampires and werewolves—to stop her,” Crownson said. 

The comic started out as just a “fun idea” that Crownson made for himself until former President Donald Trump was elected. After the election, Crownson said, he went grocery shopping and saw a woman wearing a hijab and being “interrogated” by a group of white men who were being “blatantly racist.”

“They’re doing this because now they feel emboldened because Trump is now president,” Crownson said of his thoughts at the time. After that experience, writing the comic became his “catharsis of how to deal with this new president.” 

Crownson said he did not intend to be disrespectful when making the comic, but he understands the negative response some commenters had. 

“People thought I was trying to trivialize Harriet Tubman, which I'm not,” he said. “I'm trying to celebrate Harriet Tubman.” 

While he understands people’s apprehension, Crownson notes that people did not carry the “same energy” for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. He also feels that people should read the comic before they pass judgment. 

“From what I’ve noticed, once they read the first issue, they’re like ‘Oh, this is taking it seriously and still treating it as a biography, like a straight-up biography, and having a little bit of fun with history,’” he said.

Crownson said he sees his supernatural touches as a way to celebrate Tubman and portray her as a superhero. He did extensive research before writing the comic to get “underneath who Harriet Tubman is as a human being.”

“One thing that helped me with writing this character is the fact that Harriet Tubman had a sense of humor,” he said. “She was really funny and people kind of skip over that.”

For the commenters who were onboard with the comic and expressed interest in seeing it on-screen, Crownson has good news. He is working with Prentice Penny, executive producer and writer of HBO’s Insecure, to adapt the comic into a TV show.

“It’ll be an edgy, unapologetically Black-created show,” he said. Fans can expect announcements on where the show will air in early 2022.

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A video posted Tuesday of two white men yelling at Culver’s employees went viral with 1.4 million views and 85,000 likes by Wednesday. Social media users dubbed the two older men “Kens” or male "Karens."

According to the caption, the incident took place at a Culver’s in Orlando, Florida. The video, posted by Lamonte Brown (@lamontebrown82), starts with four employees surrounding the two men and asking them to leave. 

“Get the fuck outta here,” says a Black employee who was identified as Charles. The white man wearing gray walks away, but the other, wearing green, continues yelling and pointing at Charles. 

“Don’t you put your finger in my face,” he says. An employee tries to pull Charles away from the situation and swats her hand in front of the man’s face.

“You touched me,” the man says, accusing Charles. He begins to walk away and threatens to call the police as several employees explain that Charles did not touch him. The white man then rejoins the other and yells that Charles touched his face.

“I want him fired,” the man in gray says after the other man points out Charles as the person who allegedly touched him. The white men continue screaming as they move closer to the front counter.

“It’s all your fault for laughing at me you stupid bitch,” the man in gray tells one of the employees behind the counter. He threatens to call corporate as Charles holds the door open for him to leave the restaurant. The other white man follows while tapping on his phone. 

Brown, who posted the video, does not show or explain what started the incident. But a TikToker who claims to be Charles’ daughter made a video about the situation.

According to the TikToker, @certifiedhomiehoppe.r, the men came in and ordered fries, cheese curds, and two chicken sandwiches. She said that it typically takes five minutes to make each item, but since the store was busy, it took about 20 minutes.

“So they obviously did not like that and they went up to the girl who took their order and called her the B-word,” the TikToker said. “I think it was three or five times.” 

She said that the men then went to sit down “acting like everything was OK.” Shortly after, a manager came to apologize and offer them coupons. 

Charles' daughter said that “they start screaming, screaming at each other,” but it is unclear whether “they” refers to the white men or the restaurant manager. 

The TikToker said that after the events of @lamontebrown82’s video, the men continued to yell from outside the restaurant, and one of them threw soda at the door. She also said that the man wearing green called Culver's corporate office, which would defer to the location’s owners, the TikToker’s parents. 

The TikToker and several other employees called the police while the men were still inside, and the white men have been banned from the property for a year.

Commenters on @lamontebrown82’s video were overwhelmingly on the employees’ side. Several wrote that the customer is not always right and tagged Culver’s, asking them to support the employees.

Commenters also speculated about what caused the situation. One user suggested that the white men were “Trumpies,” while others said that they were surely liberals, potentially “implanted” from New York. 

