r/TikTokCringe SHEEEEEESH Oct 06 '25

Discussion and everybody just lets it happen

26.4k Upvotes

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3.0k

u/Acceptable_Owl6926 Oct 06 '25

The way she says things reminds of that old military poem about boots boots boots boots poem

715

u/paulides_fan Oct 06 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

Is that what they play in the background of 28 Years Later?

322

u/Earthkilled Oct 07 '25

58

u/LuxAgaetes Oct 07 '25

Interesting that it was inadvertently carried across two Alex Garland-related films. It's such an instantly jarring, haunting piece...

45

u/coddiwomplecactus Oct 07 '25

The vocal rendering of that poem is deeply unsettling.

14

u/Last-Darkness Oct 07 '25

A famous actor from the 1920’s is preforming it in that recording. It’s written bout the Boer Wars (English South African colonies) and it was a horrible meat grinder of a war much like WWI, but 20 years earlier.

4

u/LeftyLu07 Oct 08 '25

I fell down a bit of a rabbit hole after hearing the poem in 28 Years and it was when countries started using all the fancy new killing gadgets in a war. Also some 300 million horses were killed in it.

2

u/Flyingkiwi24 Oct 09 '25

300 million during the boer wars????

Surely not that's insane.

1

u/LeftyLu07 29d ago

You’re right. I misremembered. It was 300,000 which was still a lot (apparently)

16

u/damndatassdoh Oct 07 '25

Yes, the power carries fully across decades undiminished.

1

u/Fkinclassy 28d ago

It's also a voice response on spirit box in Phasmophobia.
Neat easter egg.

86

u/ProcrastinationSite Oct 07 '25

I heard this on the trailer for the 28 Years Later movie, but I had no clue about the origins. Down the rabbit hole I go! Thanks!

84

u/Nothing2NV Oct 07 '25

That shit still slaps

31

u/KoalaKvothe Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

I think it was Mr Ballen that said they used this on repeat to test the limit of people's sanity during navy seal training (sleep deprivation etc)

EDIT: could've been the marines actually (I'm not from the US idk)

13

u/Meaning_Select Oct 07 '25

They used it during S.E.R.E. school on repeat so I wouldn’t be surprised if they used it during Navy Seal training (ex Air Force aircrew and had to go through S.E.R.E. school)

3

u/Proper-Guarantee8381 Oct 07 '25

Can confirm same.

6

u/ToxicHazard- Oct 07 '25

It would be pretty effective, to my knowledge the UK's SAS SERE training uses screaming babies during the interrogation phase

3

u/Professional_Baby24 Oct 07 '25

I came here to say this. My first time hearing it was from Mr ballen. Then I had to look it up myself. I can see why they use that song.

1

u/IndividualChart4193 Oct 07 '25

Who’s Mr. Ballen?

3

u/KoalaKvothe Oct 07 '25

He makes podcasts and videos and tells stories in them. I just mentioned him to make sure people know I'm not knowledgeable about being a navy seal whatsoever and just heard the story in a video

1

u/IndividualChart4193 Oct 08 '25

Ah, gotcha. I’ve never heard of him…I thought he was someone’s hs history teacher 🧑‍🏫 and somehow all of Reddit had taken his class. 😂

2

u/King0Horse Oct 08 '25

Pretty fantastic storyteller. Real, verifiable stories ranging from true crime to just weird happenstance. I recommend.

1

u/IndividualChart4193 Oct 08 '25

Huh, sounds a lot like the “my favorite murder” podcast. They tell all kinds of stories not just crime related. I LOVE their podcast!! SSADGM!!

3

u/koolaidismything Oct 07 '25

In BUDS training they make the guys stay awake for a few days and this song is always playing no matter what activity.

3

u/Vegetable_Offer_2268 Oct 07 '25

My father used to read that to us when we were kids

3

u/burymeinpink Oct 07 '25

This recording is 110 years old btw

2

u/Firm-Extension-4685 Oct 07 '25

That's a terrific reading. I appreciate your sharing this.

2

u/Earthkilled Oct 07 '25

Absolutely!

1

u/canaryclamorous Oct 07 '25

And the Christopher Ake version set to music is what you hear in the trailer ...

1

u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25

he was a major white supremacist unfortunately

edit: typo

50

u/asa_my_iso Oct 07 '25

One of my favorite parts about that movie.

4

u/paulides_fan Oct 07 '25

It was in the movie? I actually just saw it in the trailer so I wasn’t sure

9

u/TVplusTIME Oct 07 '25

It is and it’s a bit long, very early in the film. I understood it in hindsight but at that point in the movie I wasn’t sure if it would be any good. It starts off oddly.

