A weirdly degenerate corner of the internet
May 25, 2016 4:05 PM   Subscribe

How the Racial Politics of Dat Boi Ripped Apart a Popular Facebook Group

(Disclaimer: I'm a member of Post Aesthetics but don't know the mod who was interviewed, nor was I aware of Dat Boi-gate.)
posted by naju (78 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
dat suks
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 4:12 PM on May 25, 2016


So, even if I don't find a meme funny, most of the time I can tell why other people would find it funny (or spread it for some other reason). But the Dat Boi meme is one where I totally do not get it. It just looks like the unceremonious pairing of a frog on a unicycle with "o shit waddup." Is it literally just, the frog looks silly and aave sounds funny to white people? Is that it??
posted by picklenickle at 4:18 PM on May 25, 2016 [3 favorites]


Metafilter: a weirdly...nah.
posted by uosuaq at 4:19 PM on May 25, 2016 [1 favorite]


Is it literally just, the frog looks silly and aave sounds funny to white people?

I've always processed it as the idea that this frog is someone you know of and are excited about. I'm sure those two points are involved, though.
posted by little onion at 4:22 PM on May 25, 2016 [15 favorites]


It is stuff like this that makes me say "thank God I am not on Facebook"
posted by marienbad at 4:25 PM on May 25, 2016 [12 favorites]


My attention was caught by the mod's use of the phrase "weird Facebook," as though there was a well-known FB subculture of oddball groups/content.

To me FB is pretty bland -- can anyone tell me more about visiting Weird Facebook?
posted by wenestvedt at 4:33 PM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]


A relevant lecture on memetics: Information, Evolution, and intelligent Design - With Daniel Dennett
posted by an animate objects at 4:35 PM on May 25, 2016


Thanks for posting this, naju. It's an interesting insight into the moderation process of a (somewhat) organic, and quickly growing Facebook group.

I do think appropriation of content and memes, etc, from black people is problematic online. When I first saw "dat boi", it didn't really do much for me as far as humor goes, and I must admit I didn't consider the racial implications.

Here's a thought experiment: replace "here come dat boi!!!!!!" and "o shit waddup!" with phrases that don't evoke/appropriate AAVE. Something like "here comes my friend!!!!!!" and "how are things!"

Is it the same meme? Does it read the same? If not, then the words used within it are important to its meaning, and it's worth considering what that meaning is—and what the joke of the meme is and whether it's problematic.
posted by defenestration at 4:38 PM on May 25, 2016 [17 favorites]


The most interesting part of this to me, the past few times a huge shockwave like this has gone through some group of nerdy internet white kids... Is how invested they are in going "i'm not racist, it's just that i don't believe this is racist" or "it can't be racist because it wasn't intended to be" or whatever.

I keep waiting for a time when some post-4chan asshat just says "i don't care", and gets 500 likes. And what the reaction is.

It's the resistance to admitting they don't care, the fragility, that is interesting to me. I mean it's infuriating and draining and shitty, but still fascinating.
posted by emptythought at 4:44 PM on May 25, 2016 [12 favorites]


Metafilter: I think the days of backlash it got wasn't even from discourse, but iterations of white guilt from realizing this meme uses AAVE for no reason.
posted by gusandrews at 4:45 PM on May 25, 2016 [4 favorites]


But is posting an image that contains speech the same as saying it yourself? To me it seems analogous to posting a quotation. So then is it problematic for a non-black person to quote a black person saying something in AAVE?
posted by Enemy of Joy at 4:46 PM on May 25, 2016 [1 favorite]


dat boi previously on Metafilter


people going lol aave sounds silly/dumb (even subconsiously) drives a lot of internet language/memes, IMO -- see also: on fleek, fuckboys, ain't no one got time for that, etc., etc., etc.
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 4:47 PM on May 25, 2016 [8 favorites]


I'm no meme historian, but is it possible that dat boi was created by a black person using AAVE genuinely, but part of the reason it spread among non-black communities is because of a perceived extra layer of humor from the use of AAVE?
posted by ejs at 4:51 PM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]


That was a fascinating article. I thought that the meme started on Black Twitter, which explains the connection to AAVE, although that doesn't necessarily make the appropriation any better.
posted by Frobenius Twist at 4:52 PM on May 25, 2016


But is posting an image that contains speech the same as saying it yourself? To me it seems analogous to posting a quotation. So then is it problematic for a non-black person to quote a black person saying something in AAVE?