Several users also pointed out race and age as contributing factors, citing such things like “caucasity,” “white rage,” and “boomer entitlement rage” as reasons for the incident. 

The Daily Dot reached out to Culver’s via email and to @lamontebrown82 via TikTok comment. They did not immediately respond to the request for comment. The Daily Dot was unable to reach @certifiedhomiehoppe.r.

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A TikTok posted Sunday of a woman teaching her students the history of the term “dreadlocks” has gone viral with 1.8 million views and 405,000 likes by Thursday. 

The TikTok, posted by @ladiimomochanplays, is a repost of a 2018 video posted to Instagram by Valenciá De’La Clay-Bell, the woman in the video. The original video received 185,519 views.

In the video, Clay-Bell stands before her class and says, “Please stop calling Josh’s hair dreads. They are locs.” 

She continues to explain that Africans wore their hair locked for spiritual reasons. However, when they went to countries with Eurocentric beauty standards, the Europeans “began to call [their] locs ‘dreads,’ meaning dreadful.” 

“So when you call them dreads and don’t even know why you’re using that word, you’re perpetuating an idea that our beauty is in fact not beauty at all,” she says.

Many TikTokers commented that the video made them change the way they see their hair and that they appreciated being educated. Several also wrote that they would “feel safe” in Clay-Bell’s class. 

Others, however, felt Clay-Bell was spreading false information about the origin of the style. 

The origins of dreadlocks are widely debated, but hair historian Lori L. Tharps told Vogue: “the modern understanding of dreadlocks is that the British, who were fighting Kenyan warriors [during colonialism in the late 19th century], came across the warriors’ locs and found them ‘dreadful,’ thus coining the term ‘dreadlocks.’”

Commenters also felt the video ignored that some individuals and groups—Jamaicans and Rastafarians especially—prefer the term “dreadlocks” because “dread” has a particular political or spiritual meaning to them.

Even RuPaul’s Drag Race star Bob the Drag Queen weighed in, writing that “there are lots of black people who have dreadlocks [...] who love calling them dreads.”

User @ladiimomochanplays made 11 more videos in response to the comments she received. The TikToker explains in a comment and follow-up video that she was referring specifically to African Americans by reposting Clay-Bell’s video and not to Rastafarians or Caribbean people.

“As far as the Rastafarians go, their story is basically they took back the word dreadlocks as a form of power, and I respect that,” @ladiimomochanplays says in the video. “But in America, it was seen as something that was looked down upon, frowned upon, scary, ugly, evil—all that.”

“So for us, we came up with the grooming technique to make it look neater to make it look more presentable,” the TikToker continues. In the next video, she further distinguishes between dreadlocks and locs.  

“Dreadlocks is matting of the hair,” she says. “So, whether you naturally let your hair mat into a strand or for white people who force a mat onto their hair, that’s dreading the hair.”

Locs, she says, are the result of a “grooming technique” where the hair is sectioned into parts and twisted. “They’re not letting it mat. They’re twisting their hair and they keep it neat and clean. Those are locs.”

Some still disagreed with the TikToker’s distinctions. 

“There are Jamaican Rastafarian Americans,” user @singanthony wrote. “And this stuff about it being more ‘presentable’ is bullshit too and that was anti-black af.”

Others took issue with the TikToker’s written and verbal comments that white people have to forcefully mat their hair.

“So you don’t think white ppls hair can mat?” user @f4nt4s1a wrote. “If you don’t then you got something else coming for you.”

The Daily Dot reached out to @ladiimomochanplays via TikTok comment and to Valenciá De’La Clay-Bell. Neither immediately responded to the request for comment. 

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In a viral tweet, user @emorydominique shared a screenshot of a school assignment asking students to justify desecrating a Hawaiian burial ground. The tweet was initially public, but as of Wednesday, its visibility is limited to @emorydominique’s 7,719 followers.

Before the tweet went private, commenters expressed their outrage in the replies. 

“I am actually shaking right now reading this prompt like what the actual fuck,” @emorydominique wrote. 

The prompt in the attached screenshot laid out a scenario between a hypothetical student and their three best friends—a real estate developer, a scientist, and a Native Hawaiian—who have different ideas for what to do with a piece of “choice land that has recently become available.”