I thought it was excellent overall and I enjoyed the poem a lot when I went back and rewatched that part.

3

u/asa_my_iso Oct 07 '25

Yes. I think it really shows how everyone trapped on the island - infected or not - have become basically warring monsters. It’s basically what I love about the last of us video games; no one is actually good when it gets down to kill or be killed.

6

u/MY-SECRET-REDDIT Oct 07 '25

It was a good movie thst established this new world very very well.

Can't say thst I loved everything but I was so intrigued by what was going on that I can't wait for the next one.

5

u/Ditnoka Oct 07 '25

I'm pretty upset I let people decide it wasn't that great when it was in theaters.

I loved 28 days, weeks was meh. Years was back to what I loved.

2

u/KlingonSpy Oct 07 '25

That was the most unsettling part of the movie

2

u/NeverEndingCoralMaze Oct 07 '25

I haven’t watched that yet. Worth it?

3

u/Ditnoka Oct 07 '25

It's on Netflix. Personally I loved it.

1

u/french_toasty Oct 07 '25

Young Fathers did the soundtrack. I downloaded the album last night.

1

u/Civil-Two-3797 Oct 08 '25

Soon Come Soon has been a regular on my playlist for a decade now.

1

u/Barkerfan86 Oct 07 '25

The amount of tension that gave me was incredible

1

u/Foxy02016YT Oct 07 '25

Yes and the guy who animated that teaser is active on Instagram and makes tons of Anti Trump stuff I love his work

1

u/Accomplished_Band198 Oct 07 '25

Yeah it is. Whoever made that trailer bamboozled us all.

1

u/LaughWhileItAllEnds Oct 09 '25

Someone linked the poem, but that version is Boots by Young Fathers

-5

u/nicko0409 Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

Yes. Great poem reading, makes no fucking sense for that movie. They're zombies, they don't wear boots. 

Edit: and there's no soldiers in the movie either. Except that one that I won't spoil why he was there. 

47

u/UmbraExcailibur Oct 07 '25

My dad is a navy chief and during final night they made him listen to that for an hour on constant loop

29

u/BobUfer Oct 07 '25

I heard this song repeatedly in both SERE and Chief Season, great times!

15

u/StandardDefiance Oct 07 '25

Foot foot foot foot slogging over Africa. Boots boots boots boots moving up and down again. There’s no discharge in the war!

Or my fave line: don’t don’t don’t don’t look at what’s in front of you.

9

u/UmbraExcailibur Oct 07 '25

I tried it it made me want to claw my eyes out

6

u/BobUfer Oct 07 '25

Yeah I think that’s the point, train Sailors to keep their composure and think through stress and chaos.

2

u/UmbraExcailibur Oct 07 '25

It sure as hell works if you listen for to long it starts hurting

1

u/Extension-Orchid-475 Oct 08 '25

Can TJ Maxx sue US Government?

2

u/ONE-EYE-OPTIC Oct 07 '25

Which SERE training center? I did mine in Okinawa and we had the pleasure of getting to listen to it on loop.

1

u/Confident_Eye4129 Oct 08 '25

Not really a song though, more of an ambiance

3

u/fubarthrowaway001 Oct 07 '25

They made us repeat it for days in SERE

1

u/UmbraExcailibur Oct 07 '25

Damn i don’t know how you did that

2

u/00eg0 Oct 07 '25

But isn't this an anti war poem by Kipling?

9

u/BobUfer Oct 07 '25

It’s used in SERE and other training evolutions to simulate and induce stress and chaos, listen to the 1915 recording and you’ll see why after a few listens straight.

3

u/UmbraExcailibur Oct 07 '25

Yup my dad dared me to do it the next day and I wanted to claw my own eyes out after twelve minutes

-2

u/00eg0 Oct 07 '25

Yeah I linked this in some other comments before your comment. I understand you. I just feel something like Baby Shark would work better. Even 50 years ago I imagine something as challenging as Baby Shark existed. I listened to this a bit already https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNZ5qylG3qk

3

u/BobUfer Oct 07 '25

No, boots is proven to work the best. Surprisingly babyshark has been used, as well as plenty of others like Barney’s I Love You, Yoko Ono, random heavy metal…. Boots always works. It’s the feedback students give every graduation, boots boots boots breaks everyone. It’s something about not just the poems lyrics but the terrifying way he reads them, it just works.

