Is 'Lookism: The Peak Of The 2nd Generation' Connected To The Original 'Lookism'?

I've tracked memes across platforms for years, and the 'rest is history' line really rode a few different waves before it felt like it hit its highest crest. It first showed up as a punchline on Tumblr and early Twitter threads—people would post a tiny setup and finish with that smug summation. Then it migrated into image-caption formats on Instagram, where the visual reveal paired with the phrase made for a satisfying mic-drop. The biggest spike, though, came when short-form video took over: around 2019 through 2021 the template exploded on TikTok, where creators used the audio or cut edits to set up dramatic reveals, transformations, or ironic outcomes, and the algorithm loved resurfacing variants endlessly. What pushed it into peak territory was a mix of shareability and timing. Lockdown-era content creation gave people time to remix, and audio-driven platforms made repeatable formats easy to copy. By late 2020 I was seeing the phrase everywhere—from comment sections to stitched duet videos—and it felt like everyone was riffing on the same joke. I still grin when I see a clever twist on that old punchline.

Summer of 2021 felt like a fever dream online, and 'Drink Slay Love' absolutely rode that wave. I watched the searches climb and then spike, and the clearest peak in search interest landed around late July through mid-August 2021. That window matches the viral TikTok clips, a handful of influencers using the same audio, and a remix that pushed the phrase into Spotify and YouTube recommendations. The Google Trends curve for the term shows a sharp rise over a couple of weeks and then a relatively steep fall as the novelty faded. I also noticed the geography of the searches — the United States, the UK, and parts of Southeast Asia lit up first, and then smaller pockets in Europe and Latin America followed. It’s the typical lifecycle: a catalyst (a viral video or playlist placement), rapid mainstream spread, then fragmentation into niche uses. After the August peak there were smaller bumps — one tied to a remix and another when a celebrity reposted a clip — but nothing that matched that initial surge. Looking back, that peak felt like the moment the phrase was everywhere at once, which is why it lodged in my memory. It’s fun to see how ephemeral these spikes are, but also how they echo in playlists, memes, and late-night references for months. I still chuckle when I hear a throwback clip from that week.

If you've been hunting for 'Road to Forever: Dogs of Fire MC Next Generation Stories', I went down the same rabbit hole last month and can share the detective-style routine that worked for me. First, treat the title as a quoted phrase in search engines: put the whole title in quotes ("'Road to Forever: Dogs of Fire MC Next Generation Stories'") and try Google, DuckDuckGo, and Bing. That often surfaces exact matches on archives or blogs. If that yields nothing, strip it down to distinctive fragments: try "Dogs of Fire MC" or "Road to Forever MC" — community-written motorcycle club stories often live on fanfiction platforms or personal blogs rather than mainstream stores. Next, check the usual fanfiction homes: 'Archive of Our Own' and 'FanFiction.net' are my go-tos for serialized work, while 'Wattpad' and 'Royal Road' host a lot of next-generation or original-lit style serials. Use site-specific searches like site:archiveofourown.org "Dogs of Fire". If the work has been removed, the Wayback Machine sometimes has snapshots of an author's page. I also comb Reddit (search r/fanfiction or subreddits for MC or specific fandoms) and Tumblr tags — authors sometimes migrate there or post links. Patreon and Ko-fi are common places authors post or link to exclusive sequels; if you find the author's username on one site, check those platforms next. If you still come up short, search by text snippets. I once remembered a weird line from a fic and searching that exact phrase found a mirrored blog where the author reposted. Reverse-image search helps when there's a unique cover or header art. Finally, keep an eye out for archived collections on Google Drive, Discord servers, or Discord reading groups — many MC communities share compilations privately. I tracked down a removed story by messaging a small fan Discord; be respectful and expect the author might prefer privacy. Personally, that scavenger hunt was half the fun — the thrill of finally opening a saved chapter and reading in my pajamas is pure joy.

One of the moments in late antiquity that still gives me chills is how big the Sasanian realm got in the early 7th century. I like to picture it while flipping through a battered atlas on a rainy afternoon — the empire, under Khosrow II, stretched farther than it ever had before, roughly around 620–627 CE. After a string of spectacular victories over the Byzantines the Sasanians controlled Syria, Palestine, and even Egypt for a time, while keeping their long-held domains in Mesopotamia, Persia, and parts of the eastern provinces. That high-water mark didn’t last long. The Byzantine counteroffensive under Emperor Heraclius in 627–628 pushed the Sasanians back, and within a few decades the whole region was transformed again by the Arab conquests. Still, when I trace those borders on a map I get this vivid sense of a moment when Persia was the unrivaled power of the Near East — rich, militarized, and connected to long-distance trade routes — and that fleeting dominance makes for great late-night history rabbit holes for me.