The “choice land” is revealed to be a burial ground on which the developer wants to build an “upscale residential development.” The scientist wants to excavate the site “as a contribution to knowledge,” and the Native Hawaiian wants the remains to be “respected and undisturbed.”

The assignment asks students to argue each friend’s case, determine the best and worst outcomes, and decide who should get the land. Students must also explain their answers, including what “feelings and emotions” influenced their decision.

Commenters were outraged that the prompt asked students to justify colonialism and reduced the problems Indigenous people face to a “fun hypothetical” or “interesting discussion.” 

Several called the assignment an act of “violence” that @emorydominique should report to her school. Some also commented that the assignment has nothing to do with the psychology of death and dying, which is the topic of the class.

Many users also noted that the prompt exoticizes the Native Hawaiian by saying that they have “the most interesting background” of the three friends, implying that the developer and scientist are not Native Hawaiian. 

“No ethnicity mentioned for the contractor and scientist, no occupation mentioned for the native Hawaiian,” user @hmjoneswriter wrote. “The biases scream in this question even before the atrocity of the premise.”

The prompt also says that the Native Hawaiian introduced the student to a world they “would not have otherwise known.” Commenters pointed out that such language is exclusionary and implies that none of the students in the class are Native Hawaiian. 

“This curriculum was solely intended for everyone but kanaka maoli,” wrote @MakanaMusic. Kanaka Maoli is a term that refers to the Indigenous people of Hawaii. 

According to her bio, @emorydominique is located in Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, and identifies as “NDN,” an abbreviated version of “Indian” that some Indigenous people use to refer to themselves.

While many commenters were against the assignment, some applauded it for exposing the students to “reality.” One user, however, provided an example of how real the issue is and disapproved of the assignment. 

The user tweeted that they were reading the oral history of a family that was buried near their own. The family was “dug up for a visitors center” and the surviving members were left “trying to piece the bones back together.” 

“What can be gained from ‘both side’-ing this?” @kjalexander_ wrote about the assignment.

Another user pointed out that the issue of arguing both sides is a problem carried to the collegiate level from kindergarten through high school education.

The assignment is indeed similar to a worksheet given to eighth graders at a San Antonio charter school that went viral in 2018. The worksheet was titled “The Life of Slaves: A Balanced View” and asked students to list the “positive” aspects of slavery. 

The Daily Dot reached out to @emorydominique via Twitter message. She did not immediately respond to the request for comment.

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A TikTok posted Thursday of a security guard allegedly attempting to detain a man at a private dog park has gone viral with 1 million views and 52,000 likes. The video has also gotten traction on Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, and Facebook. 

The video, posted by TikToker @yungjayoh1, starts with a voice assistant reading on-screen text that says, “So I take Ziggy to the dog park closest to my house today and this happens!!!” 

After the voice assistant stops, a man in a green polo shirt and blue lanyard tells the TikToker that he’ll call a “zone car” to make the situation “easy.” The TikToker offers to leave instead, but the man refuses, saying that he’s detaining the TikToker for “criminal trespass.” 

“How is it criminal? I live right here,” the TikToker says while turning the camera to a nearby apartment complex.

“You don’t live on this property,” the man replies. He continues to say that the TikToker was also at the dog park “the other day” and that he “made some comments to some people” who accused the TikToker of beating his dog, Ziggy.  

The TikToker denies beating his dog, prompting the man to say that he doesn’t care because it didn’t happen on the property. The TikToker attempts to leave again, but the man continues to say that he’s being detained. 

“You can leave if you want to, but I can pick you up at the house,” the man says. 

The TikToker tells the man that he has no right to take him from his home because he didn’t do anything but bring his dog to the dog park. 

“OK, well I will leave,” the TikToker says after the man insists again that the TikToker is being detained. “You said it’s criminal trespass and I’m leaving.” 

The TikToker says that he feels “unsafe” as the man follows him around the dog park. 

“Feel unsafe if you want to, but you not going anywhere until a zone car gets here,” the man says.

The TikToker uploaded a second part to the story that was removed from TikTok for “graphic content,” according to another video on his account. 

