Leeds military museum curator ‘surprised’ and ‘excited’ to have gone viral in TikTok video after using Gen Z language

A curator at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds has spoken to Sky News about going viral in an entertaining cross-generation TikTok video.

“Serving curatorial realness fr [for real]” is how the social media video that has amassed more than four and a half million views is described.

Curator Mark Murray-Flutter spoke to The UK Tonight with Sarah-Jane Mee about the video, in which he joked he had turned over scriptwriting duties to a Gen Z employee.

In it, he used popular Gen Z slang terms such as “slay”, “pop off queen”, “main character energy” and more, to describe the museum and its exhibits in a playful attempt to attract a younger crowd.

It has paid off with, as well as millions of views, more than half a million ‘likes’ on the platform, which is disproportionately used by younger people.

“Brat summer is over besties, it’s time to enter your historical era. The Royal Armouries is the most sigma day out in Leeds. No cap.” Mr Murray-Flutter says in the video.

Gesturing to a number of sets of armour and weapons, the curator then says “slay” – to do something spectacularly well – and later “smol” – an affectionate way to say something is small – pointing to a miniature version of a pistol.

Moving on to one of the museum’s more well-known exhibits, he says: “The Lion Armour is serving main character energy,” – a term used to refer to something or someone that is like the main character or centre of attention, and warranting such.

He goes on to describe King Henry VIII as “the OG rizzler” – meaning someone with the ultimate romantic and sexual appeal or charm.

He told Sarah-Jane Mee: “I was asked by my communications officer Katie if I would like to be involved with this, and I just thought it would be a fun thing to do.

“As I’m from another generation, it’s nice to be able to talk to a younger generation… using their language,” he continued.

“I understood some of [the words], but I have to admit I cheated, in that Katie kindly provided me with a dictionary which I began to memorise and learn about.”

The curator said that his favourite youthful slang words were “slay” and “pop off queen” – a phrase used for emphatic encouragement.

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He admitted being “surprised” when he woke up to find he had gone viral but was happy for the “incredibly positive and very complimentary” reaction.

Speaking on the reasoning behind the video, attracting a younger crowd to the museum, he added: “Hopefully Gen Z will find the collection appealing, they’ll find things they’ve never seen before.

“Hopefully they’ll be excited by the material as I’m excited and passionate about it.”