TikTok has been the birthing ground of some absolutely ridiculous tricks, trends and viral videos this year, but one has struck me as the wildest, and that is the idea that listening to Mario Kart music can make you work faster and more efficiently. So of course, I tried it for myself for an entire week, and the results were… well, you’ll see.
As I sit here writing this, I am currently listening to Mario Kart music. My self-imposed challenge over, but my brain still obsessed. To be specific, I’m currently vibing along to the Delfino Square racetrack theme, which slaps my smooth brain silly with serotonin.
Before I get into my own experiences with the trend, let’s take a look at the TikToks that started it. Firstly, we have to pay respects to @comradekaitlynn, who first made the internet aware of the alleged curative effects that listening to racetrack themes can have on your focus while you work.
https://www.tiktok.com/@comradekaitlynn/video/6883972003636792578?sender_device=pc&sender_web_id=6891480247364371970&is_from_webapp=1
Then others started to duet her TikTok with crazy claims at how they’ve done incredible amounts of work in a short amount of time, which seem too good to be true.
@zockr #duet with @kaitlyncraigen IM SHOOK AT HOW EFFECTIVE THIS IS 🤯🤯 THANK YOU #fyp #GamingLife #WorldSeries
@ethandiaz #duet with @kaitlyncraigen I had done an outline before but this is insane #college
At first glance, the TikTok videos claiming to write pages upon pages of work within minutes seemed outlandish to me. Surely these zoomers were exaggerating for effect right?
Well, no. They weren’t exaggerating at all.
For smooth brain folks such as myself, focusing during writing tasks can sometimes be difficult. It’s even worse considering the fact that tasks which require you to always be online are just that, online. The internet is an incredibly distracting place, so setting yourself down with some tunes and smashing out your tasks undistracted can be tricky.
Mario Kart music, however, is just an amalgam of all the right things for me. In the beginning, I found it very jarring going from my usual tunes to this high-speed, no-vocals intense music. I wasn’t looking to write fast, but I was looking to see if my focus would increase, and well, it did.
Video game music has always possessed a very unique quality to it. Its sole purpose is to enhance the action that you’re seeing on-screen without being too distracting. The result is something that acts as a helpful background track to the work that you’re doing, without ever taking your mind away from it. For this, we stan.
Here are some of my faves, which by the end of the week I was actually relying on to help me blast out some articles without my usual meerkat-like head wanting to focus on other distracting things. Honestly, I recommend you try it for yourself, it’s such a fun little productivity booster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukrvQfJQsow&ab_channel=TenpersUniverse
