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An elementary school teacher has divided opinion on social media after she was filmed giving a young pupil “birthday spankings”. The clip, which has been shared across TikTok, shows the woman beaming as she brandishes a large, wooden ruler and the boy braces for impact. The child is smiling, too, as he clutches the table, and she swings her makeshift paddle. Thankfully, the teacher stops before making contact, as she repeats a swing for each year of his life. Pranks and peculiar traditions are a quirk of the festivities across the world, with almost every culture having their own special rites and rituals. Bumps, “punches” and other torments have long been a celebrated part of the festivities, as have “spankings”. The North American tradition sees the birthday boy or girl receive the number of hits that corresponds to their age, plus “one to grow on”. @noahglenncarter People are upset with this teacher for giving a student birthday spankings #foryou #teacher #birthday Numerous TikTok commentators pointed out that they’d received the same treatment at the hands of their teachers while in school, though not everyone remembered the custom fondly. Search “birthday spankings” on the platform and you’ll see a number of videos dedicated to people’s realisation that the whole thing is a bit… creepy. @queenkoppes #stitch with @smithfulteaching The 90s were a different time. #teachersoftiktok @mackenzig__ i thought this was a fever dream or smth for the longest time until someone told me they saw it too Still, plenty of TikTokers have also laughed the whole thing off or pointed to similarly bizarre conventions that they’d fallen prey to. “This is a family tradition for me,” one wrote. “We all got and gave each other birthday spankings. It’s just a fun thing.” “My Spanish teacher pulls ears for birthday,” added another, explaining that it was “her culture’s tradition”. However, influencer Noah Glenn Carter pointed out that some traditions simply don’t age well, and plenty of people would file a complaint with the school if this happened to their kid. “So far it doesn't seem like any action has been taken against the teacher, which I think is fine because she probably didn't mean anything by this,” he said in a commentary on the clip. But, he added: “If I was a teacher, the last thing you would see me doing is giving out birthday spankings to students. “Because even if I was just doing it to be funny, people could see it in a very different light.” Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

Elon Musk has responded to a parody account pretending to be him on Twitter, calling Mark Zuckerberg a "lizard boy." The fake account with the username @ElonMuskAOC has over 358,000 followers and uses the same image of Musk that the billionaire businessman uses for his Twitter account. Also, their name is "Elon Musk (Parody)" and their profile bio reads: "I’m on a quest to bang AOC on Mars. (Parody Account)." Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter On July 7, the parody account tweeted pretending to be Musk where he called Meta co-founder Mark Zuckerberg "Lizard boy." "I spent $44 billion for this app and now Lizard boy just decided to hit copy and paste," to Meta's new social media platform Threads, which is said to rival Twitter. "It's personal now. See you in the cage, Zuck," the account added, referring to Zuckerberg previously agreeing to a cage fight with Musk after Musk tweeted that he was “up for a cage fight” with him. With 35.5m views, 645,000 likes and 22,000 retweets, the parody account's tweet when viral - so much so that the real Elon Musk replied to the tweet. "So many people think this account is me," he wrote, with the eyes emoji. YouTuber MrBeast weighed asking "It's not?" to which Musk confirmed that was not him behind the tweet or account. Another person @stclairashley pointed out something else: "I love that you didn't dispute Zuck being a lizard boy." "Maybe it's just a case of using too much moisturizer," Musk quipped. Well, we all know Zuckerberg likes to slather on the sunscreen at least... Meanwhile the fake parody account decided to riff off of real Musk's tweet and replied in agreement: "Most likely the case, seems like that type." Elsewhere, Mark Zuckerberg ends 11-year Twitter break with ‘savage’ tweet about Threads. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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