If you’re a history buff, you may already know that Cleopatra had a substantial amount of rizz. King Henry VIII, on the other hand, could be considered the Tom Sandoval of his time. Meanwhile, Tsar Nicholas II was struggling to, well, pick a fight.
These three historical royals have been the subject of “Gen Z Teaches History,” a viral video series created by Lauren Cella, who teaches 10th grade history. In it, the California educator takes on the persona of a Gen Z teacher of the future, providing summaries of historical figures and events using a hilarious mix of opaque slang (if you’re a Millennial or older) and Taylor Swift lyrics.
“A positive compliment I sometimes hear from my students or from people on the Internet is like, ‘Oh my God, you make history so interesting,’” Cella explains. “And I always say, ‘History is interesting.’ I think other people make it boring. I’m not making it interesting. “I’m just telling you what happened.”
Take a look at our Gen Z Slang Dictionary below.
What started as a joke on social media has earned Cella millions of views on TikTok and Instagram, along with the admiration of students and commentators who appreciate how much they learn from each installment.
“Thank you for helping me get my PhD in 20th century history,” one commenter wrote about Cella. explanation of the Cold War.
Behind this joyful series is Cella’s true love for history and the desire to make it more accessible, just as her own teachers did with her.
“I think other people make it inaccessible,” he says. “I think other people deliberately don’t want to tell different sides of the story, they want it to be an easier narrative, they deliberately use vocabulary that only covers higher academia. “They don’t want other types of people to be able to access the curriculum, and that is done on purpose, especially in social studies.”
How it started
Cella loves good stories.
That’s why he studied history and journalism in his undergraduate degree, and why he’s drawn to teaching history. Before that, Cella grew up hearing stories from his Hawaiian paternal grandparents, who are also of Chinese and Puerto Rican descent, which Cella says is a common custom. “here” mix of origins: about their lives and family history. They shared stories about what they witnessed during the bombing of Pearl Harbor and also regaled her with the history of the indigenous Taíno people of Puerto Rico.
“Then, on my mother’s side of the family, all the elders told stories about how the family came from Mexico,” Cella remembers. “From a very young age, I was very interested in Liberty’s Kids and the american girl series. “She should have known that she was going to be a history teacher.”
It is the lack of connection to the past that Cella sees as a barrier to students finding their own love of history.
“A lot of these things happened 100 years ago, 200 years ago, and maybe if you read about it in a primary source, it can be really difficult to understand,” Cella explains. “I’ve had teachers of different ages who were able to break it down in a way that we could understand, and that made me fall in love with history. So the series is really just an homage to that.”
It was Cella’s students who encouraged her to start posting history lessons online, and she finally tried it during the pandemic.
“I thought, ‘No, I’m too old.’ Nobody does that,’” Cella remembers when she thought of the idea of turning to social networks to give lessons. “And they say, ‘No, miss, they do.’ In fact, you can learn many things. People go there to learn.’ So I started posting more and just experimenting, and I realized that my teaching stories or my history reels were getting a lot more engagement than anything else I posted.”
Her first viral hit was a Gen Z history lesson about the Russian Revolution, which garnered 1 million views on Instagram and then another million views on TikTok. Cella says she chalked it up to luck, but then her next video about the French Revolution reached 2 million views. Later historical videos continued to perform well.
Most of his online audience is made up of people his age or older, Cella says. While they may not understand all the lingo, she reflects, they are drawn to the format and are pleasantly surprised when they finish the videos knowing more than when they started.
“I have literally never understood World War I until now,” one commenter wrote on his most popular TikTok video to date.
Cella likes to “trick” people into learning when they think they’re just seeing a funny post on social media.
“Of course, that is an oversimplification. The videos last a minute, but they arouse people’s interest,” she says. “I’m really doing the same thing on TikTok and reels that every great teacher does, and that’s just connecting with their students and breaking it down into language they can understand in a way that’s inclusive and maybe a little fun. .”
It can be hard to find fun for teachers these days. Cella hopes that her videos offer an example to her fellow educators about how, despite the difficulties of the profession, they should not always let worry take over.
“If you’re worried you’re not doing enough, you probably are. Because the good teachers I know always try to do the best for our students,” she says. “So if that’s where your heart is, 99 percent of the time, you’re probably already doing enough.”
Behind the scenes
There are a few recurring elements in Cella’s Gen Z story videos: She’s sitting behind a desk or podium, with sunglasses on her head and iced coffee in her hand.
Cella says he never intended for iced coffee in particular to become a staple of the format, but now there’s no turning back. This is because he points out a crucial moment in the videos of him, when he shakes the ice-filled cup, switches hands, and introduces important context to the story with a clear “Meanwhile…”
“This is very embarrassing, but sometimes it takes a few shots and the ice melts and then I have water. And I say, ‘What do you do?’” she says. “I would go buy another one, but then I was excited about the coffee. So now I have fake ice in my iced coffee.”
Cella is a student of her time. When she was a high school student, she was a fan of historical comedy shows like Drunk History and Epic Rap Battles of History, series that tackled dry topics with a comedic twist that earned them wide appeal.
But her influences now include her students, who give her ideas for new slang to incorporate and keep her up to date on the ever-evolving lexicon of Generation Z, and now Generation Alpha.
It was his students’ frank way of talking about the world that inspired the character Cella plays. Cella says that if she makes fun of anyone, it’s about herself and not the children.
“The way we were taught (history) was very boring and dry and only told one side of the story, and Generation Z is not about that,” Cella says. “So when they became history teachers, that was the inspiration. “They will really give us the tea, they will really tell us what it is like.”
