Gen Z is staging a dramatic fake war between two niche hobby groups you’ve never heard of, and it’s escalating fast

TikTok just created its newest piece of Gen Z internet fun: a completely fake “war” between two small hobby groups called “glovers” and “sliders.” This made-up fight is growing fast and now includes even more silly communities. The conflict isn’t real at all, but the dramatic videos and expanding story make it seem serious. It’s spreading super quickly, showing that the internet can turn any small hobby into a huge drama.

If you’re like most regular people, you probably don’t know what a glover or slider is. According to Daily Dot, these are real groups named after what they do for fun. Glovers wear gloves with lights on the fingertips and make their hands “dance” on camera, usually in dark rooms. 

Sliders wear knee pads and slide across concrete. Both groups take their hobbies very seriously and have developed intense looks. Glovers often wear full plastic face masks that make them look like villains, while sliders sometimes wear scary face paint similar to Insane Clown Posse style.

The fake rivalry has spiraled into total internet chaos

No one knows exactly when the “war” started, but most videos appeared about a week ago. The big moment came on December 12, when TikTok account @odinseyeofficial posted a video about gloving legends falling apart and the danger from sliders. This is where the story really took off.

The video’s narrator says, “With the gloving community in complete mess after Grandmaster Glover Infinite Puppet declared war on all gloving fakes, an outside threat is waiting in the shadows, ready to attack and end the once great gloving empire.” 

The narrator then warns about “the notorious and barbaric group of savages who call themselves the sliding community.” Another popular video with 1.6 million views joked about the conflict starting in “year 1 A.K. (After Kirk).” Nobody knows who Kirk is, but the trend has clearly turned into what people call “brainrot territory.”

Like always on the internet, people quickly decided the fight between gloving and sliding wasn’t dramatic enough. This isn’t the first time Gen Z has turned viral trends into costumes, proving they can make anything into a cultural moment. The latest trend is making up new, extremely powerful hobby groups based on boring or weird activities. It’s all about claiming power over the original two groups.

The so-called “Snap Squad” posted a video saying their hobby was better than glovers, sliders, and even “penspinners,” which is another real hobby now getting pulled in. The caption used a famous joke to show their power: “Glover: Human beings in a mob. Slider: What’s a mob to a king? Penspinner: What’s a king to a god? Snap Squad: What’s a god to a non-believer?” That’s a big claim for people who just snap their fingers.

The silliness grew from there. TikToker @yeoogif said “Gloving is WAY too mainstream” and announced “WE are all on bird balancing now,” talking about the old trick where you balance a bird toy on your finger. The strangest new entry is “hat mouthing,” which means holding a baseball cap in your mouth and sliding it back and forth using only your head. A video promoting this was captioned, “While you guys are on sliding and gloving, WE are on hat mouthing.”

It’s really funny how fast Gen Z can take two unrelated hobbies and turn them into an over-the-top war with leaders and enemies. This generation continues to shape internet culture in unpredictable ways, much like how they’ve influenced discussions about lowering the voting age in recent political debates. We can’t wait to see what strange activity they claim is best next.