[alexambarch]

For the record, "188,000 views on TikTok" is not that many for a single video to reach, let alone an entire search term's worth of videos.

As a zoomer reading this article I can tell you this very literally boils down to "funny voice = funny joke" and you could just as easily swap out the british accent for a Kermit impression. The popularity of british reality TV has exposed the young americans that watch it to funny sounding british slang (e.g. "fanny flutters") and now those sayings are making their way into jokes.

I promise you no one except for the Miami content creators and former reality TV cast members quoted in the article are slipping into British accents at Burger King.

[drc500free]

If anything that data point proves that this isn't a trend. I searched "funny elbow" and saw more than 188k views. In other words "fake british accent" is less of a trend than "funny elbow," which is two random words I put together.

It's interesting how much reporting about TikTok depends completely on the audience having zero exposure to TikTok.

[nindalf]

I’m so glad we’ve moved on from the journalism of “here’s what 3 or 4 people are talking about on Twitter” to “here are a few videos on TikTok with barely any views starting a massive trend”. Can’t wait for the journalists to fully automate this process with chatGPT.

[alewi481]

This reminds me of those trashy articles like the ones Microsoft peddles on their Windows 11 widgets tab. They basically take a few tweets with just a handful of likes and create an entire article around them. The buzz that they are drumming up feels artificial and contrived. And if the author was really lacking in integrity, they could just set up anonymous Twitter accounts and conjure up the posts themselves.

[CyberDildonics]

That's at least half of what hacker news is now.

[dotancohen]

I disagree, but to give you the benefit of the doubt, I'd love to see examples if you have any.

[ahahahahah]

But the data point is just wrong or poorly described. Did you really just test one side (the "funny elbow") and compare it to the possibly very different thing from the article. A search for "fake British accents" brings up multiple videos with >100000 likes each and significantly more such than for funny elbow.

[numtel]

There's an obvious connection in your two 'random' words: hitting the edge of one's elbow is commonly referred to as the "funny bone."

[imwillofficial]

Don’t give them ideas!

[ndsipa_pomu]

Well, that's quite humerus

[bandyaboot]

Hey, no puns allowed in this joint.

[d--b]

He didn’t mean any arm

[dotancohen]

That's really stretching it. I wouldn't go so far out on a limb.

[yamazakiwi]

I agree and Americans have been quoting funny British lines from media for decades.

[teawrecks]

Would that it were, would that it were!

[intrasight]

True story. My daughter watched way too much Harry Potter growing up (2004-2012 ish). Some of her friends parents and teachers, etc. were surprised by my lack of a British accent. We still laugh about it.