The videos remain on the TikToker’s Instagram account, however. In one  video, which is only 14 seconds long, the TikToker repeats that it’s his “first time” at that dog park “and no one’s ever told [him] not to come.”

In the third video, which seems to be the one removed from TikTok, the man approaches the TikToker while pointing a finger in his face. The man’s shirt is lifted slightly, and there is a badge and red holster visible on his right hip. 

“Don’t walk up on me,” the man says as the TikToker approaches the exit that the man is blocking. The TikToker tells the man that he has no authority to detain him because he’s not a police officer.

“Doesn’t matter what I—yes I—” the man says before abruptly hitting the TikToker. When the TikToker aims the camera at the man again, the man is pointing something at him. 

The TikToker says that it is a gun, but it seems to be the man’s cell phone, which he was holding in the same hand just before hitting the TikToker. The man immediately threw the object to the ground and said “I ain’t pointing shit at you” after the TikToker accused him of holding a gun.

The man in the video was identified as an employee of Associated Protective Service, a security company in Nashville, Tennessee, where the incident took place. 

The company allegedly made a statement about the incident on its Facebook page, but the company’s Facebook and LinkedIn pages can no longer be found. The company website is “down for maintenance.”

The TikToker shared a screenshot of the alleged statement to his Instagram, however. According to the screenshot, the company is working with the Metro National Police Department and Bells Bluff Apartments, the apartment complex where the dog park was located, to “gather additional details” about the incident.

The screenshot also says that the man in the video was “off-duty” and has been “placed on administrative leave until the investigation is complete.” 

Some comments and videos have misidentified the security guard’s workplace as Adult Protective Services, an investigative unit of Tennessee’s Department of Human Services. This seems to have resulted in the unit being review-bombed. 

The agency has 15 reviews as of Monday. Ten of these reviews are 1-star and were made on or after Sunday. One reviewer called out the security guard writing “come to my dog park” and “hope he's got life insurance.”

Commenters on @yungjayoh1’s TikTok and Instagram posts fully support the TikToker and suggest that he sue the security guard and the company for “unlawful detainment” among other crimes. The TikToker wrote in the comments of his most recent video that he is in the process of getting a lawyer. 

While commenters were on the TikToker’s side, many argued over the definitions of “unlawful detainment” and “trespassing” and how they changed in different jurisdictions.

Facebook user Jemale_Michal gave a rundown of the incident in a 4-minute video that included footage of an officer who allegedly responded to the incident. 

In the video, the officer seems to say that the TikToker wasn’t committing a crime because he “hadn't been told” he was trespassing. He continues to say that the TikToker “did the exact right thing” by immediately attempting to leave when he was told he wasn’t allowed on the property. 

These statements are supported by Tennessee law. However, the officer also says the security guard would have been within his rights to detain the TikToker if a crime had been committed, which is untrue.

According to Tennessee law, “a security officer lacks the authority to detain a suspect without consent unless the officer has arrested the suspect on supportable probable cause.” It is possible for a detainment to turn into a citizen’s arrest, but the specific actions required are “highly fact based.”

The Daily Dot reached out to @yungjayoh1 via TikTok and Instagram comment and to Bells Bluff Apartments and the Metro National Police Department via email. They did not immediately respond to the request for comment. The Daily Dot was unable to reach Associated Protective Service. 

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The post ‘I really feel unsafe’: Viral TikTok shows off-duty security guard attempting to detain man in private dog park appeared first on The Daily Dot.

A woman's TikTok went viral after she said a Starbucks barista came to rescue her from a man hitting on her outside the store. The video, posted Oct. 1 by user @savbmitchell, received over 204,000 views and 18,000 likes in 20 days. 

In the video, which is almost 2 minutes long, the TikToker records herself talking to a man off-screen who approaches her to ask if she is an “adventurer or hitchhiker or something” because of her boots. 

The TikToker tells him that she’s “just hanging out,” but the man continues to ask about her shoes. “What type of boots are those?” he asks. “Are those like hiking boots or something?” 

After the TikToker explains that she is wearing Blundstone hiking boots, the man asks if she goes hiking in the area. “I don’t,” she says. “I was in Colorado for three months, though, so I went hiking a lot there but—”

Before she can finish, the man interjects and begins “saying a bunch of random stuff about Colorado,” the on-screen text reads. The man says that he’s “heard there’s mountains” and mass shootings. 

