How do you make a "You met me at a very ___ time in my life" PS2 video?

To make a "You met me at a very ___ time in my life" video, you write a 25-second deadpan rant about one ordinary thing, end it on the line with your own word in the blank, and have a PS2-era game character say every line to camera. In ClipFlux that is the Talking character format with the PS2 Cutscene look: paste the script, pick Raven (the look's built-in character) or your own, and each line comes back as a lip-synced clip with captions timed to the words, ready for TikTok, Shorts and Reels. The writing is the part that decides whether it gets watched.

Quick facts

• The line: "You met me at a very ___ time in my life", a twist on the last line of Fight Club.
• Where the trend started: Luca Maxim's videos for his clothing brand Children of Khan, whose shirts say "a very Chinese time".
• The format: a deadpan rant to camera, about 25 seconds in five shots, ending on the line.
• The look: a 2004 PlayStation 2 cutscene, a detailed hero in a cheap, low-texture world.
• Biggest topic: egg prices, 3.5M views on TikTok (read 4 October 2026).
• Make one with: ClipFlux's Talking character format and the PS2 Cutscene look, from a script of up to 150 words.

Where does "You met me at a very Chinese time in my life" come from?

From Fight Club (1999). In the film's last scene the narrator stands with Marla, watching the buildings come down, and tells her "You met me at a very strange time in my life". Luca Maxim swapped one word: "a very Chinese time in my life" is the slogan of his clothing brand Children of Khan, printed on its shirts, and his PS2-style rants end on it. It became a trend when other creators kept the rant and changed the word.

We are not affiliated with him or the brand and make no claim about how his videos are produced.

What makes the format work

• A deadpan voice, a busy body. The delivery is flat, but the face and hands never stop: shrugs, pointing down the lens, arms spread wide. A still character reading lines is the most common way copies fall flat.
• The rant is about something ordinary. Egg prices, a fortune cookie, summer in Japan. The smaller the subject, the funnier the conviction.
• The line is the punchline, not the topic. Everything before it builds to one word that reframes the whole rant.
• Short and cut often. The two originals we timed ran 25 to 27 seconds in five shots, and the framing changed on every cut: wide, close, then wide again.
• The sign-off is one breath. When there is something to sell, the line and the call to action ("get yours at … link in bio") come in one continuous take, with no pause between them.

Which topics get the views

The biggest videos on TikTok's pages for the trend, read on 4 October 2026. Most are Luca Maxim's or his brand's; the rest are other creators putting their own word in the blank.

The pattern: one small subject, one strong opinion, and a word in the blank that only lands because of the 20 seconds before it. Other creators either repost the original line as edits or put their own word in the blank (French, Albanian, Romanian, AI). Only the second gives you a format of your own.

Step 1: Pick your word for the blank

The word is your niche in one syllable or three. A fitness page has a very bulking time, a student page a very finals-week time, a crypto page a very red-candle time, a channel run without a camera a very faceless time. If you sell something, the word should point at the product without naming it. Write your own: "a very Chinese time in my life" is Children of Khan's slogan and printed merchandise, and borrowing it makes your video an ad for someone else.

Step 2: Write a 25-second rant that earns the line

Five or six spoken lines, each one a single breath. The shape that works:

1. A complaint everyone recognises, said like a fact.
2. Someone else's reaction, quoted and dismissed.
3. What you did instead, with one specific number or detail.
4. One line that escalates it past reasonable.
5. The line, with your word in the blank.
6. Your call to action, in the same breath, if you have one.

Here is the script of the video in the frames above, word for word. It runs a little long at nine lines; cutting the sixth and seventh would bring it close to the originals' length.

Being a content creator is tough because everyone expects you to put your whole face on the internet forever.
What do you mean I don't need to show my face?
No, I genuinely don't need to show my face.
Why would I pay a video editor three grand to tell a story I already wrote in my head, and wait two weeks for it?
So I just made it myself. Same story, same voice, same captions, fraction of the price, done before lunch.
If I keep this up I might actually afford to go outside and remember what sunlight feels like.
Already got tomorrow's episode queued. Didn't even open the app today.
You met me at a very faceless time in my life.
Make yours at clipflux.ai. Link in bio.

Step 3: Pick a PS2 character of your own

The look is a 2004 PlayStation 2 cutscene: a detailed hero with stiff hair and shiny jacket, standing in a cheap, low-texture world. The original's character resembles a famous game hero, and that is the one thing not to copy. A game company's character is its property, and a real person's face is not yours to animate either. Use an original character: in ClipFlux the PS2 Cutscene look comes with one, Raven, or you can upload your own and keep it across every video, which is what turns a one-off into a recurring persona people follow. What else the look can do is on our PS2 AI video generator page.

Step 4: Make the character say it

In ClipFlux, choose the Talking character format on the create page (the format on its own: how to make AI talking character videos), switch to Script, and paste your lines (a Talking script holds up to 150 words, about a minute). Script mode performs your words exactly as you pasted them, which is what you want here, since the timing of the joke is in the wording; Idea mode would write the lines for you instead. Pick the PS2 Cutscene look, your character and a voice; a flat, low, unimpressed voice suits the format best. Every line becomes its own clip with the character performing it on camera, lip-synced to the voice, with captions timed to the spoken words and a moving camera rather than a locked-off shot. Skits work too: label lines with names ("Raven: …", "Customer: …") and up to 4 characters each get their own voice and close-up, as in videos with two characters talking.

On a free account the first part of the video is performed as a preview, and the rest shows the character with the lines and captions until you finish it.

Step 5: Check every line, then post

Watch it clip by clip. Three things to check: the words are exactly the script, the face stays the same character, and the hands are doing something rather than hanging still. If a clip misses, regenerate that one line instead of the whole video. Then post it vertically to TikTok, Shorts or Reels and turn on the platform's AI-generated label. For daily posting on a schedule, see how to automate TikTok videos.

Can you use this to sell something?

That is what the format was built for: the originals are ads for a clothing brand that never feel like ads, because the product only arrives in the last line. The same works for an app, a course, a shop or a channel. Keep the rant genuinely about something else, give the product one line at the end, and let the word in the blank do the selling. Our own example above ends on our own call to action for exactly that reason.

The same talking setup makes the other character trends too: the fruit drama videos and the talking pigeon video.

Questions