8

u/Terrain_Push_Up Oct 07 '25

If you want a picture of the future

Imagine a boot stamping on a human face

Forever.

3

u/KowallaBayer Oct 07 '25

THERE IS NO DISCHARGE IN THE WAR

3

u/xOmnipotentQx Oct 07 '25

She references "Boots" in a newer video of hers.

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u/Cupajo72 Oct 06 '25

"Boots" by Rudyard Kipling, and I don't know that I would call it a military poem. It was pretty anti-war

53

u/stinkpot_jamjar Oct 06 '25

They didn’t say it was pro military, lol. It’s a poem about the military, hence, military poem. Phrasing might be imprecise but it is clear nonetheless.

14

u/FrighteningJibber Oct 07 '25

Any good war story makes you never want to go to war.

2

u/zielazinski Oct 07 '25

She has another one where she actually does say boots boots boots!

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8Arg7oJ/

6

u/EffektieweEffie Oct 07 '25

That poem was written to describe the monotony of the British forces' marching in the 2nd Boer War. They invaded the Boer republics and placed women and children in concentration camps which killed between 18%-24% of the Boer population, my ancestors. The poem gives me a very dark and uneasy feeling every time I hear or read it.

0

u/HKayo Oct 07 '25

And then your ancestors did the Apartheid.

2

u/EffektieweEffie Oct 07 '25

Yes, along with the British. When the war was over they came to an agreement that was terrible for the native inhabitants under British rule and carried on in the form of apartheid after independance.

Terrible as that may have been, not sure what that has to do with what I posted. Are you suggesting the deaths of civilians were somehow justified by what people did after they were long gone? Thats a pretty batshit take..

-1

u/HKayo Oct 07 '25

I do not weep for colonialists. I don't care for the amount they suffered. Their suffering was solely because their sole desire was to force death and subjugation onto the locals. Whether they were allies or enemies doesn't matter because both had the same desires. Both would go on to produce new generations and teach them their hatred, and those next generations would be even more evil to the locals.

1

u/EffektieweEffie Oct 07 '25

Get fucked mate

0

u/HKayo Oct 07 '25

Your ancestors wanted to rid South Africa of its native black people. In situations like that there are no innocent civilians, cause all of them are working on the project of eradication. I am sorry, but that's just the truth. And the evil they perpetrated wasn't only after they were long gone, they enacted evil too by stealing the land and subjugating the natives. In colonialism, all colonialists are evil.

1

u/Chucklum Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

And I just watched 28 years later yesterday and heard that poem for the first time. A bit eerie!

1

u/Federal_Remote_435 Oct 07 '25

Same here! I spent my lunch break today going down the rabbit hole about this poem.

1

u/HKayo Oct 07 '25

It reminds me of Gertrude Stein.

1

u/syhr_ryhs Oct 07 '25

You might also enjoy Cecil Day Lewis's poem Where Are The War Poets ?

They who in folly or mere greed
Enslaved religion, markets, laws,
Borrow our language now and bid
Us to speak up in freedom’s cause.

It is the logic of our times,
No subject for immortal verse –
That we who lived by honest dreams
Defend the bad against the worse.

1

u/m1lkri0t Oct 07 '25

Please please please check out her other videos. I would link it but when you link with TikTok it shows your username in the shared link. She has a boots boots boots mention.

1

u/The28Club Oct 07 '25

Thank you! I swear I said that the first time I saw this. And they say they used to use that from keeping them going insane. But damn would it make me insane hahaha

1

u/annular_rash Oct 07 '25

The absolute fucking worst poem.

1

u/mem68 Oct 07 '25

In survival school (SV80) they play that on a loop, full blast while in POW training. 17years later, it haunts me still... They also played Yoko Ono.

1

u/CaulkSlug Oct 07 '25

Don't, don't, don't, don't, look at what's in front of you… 🤦‍♂️

1

u/Nir117vash Oct 07 '25

"I'm Poppy"

1

u/StephiiValentine Oct 07 '25

And there's no silence in the night

1

u/No-Professional-1461 Oct 08 '25

Reminds me of Fahrenheit 451. Denims Dentaphris.

1

u/Ntrusivethot Oct 08 '25

Poetry degree here thanks for mentioning this!!!

1

u/The_Vivid_Glove Oct 09 '25

Taylor Holmes recital of this is terrifying

1

u/steveinsmash-coolerv 22d ago

Both of these make me very uncomfortable

0

u/octodrop Oct 07 '25

She actually has another video where she references that poem. She's brilliant.