A Minecraft Movie is causing chaos in cinemas around the world — even here in Fredrikstad, our local cinema has experienced the special TikTok trend which has developed around the new blockbuster.
The cinema in our twin city Sarpsborg has taken special measures in connection with the trend, according to Sarpsborg Arbeiderblad ["nonpartisan" newspaper owned by Amedia] which covered the situation on Friday.
Jumping, screaming, and throwing popcorn
The trend involves moviegoers going completely wild in the auditorium when the character Steve says "chicken jockey".
The room becomes violently lively. People jump, scream, and throw popcorn and drinks in every direction.
TikTok abunds with videos of this phenomenon.
[embedded TikTok video]
And although those participating in the trend are apparently enjoying themselves, there are certainly others who see the stunt differently.
Someone must, after all, clean up the mess the trend creates.
[Embedded TikTok video: ⚠️WORKERS ENCOURAGED US TO DO IT GIVING US FREE REFILLS AND RECORDING US DOING IT, WE OFFERED TO HELP CLEAN UP BUT THEY WOULDNT LET US⚠️]
The noise has been high
Cinema manager Jørgen Søderberg Jansen explains that the "wildest scenes" are from select venues in the USA and England.
Things have not been nearly as bad in Norway. Nevertheless, cinemas in our country have noticed that A Minecraft Movie is causing problems.
—"Not so much throwing things, but there's been some extreme noise with shouting and cheering," Søderberg Jansen says before quickly adding,
—"Some people think it's fun to have so much noise, while others just want to see the movie in peace and quiet."
There have accordingly been some dissatisfied moviegoers. Søderberg Jansen emphasizes that showings of A Minecraft Movie have still generally gone fine.
—"We've gotten maybe 10 complaints from customers, compared to over 5,000 people who watched the movie, so it's not so many who have complained."
—"Have you taken any measures in connection with this phenomenon?"
—"Yes, we have more employees visible in the hall," Søderberg Jansen replies.
More interest
Søderberg Jansen explains furthermore that the cinema has noticed that interest in A Minecraft Movie increased after the TikTok trend took off.
—"We show the movie in both Norwegian and English. In the beginning we were mainly seeing families interested in watching the Norwegian dub, but after the TikTok videos [started showing up], more youth have shown an interest in watching the English-language version," Søderberg Jansen says.
—"So the trend has absolutely contributed to more people discovering the movie," he adds.
Don't let the behavior tech bros convince you to dislike one of the only legitimate, and beautiful uses of technology that can unite people from all corners of the earth.
Sure they will have inaccuracies. Sure it requires more electricity than opening a pocket dictionary. But people will use these tools to understand each other and their cultures better, fostering good will and breaking efforts to propagandize us against each other. Many people will choose to learn once dying languages after using these tools. Many young people will communicate with their grandparents for the first time in their native tongue because of translation apps.
I share the same apprehension with using them as an authoritative source, but I think flaws and all, the benefits of trying to communicate across language barriers will be orders of magnitude more impactful than their downsides.
The number of people I have had interesting conversations with due to (the extremely error prone) translation capabilities on 小红书 is already large even after only a few months on the service. These cultural exchanges would have been impossible or extremely laborious a few years ago.
That doesn't really contradict anything I was saying.