Chubperm vs McLuhan

in search of smartdumb: MD Foodie Boyz; hot vs cool; the transmutation of dumbdumb into smartdumb; the inevitable fall from grace of smartsmart into dumbsmart

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As far as I can tell, MD Foodie Boyz began only a few months ago. It is a podcast featuring four middle schoolers from Maryland, produced with an imitative mid-fi sheen we’ve come to expect from ‘four dudes talking about stuff’ kinds of podcasts. Limited expertise hasn’t kept anyone from starting a pod lately, but credit to the Boyz for picking a believable lane: They review food they’ve eaten. Pizza, celery, hot wings, nachos, Doritos, cookies, milk, vegetables. Sometimes they detour into music reviews, and a few of the earlier videos involve trips to fast food restaurants, which are notable if only because you get the full effect of how young and delightfully gangly they all are, despite how expertly they imitate the adult podcasters they admire. They are, by their own estimation, Maryland’s #1 Food Podcast. No argument here.

Looking past a slew of things that make me uncomfortable about four middle schoolers in the public eye, I’m enjoying this very much. It’s basically Superbad: The Podcast. It is pure adolescent joy – a rollercoaster ride of stupidity in the best way possible. There is no payoff, but there was no promise of one in the first place. It is voyeurism: This is what four teenage boys are doing after school in 2025 instead of playing Final Fantasy 3 or practicing the clarinet. MD Foodie Boyz are an excellent example of what I would call dumbdumb.

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Not unlike TikTok Rizz Party, the MD Foodie Boyz attracted a peanut gallery of attention. Looking into the early posts on Instagram Reels, you’ll see the internet’s expected negativity (“there should be a tariff on podcast equipment”) and name-calling: Chubperm, McLovin (he really does look like McLovin), Nonchalant One, and Noname. But quickly this gave way to a different game: A rolling fan fiction written by commenters who attempt to explain and uncover the shifting power dynamic within the Boyz themselves:

troythejet: In recent episodes, McLovin has exhibited a remarkable shift in his presence on the pod, subtly yet decisively asserting himself as the new alpha. His takes have not only been consistently sharp but have also carried a persuasive weight that seems to steer the collective discourse. This is particularly evident in his ability to synthesize competing viewpoints and align the panel toward a shared consensus-most notably in his compelling endorsement of the Red Chip O show as the preeminent standard.

What makes this transformation so intriguing is not just the strength of his arguments but the way he wields rhetorical authority. He doesn't merely state opinions; he dictates the terms of the conversation, making agreement feel like an inevitability rather than a choice. It's a shift from passive participation to active orchestration, marking a clear transition from contributor to leader. If this trajectory continues, we may be witnessing the emergence of McLovin as the dominant intellectual force in this space.

When I say I “like” MD Foodie Boyz, what I am really saying is I like the combined narrative effect of the Foodie Boyz’s relative innocuousness and the commenters’ relentless poking and prodding and pynchoning that a conspiracy is in the works. It strikes me as very McLuhan: the ‘cool’ content of MD Foodie Boyz is heated up (cooked!) by the participation if not outright ‘completion’ of others. Whatever this relation is exactly, it’s an excellent example of smartdumb.

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Where does that leave a piece like this? Or something like this piece by Taylor Lorenz (“the middle school social media stars are at the forefront of an impending Gen Alpha podcast boom”)? Where does this leave the grimy slew of managers and agents and producers who follow these children on Instagram, carefully figuring out the best “in” in hopes of another Talk Tuah? How wet are Monty and Avery’s lips right now?

Twenty years ago, when I was closer in age to Chubperm than I am to myself now, I was wary of the media’s stance as an innocent, panoptic bystander. Especially in the context of “trend reporting”, I was interested in how reporting on a trend constituted a kind of collapse of that trend. The word “exposure” is meaningful here (cf Virilio), insofar as something can become overexposed. There’s always a butterfly that gets loose, it seems. Even when it’s positive, our love for something – our desire to share it with as many people as possible – can’t help but hasten its ruin. At least a little bit — that’s what I thought. I struggled with that until I set myself on fire.

A piece like the one you’re reading is the definition of dumbsmart. I am watering down all kinds of McLuhan, which is smartsmart, and deploying it haphazardly at best. This piece has an air of challenging discourse but I’m not sure how much nourishment is left, as I’ve done all the chewing for you. It is a rollercoaster ride of stupidity masquerading as a piece about rollercoaster rides of stupidity. You are Noname. So am I.