The Kids Are Alright?

Can You Help This Person Raise $12,000 to Buy Noah Cyrus’s Tears?

Introducing the merch of the millennium children.
Singer Noah Cyrus performs on stage during WE Day at KeyArena on May 3 2018 in Seattle.
Singer Noah Cyrus performs on stage during WE Day at KeyArena on May 3, 2018 in Seattle.By Mat Hayward/Getty Images.

Every now and then, the aging elders of pop culture have to venture into youthlandia to see what the next generation is up to. It‘s good for us. I mean, them. It exfoliates the crusty buildup of their curmudgeon barnacles, the primary cause of crow’s-feet. And so, today, we explore the Internet happenings of Noah Cyrus, daughter of Billy Ray, sister of Miley. Also a singer, the young Cyrus collaborated on a 48-hour sale on PizzaSlime, an old-for-the-Internet, Tumblr-esque shop that peddles its warped sensibility to the likes of D.J.s and Jonah Hill. Together, they are selling 12 of Noah Cyrus’s tears for $1,000 a pop.

Cyrus was born in the first month of the new millennium, when we were all coming down from Y2K terror. It’s wild that any children were allowed to be born after 2000, but here she is, 18 years old, and with a new E.P. out called Good Cry. It’s a good name for an E.P.! Good cries are ageless; they’re universal. Selling one’s own salty excretions is less so, but it’s a fine way to make some noise. There’s more normal, merch-like items available from her PizzaSlime collection, too: a shirt with her father’s face on it, tatted like a SoundCloud rapper; a sweatshirt that reads, “sry i'm trash,” which could have been made by or for anyone on Twitter in the last two years; a coffee cup that proclaims “Noah Cyrus tears,” which is reminiscent of the site’s “Drake tears” mug from before 2015; a “SADNESS” sweat suit, written in a Kanye West, Life of Pablo-esque script. If there’s anything original here, it’s the expensive tears.

And the response has been huge, from widespread media coverage to a GoFundMe that’s been live for 15 hours and has raised $1,240 of the $12,000 goal. Its founder, who goes by Sad Cyren, wrote, “I LOVE NOAH CYRUS SO MUCH I NEED A BOTTLE OF HER TEARS BUT IT’s $12,000!!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE HELP ME MAKE MY DREAM COME TRUE AND GET ME TO MY GOAL!!!!!!!!!! IT SAYS ON THE PIZZASLIME STORE THAT IT’S ONLY AVAILABLE FOR 48 HOURS SO PLEASE SHARE THIS SO I CAN GET TO THE GOAL AS FAST AS POSSIBLE!!!!!” Hm, that seems like enough of a dalliance in the world of kids for today. What’s, like, Madonna up to?