“Hear me out” cakes are an online trend that encourages people to share their unique crushes by attaching images to sticks and then topping cakes or other baked goods. Popular “hear me outs” include Mufasa from The Lion King, Nick Wilde from Zootopia, and Lola from Shark Tale. Characters and people get classified as “hear me outs” when they are animated, problematic, just weird, or not conventionally attractive. This trend has even exposed attraction to inanimate things like dates, numbers, symbols, and other visually-appealing things that give off a positive aura. Lydia Stevenson, ‘26, says one of her “hear me outs” would be the Y-axis, and Daniel Richards, ‘27, says his “hear me out” is the Mythic Holo Twister assault rifle from Fortnite. He says “it makes him feel nice and warm on the inside and makes him want to get down on one knee.” The internet being a comfortable place for people to share their strangest opinions can be a great thing for breaking societal standards and for people to be silly, but it can also be bad in the way that people will absolutely romanticize anything.

Edits are often used to romanticize a character, usually consisting of the best moments of a character and a song to match the character’s vibe. Usually light and fun, editing culture has gone as far as romanticizing truly evil or morally gray characters. Characters like Joe Goldberg from the Netflix series You, an obsessive stalker, and Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, a villainous serial killer, are often romanticized because of the actors who portray them, which can then validate the characters’ actions. Typical captions and/or comment sections of these videos have things like “he could stalk me,” proving that people indulge in the character’s bad behavior. This could be to the fault of the original creators, but people who collect clips and splice them together to make these characters look good do not help with the message of what the film is about.