The second-generation K-pop era felt like watching a quiet revolution in heels and sneakers, because the dancing suddenly mattered as much as the hook. I got hooked on watching late-night clips from 'Music Bank' and 'Inkigayo' back then, pausing and rewinding to catch a hand flick or a head snap. What stood out was how choreography became a storytelling device and a brand — not just something to fill the chorus, but the visual identity of a song. Choreography innovations from that era include the rise of the 'point move' — those instantly-recognizable gestures that anyone could mimic after one listen. Think of the finger-wag in 'Gee' or the body wave in 'Sorry, Sorry': those moves turned songs into memes and made cover culture explode. Groups also pushed synchronization to machine-like levels; Super Junior, Girls' Generation, and TVXQ taught us that dozens of people moving as one could create hypnotic geometry. That went hand-in-hand with complex formations and quick pivots: rotating pyramids, split-second unit switches, and micro-units (small subgroups within a song) that let large idol teams show both unity and individual flavor. There was also a technical leap. Choreographers fused street dance, popping, tutting, and contemporary motifs with K-pop polish — SHINee's robotic isolation in 'Lucifer' and 2NE1's raw hip-hop energy in 'Fire' are good examples. Dance breaks became a staple: a brief, explosive section that allowed members to flex and meant fans could watch the performance purely as choreography. Staging considerations changed the moves too; TV broadcasts demanded camera-friendly, compact moves that read well on a screen, which pushed choreographers to design with both live stage and close-up lenses in mind. Finally, the social impact can't be understated — the spread of dance covers on early YouTube and fan gatherings turned choreography into the foremost way fans engaged with songs. I still try to learn those routines now, sprawled on my living room floor with a fan cam on loop, and it never fails to make me grin — there's something infectious about moves that were designed to be copied and loved.

I still get goosebumps thinking about the first time I saw a second-generation group fill a stadium — that raw, communal energy is pretty addictive. Over the years I've followed a lot of those legacy acts closely, and while the landscape changes (members go solo, groups take hiatuses, or reunite), several 2nd-gen names keep popping up on tour posters or doing big one-off reunion shows. The real heavy-hitters who still tour in various forms are 'Shinhwa' (they've toured consistently as a full, original lineup and are basically the living definition of longevity), 'TVXQ' (still huge in Japan and do arena/dome tours when schedules allow), and 'Super Junior' (their 'Super Show' series has been a long-running touring machine, even with line-up rotations and breaks). Then there are acts that tour more as solo stars or subunits: 'BoA' still plays international stages sometimes; members of 'BigBang' (especially G-Dragon and Taeyang) have led massive solo tours; 'Girls' Generation' members frequently tour solo or as subunits and occasionally reconvene for special concerts; 'Epik High' — coming from that era but skating into hip-hop territory — tours globally with festival and full-run schedules. Reunion/comeback tours have also been a thing: 'Sechs Kies' and 'g.o.d' both reunited and mounted substantial concert runs in the past decade. And you can't forget 'Rain' — he still does showcases and international performances fairly often. If you want a practical takeaway: touring among 2nd-gen acts looks less like a steady conveyor belt and more like waves. Some groups (like 'Shinhwa' and 'TVXQ') keep steady touring cycles; others tour sporadically through solo projects, anniversary tours, or reunion runs. Lineups, market focus (Korea vs. Japan vs. world tours), and individual careers matter a lot, so I usually track official sites, fanclub announcements, and big ticketing platforms. Personally, having seen a handful of these legendary shows live, I can say nothing beats hearing those old tracks explode in a packed arena — if you're chasing nostalgia, keep an eye on anniversary dates; those are the moments the big tours often spark.

Back in my handheld days with a scratched-up copy of 'Pokémon Silver', finding a shiny felt like pure, dumb luck magic — and Oddish was one of those little surprises that could make you jump out of your chair. If you want the short technical bit up front: in Generation 2 the chance of encountering a shiny Oddish (or any shiny wild Pokémon / bred egg) is 1 in 8,192. That’s the direct probability that the Oddish you meet or hatch will already be shiny before you ever press the A button to evolve it. Why 1/8,192? Gen 2’s shininess is determined by hidden DVs (Deter Values) rather than the later PID/TID system, and a Pokémon is shiny only if those DVs line up in a very specific way. Concretely, Attack, Defense, and Speed DVs each must be exactly 10 (which is a 1/16 chance for each), and the Special DV must be one of eight particular values (8 out of 16, or 1/2). Multiply that out: (1/16)^3 * 1/2 = 1/8,192. So whether an Oddish evolves into a shiny Gloom (and then a shiny Vileplume or shiny Bellossom) depends entirely on whether that Oddish was already shiny — evolution itself doesn’t change the shiny status. A few practical details from my own grind sessions: evolving a non-shiny Oddish won’t suddenly flip it to shiny — if you want a shiny Vileplume or Bellossom in Gen 2, you need to start with a shiny Oddish or get a shiny Gloom already. Breeding didn’t boost your odds either; eggs hatched in Gen 2 had the same 1/8,192 rate. Trading doesn’t alter shininess either, so you can safely trade a shiny Gloom to a friend and it’ll stay shiny on their game. Also, remember Gloom evolves to Vileplume with a Leaf Stone and to Bellossom with a Sun Stone (Bellossom being Gen 2’s brand-new option), and both evolution paths preserve the color variant. If you’re in the mood for old-school shiny hunting nostalgia, my favourite way back then was late-night walking through the grassy patches in 'Pokémon Gold' with the volume low and my hopes high — I still get a spark of excitement when I picture the tiny green Oddish palette. If you’re trying for one now, go into it knowing it’s a pure roll-of-the-dice situation in Gen 2, and maybe bring some snacks; those 8,192 odds can feel like a test of endurance. If you want, I can share a few modern tricks and tools people use nowadays to track encounters and make the grind feel less brutal — or we can just swap shiny catch stories.

If you're into survival themes like 'Generation X Y Z Years', you should check out 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy. It’s a haunting journey of a father and son trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. The raw emotion and the struggle for basic necessities really hit hard. Another great pick is 'Station Eleven' by Emily St. John Mandel, which explores how people rebuild their lives after a devastating flu wipes out most of humanity. Both novels dive deep into human resilience and the will to survive against all odds. For a more dystopian twist, 'The Hunger Games' by Suzanne Collins is a gripping tale of survival in a brutal, controlled society.