The Monitor is a weekly column dedicated to all the pieces taking place within the WIRED world of tradition, from films to memes, TV to Twitter.

It’s so silly it’s good for the web. In early December, somebody posted a mirror on TikTok with the caption “imagine how good your life would be if you had a 26-year-old nursing assistant by your side, now replace S with N.” At the time, folks have been mildly confused: “nurning annintant”? Weeks have handed since, and whereas the video got here and went as viral clips usually do, the TikTok continues to baffle social media. 

This turned clear Thursday when a pal despatched a tweet to one in all my group chats containing a screenshot of the TikTok and the message, “Every day, at least once I am haunted by this.” As of this writing, the tweet has been considered greater than 14 million instances, and its replies are full of each sort of principle conceivable. Some argue that changing S with N means swapping South for North, thus completely altering your perspective; others, extra believably, suggest that the reply has one thing to do with flipping “so good” to “no good.” My pal within the group chat simply mentioned, “It’s like the 2001: A Space Odyssey of our time, what does it mean? Move over, Kubrick—here comes @thisis_bex!”

In what is maybe the best a part of the thriller, @thisis_bex’s TikTok account disappeared not lengthy after the video went up. Sleuths might uncover that the Daily Dot seemingly discovered @thisis_bex, who claimed that “the answer is that it’s meant to be a brain stump. It doesn’t mean anything.” But frankly, that doesn’t appear proper. Not that the Daily Dot didn’t correctly examine, however that the reply they received must be a misdirect. Why create a “brain stump” with no which means? That’s not a riddle, it’s simply … dumb. 

It’s positive to take @thisis_bex at their phrase, however once you hold forth that the TikTok was a part of some psyop or from a consumer who’s out to run the longest con ever, then the actual recreation is afoot. What if “replace S with N” is the best riddle of the twenty first century? Start saying it in Indiana Jones’ hushed tones and it turns into the “but in the Latin alphabet, Jehovah begins with an I” of a brand new technology. Or, because the OP of that tweet known as it, the Voynich manuscript.  

Perhaps that is what the web wants: a really low-stakes unsolved thriller. The previous few years have turned each on-line dustup right into a wild forensics experiment as folks attempt to examine everybody from political figures to the release of the Twitter Files. Meanwhile, popular culture’s fascination with true-crime podcasts and reveals has turned many on-line sleuths into armchair police detectives, with various outcomes. 

All of which to say, perhaps this mysterious 26-year-old nursing assistant named Bex (if that’s their actual title) deserves a few of the web’s mind energy. No one goes to know what was in these labeled paperwork present in President Biden’s workplace for a very long time. Maybe determining this riddle is a greater use of everybody’s time.