Year 12 students left shocked over inclusion of ‘brain rot’ meme ‘Skibidi Toilet’ in ATAR English exam
The most important exam of their schooling asked them to debate whether the internet is rotting their brains.
Year 12s found plenty to smile about in their final ATAR English paper, flooding social media with their reactions to the inclusion of bizarre Internet meme “Skibidi Toilet” within minutes of exiting exam rooms across WA.
Many students were tickled by a text used in the paper that referred to the animated video featuring men’s heads popping out of toilet bowls singing a song using the nonsense word “skibidi”.
They filled TikTok with videos of their responses soon after sitting the three-hour English exam held on Friday morning.
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“Never thought I’d be talking about Skibidi Toilet in my WACE exam,” one student wrote, while another said they “genuinely started laughing” on seeing the lyrics “skibidi dop dop dop”.
According to students, the reference appeared in a text in the comprehending section of the paper which contained two questions comprising a third of the exam.
The students said one of the texts they had to analyse was a two-year-old article from the Guardian suggesting doom-scrolling was contributing to widespread brain rot.
“If you want to witness the last vestiges of human intellect swirling down the drain, hold your nose and type the words ‘Skibidi Toilet’ into YouTube,” it reads.
“The 11-second video features an animated human head protruding from a toilet bowl while singing the nonsensical lyrics ‘skibidi dop dop dop yes yes’.”
“My jaw dropped the second I saw the word Skibidi Toilet,” a Year 12 pupil commented, while another lamented “it was impossible to analyse with a straight face”.
“Spoke more about Skibidi Toilet than I did about similes and metaphors,” another student said.
Not all students were happy about the inclusion, including one who complained: “14 years of school and we get Skibidi Toilet for our most important exam ever”.
Some students commented they were pleased to also find a question about the rise of artificial intelligence in the exam.
Each year, students settle on one or two themes that best sum up their response to the English exam, which is the one subject that most Year 12s sit.
Last year, memes of swooping magpies spread on social media after students were asked to analyse and compare two texts about magpies. The year before that it was a question asking Year 12s to interpret a picture of a Hills hoist that had students in a spin.
More than 13,000 Year 12s are enrolled to sit at least one ATAR paper during the three-week exam period which is scheduled to run until November 19.