“Isn’t that the state where that Batman movie shooting happened or is that somewhere else?” he asks, referencing the shooting at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater in 2012. 

The TikToker tells the man that she’s not sure, then turns and smiles at the barista off-screen. 

According to the on-screen text, the barista whispered “If you need anything, I’m right inside. Just let me know.” The TikToker wrote in the caption that the barista was the “sweetest” and that “we need more ppl like [the barista] in the world.”

The man continues to speak to the TikToker after the barista leaves. After exhausting his knowledge of Colorado, he introduces himself and asks for the TikToker’s name and number. 

The TikToker, who introduces herself as Savannah, thanks the man for complimenting her but tells him that she’s not interested because she has a boyfriend. He proceeds to ask if she has an Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, or other social media account that he can follow her on. 

“I actually don’t have social media now,” she says.  

Many commenters applauded the TikToker for remaining calm and telling the man that she didn’t have any social media. 

Others felt she was too nice, however, and urged women not to be polite if they are uncomfortable. They also stressed not providing real answers to questions, especially if the question is “what’s your name?”

Some commenters didn’t understand why the TikToker was uncomfortable and called her “dramatic” for making a video about a man who was just “being social.” However, others wrote that something was clearly wrong if the barista came to check on her. 

Several also wrote that the barista came to check on the TikToker because Starbucks employees are trained on how to handle such situations.

“I used to work at a Starbucks and we had a girl come inside and tell us a man was following her & she knew we could help her,” wrote user @stepnola. “We’ve seen some shit and we will always be there to help.”

The Daily Dot reached out to @savbmitchell via TikTok comment and to Starbucks via email. Neither immediately responded to the request for comment.

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The post ‘We need more ppl like this in the world’: Starbucks barista offers help woman being relentlessly hit on in viral TikTok appeared first on The Daily Dot.

A TikTok posted Sunday of a woman allegedly turning the tables on a man she believes was following her at the grocery store has gone viral with 345,000 views and 26,000 likes in one day.

The TikTok, posted by @pay_anderson, is a 9-second video that shows a man walking and touching his face while the TikToker’s grocery cart follows closely behind. It appears to take place in an Austin, Texas-area HEB store.

There is text on-screen followed by the crying laughing emoji that reads, “I felt like this man was following me in the store. So I started following him back!”

The Daily Dot was not able to independently verify whether the man had actually been following her at the grocery store.

Many commenters commended the TikToker for “turning the tables” or pulling an “UNO reverse.” However, some felt that the TikToker’s caption, which mentioned Gabby Petito, was distasteful.

“Listen up, nobody is safe,” the caption reads. “Look at Gabby Petito. You never know! BUT I DO BITCH HELLO.”

One user wrote that @pay_anderson should “have some respect.” Another wrote that people who use Petitio’s name “to make videos and jokes are genuinely unwell.”

Other commenters felt that the TikToker set a bad example by following someone potentially threatening. “So you say ‘be safe out there’ and then encourage them to engage with a potential aggressor?” user @meganhughes041 wrote. “That’s terrible advice.”

Many wrote comments to the contrary, however, stating that they do the same thing or try to act off-putting so that the person following them will leave them alone. 

“I’ve read that it’s really the best thing you can do is to confront the person following you,” wrote user @tk81223.

The TikToker may be right. According to Chief Jason Slater of the Fenton Police Department, that is the correct course of action. Slater told the Tri-County Times that if the person being pursued feels brave enough, they should “start walking directly toward the person who is following [them].”

Slater continued to say that the person being followed should go to the front of the store, “where the majority of the people are,” and tell an employee that they are being followed. Several commenters suggested this as well. 

Users also commented that @pay_anderson was right to “trust her gut,” which Slater recommends. The commenters noted that the man in the video seems suspicious and was likely following her because he did not have any groceries. 

Others suggested that the man may have been an undercover loss prevention employee. Some also wrote that they turn the tables on loss prevention employees by following them back.

“I do this to salespeople that think I’m stealing lmao,” user @notallvirgos wrote. 

The Daily Dot reached out to @pay_anderson via TikTok comment. They did not immediately respond to the request. 

