Gen Z Explainer: The Costco Guys, Mewing, Jimmy Fallon, PJ Vogt, and The Rizzler

I have teenage children, so I’m exposed to a lot of what the kids call “brainrot”: terms like sigma, rizz, jonkler, skibidi, etc. My kids and their friends are of varying ages and media literacy levels, so these terms are used with varying degrees of irony. For those who do not have teenagers but may be spending some time with them over Thanksgiving, this is for you.

A few weeks ago, I learned about the Costco Guys — not because my older kid was interested in them specifically but because he loved how much they annoyed Jimmy Fallon. People of my generation know Fallon as a perpetually chipper puppy dog, so it’s something else to see him visibly annoyed with the youths. He looked genuinely pissed, as if he wanted nothing to do with these people or regretted every decision that led him to interview the “Here Comes the Boom!” guys. There were actually supercuts of Fallon’s annoyed body language and facial expressions on social media.

For the uninitiated, the Costco Guys are a father-and-son influencer duo who review items — originally from Costco — by rating them with one to five “Booms.” It’s obnoxious. Imagine taking a Big Bang Theory catchphrase, distilling it to its most grating essence, and repeating it until it loses all meaning. If you’re curious, Vulture has an explainer.

The key to their appeal, intentional or not, lies in how amateurish and cheesy they are. Gen Z/Gen Alpha ironically loves them but also earnestly appreciates their authenticity. My son describes this generation’s sense of humor as “suspended between irony and earnestness,” or “irony in quantum superposition,” which he calls “Schrödinger’s Irony.”

The Costco Guys have 2.3 million TikTok followers. Their “Booms” have become a family business that now includes an eight-year-old social media personality, Christian Joseph, better known as The Rizzler. The Rizzler, who strokes his chin dramatically, has garnered Gen Z’s affection in the same ironic-but-sincere way. He’s a joke, but disrespect him, and they will defend him fiercely.

Separately, I was listening to last week’s episode of PJ Vogt’s podcast, Search Engine, about “jawmaxxing.” For those over 35, “mewing” (or jawmaxxing) refers to a set of jaw-strengthening exercises popularized by Dr. Mike Mew, a British orthodontist. He theorizes that modern diets with softer foods have weakened jawlines and claims one can strengthen theirs through tongue placement, gum chewing, and other techniques. Here’s Dr. Mew demonstrating it.

While mewing gained traction in incel culture, it exploded when Joe Rogan discussed it on his podcast (it’s unclear whether he was serious or if it was a bit). Eventually, it gained ironic popularity in broader circles.

This weekend, my son blew my mind when he casually explained that The Rizzler’s “Rizz Face” incorporates mewing. It was surreal to connect these influencers, who annoyed Fallon, with a jaw-strengthening term I’d just learned about on Vojt’s podcast.

For the record, most of the Rizz Face is your standard duck lips peace-sign selfie pose that makes me want to confiscate every camera-equipped phone my daughters own. But the single finger sliding down the face? That’s mewing.

And that’s your Gen Z education for the day.