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The post ‘Listen up, nobody is safe’: TikToker goes viral for turning the tables on man allegedly following her at grocery store appeared first on The Daily Dot.

Update 11:41am CT, Oct. 14: The Daily Dot reported on the viral incident in May. It re-emerged via TikTok this week. Our original report is below.

...

A TikTok of a couple confronting a Chicago police officer has gone viral with over 418,000 views and 50,000 likes since being posted one week ago. In the video, the woman and her boyfriend allege that the officer prevented them from saving a crash victim’s life. 

The video, posted by @siabanana, shows a woman off-screen handing a male officer her ID while he writes in a small notebook. There is text on-screen for the duration of the 37-second video that describes the incident.

According to the text, the TikToker witnessed a collision between a Jeep and a motorcycle on May 17 and was the first person on the scene. She kept the victim company until a civilian doctor arrived, and the two of them tried their best to help the motorcyclist without moving him. The TikToker does not mention assisting the Jeep driver.

The officer in the video then arrived and told the TikToker and the doctor to get away from the victim. The TikToker says the officer made “no assessment to check if [the victim] was breathing,” and had “no sense of urgency to help him whatsoever.” 

Instead, the officer allegedly began writing a report. When the paramedics arrived, the officer “was talking with them [as] opposed to rushing them to the victim,” the TikToker said. She and her and her boyfriend looked on from a distance for a few minutes until they noticed the victim’s chest stopped moving.

They rushed over to the victim while announcing that he was no longer breathing. “This is when the medic WALKS over and says, ‘Well if the victim’s not breathing, he needs CPR,’” the text reads. 

The paramedic reportedly continued the TikToker’s and doctor’s work of cutting the victim’s backpack off—which the officer allegedly interrupted—before administering CPR.

After the victim was placed in an ambulance, the TikToker approached the officer to ask for his name and badge number. “Without even looking at me, he rudely said ‘IT’S ON MY SHIRT,’” the text states.

The officer finally told the TikToker his badge number after she informed him that the glasses case in his pocket was covering it. 

He then requested the woman’s ID and said he would be writing her a ticket for “resisting him and not listening when he told [her] to ‘Get AWAY’ from the victim.” After that point, @siabanana’s boyfriend started recording.

“She got up as soon as you said get off,” the TikToker’s boyfriend says. “All she did was try to save this man’s life and tell you the situation, but you ignored her and now he’s dead.”

“What are you even writing up for her?” he continues. The officer does not respond.

The TikToker provided additional context to the situation in the comments of the original video and a second version that does not contain the on-screen text. She wrote that the driver of the Jeep caused the accident. The man allegedly swerved into the motorcyclist’s lane, refused to take a breathalyzer test, and was driving without a valid license. 

She also wrote that she attended the victim’s funeral, told his family her story, and showed them the video. The victim was expected to start a teaching position with one of the TikToker’s friends next year. 

The TikToker wrote that she “was actually being told about the victim a few days prior to the accident occurring.” She said she believes she was at the scene for a reason and that “destiny is real.”

Many commenters commended @siabanana for her actions and called her an “angel.” Several also told their own stories of similar incidents.

One user commented that their cousin died recently in a motorcycle accident after two ambulances passed him by. “This was also in Chicago. Our cops here let us die,” they wrote.

Users also commented what bystanders should and should not do in the TikToker’s situation. Several noted that Good Samaritan laws protect the TikToker from being sued and would have allowed her to continue providing care to the victim until paramedics—not police—arrived. 

Others say not to touch victims of an accident, especially without proper training, and that the officer saved the TikToker from a potential lawsuit. 

The Illinois Good Samaritan Act protects medical professionals from lawsuits as long as the care they provide in emergencies is free, “in good faith,” in accordance with their training, and does not constitute misconduct. 

The law only protects untrained bystanders in certain situations and it does not specify whether the person providing care has a choice to continue after a police officer asks them to stop. The TikToker made several comments stating that she is a trained medical professional.

The Daily Dot reached out to @siabanana via TikTok comment and to the Chicago Police Department via email. They did not immediately respond. 

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The post ‘You ignored her and now he’s dead’: TikToker says cop didn’t let her help a motorcycle crash victim appeared first on The Daily Dot.