If you repost a video of a racist comedy set, you didn't say it. But are you still perpetuating racism by essentially going "this is funny to me and also racist?"

It's the same situation, essentially.

This also has the added flavor of white people reposting that one tired chris rock sketch that even he regrets. Even if the original image was created by a person of color, everyone reposting it is resposting it because "lol black people amirite?" because that is the joke. Or, arguably, vietnamese names as well.

Some of the dumbest, most tired racist shit on the internet is white people reposting content posted by POC essentially to laugh at the way they talk. Go look at the /r/blackpeopletwitter subreddit which is basically entirely white teens doing this shit.
posted by emptythought at 4:52 PM on May 25, 2016 [12 favorites]


Whippedy Doo!
posted by bologna on wry at 4:55 PM on May 25, 2016 [9 favorites]


Well, reading that certainly affirmed my appreciation for the patience that our many diverse and sometimes marginalized members use in dealing with the kickback that comes from explaining the nuances of microaggressions, appropriation, and institutionalized bigotry of all sorts.
posted by OHenryPacey at 4:56 PM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]


To me FB is pretty bland -- can anyone tell me more about visiting Weird Facebook?

Here's one article on it. A recent example FPP.
posted by naju at 4:57 PM on May 25, 2016 [3 favorites]




I've studied a lot of linguistics, particularly in relation to race and class. I've always enjoyed picking up languages, idioms, and accents. I am now at a point, after my white ass has spent a lot of time in Harlem and the Bronx, that I slip into AAVE/BVE/BEV/whateveryouracronymisforit without even thinking. I probably shouldn't code switch like that, but I do. My grandma, she of multiple copies of Strunk and White, called me out for it recently when I took issue with something I thought was being done poorly, sucked my teeth, and put as much AAVE side-eye in my voice as I did in my face. She told me not to speak sloppily. I told her it wasn't sloppy, but it sure was freighted with a lot of race and class, and wasn't it interesting that sloppy was what came to mind. (I know, I know, if I was really speaking AAVE I wouldn't be sassing my elders.)

I love black speech. I love it so much I want its deliciousness in my white mouth, too. I want to study its elegant nuances and support those who speak it and preserve its variations and roots. Any time someone calls it "bad English" I want to drop an entire sociolinguistics class on them (and I often do). I want someone to make tee-shirts that say "Black Speech Is Beautiful," because I want to wear one and explain to anyone who asks why I think so.

And I'm aware all this is hugely problematic. Particularly if bits of my doing this end up online, out of context, among the flotsam of genuine hatefulness the internet has become.
posted by gusandrews at 5:07 PM on May 25, 2016 [18 favorites]


Go look at the /r/blackpeopletwitter subreddit which is basically entirely white teens doing this shit.

Is that confirmed, or is it just an assumption based on reddit's loudest userbase? It seems like we should be cautious about whitewashing subcultures on the internet, and I know POC who are members of r/blackpeopletwitter, but it's been a while since I checked back in. As far as I remember, a lot of the comments aren't laughing as much as they're agreeing with a sentiment, arguing with an idea, or telling their own stories (in between posting in-jokes, of course).
posted by redsparkler at 5:10 PM on May 25, 2016 [5 favorites]


people going lol aave sounds silly/dumb (even subconsiously) drives a lot of internet language/memes, IMO -- see also: on fleek, fuckboys, ain't no one got time for that, etc., etc., etc.

And "bae," which some non-AAVE-speakers seem to love to assert is an acronym for "Before Anyone Else" instead of the elision of "babe" or "baby".
posted by fuse theorem at 5:11 PM on May 25, 2016




Metafilter: trends occur really quickly when people don't know what to post, but want to engage
posted by mintcake! at 5:18 PM on May 25, 2016 [5 favorites]


Memes are always inappropriate.
posted by BYiro at 5:24 PM on May 25, 2016 [3 favorites]


I'm confused. All these examples y'all are calling AAVE are what I've always just thought of as Tumblrspeak. I had no idea there was a racial angle, I just thought it was how "kids these days" talk/ write...?
posted by Jacqueline at 5:31 PM on May 25, 2016 [5 favorites]


I've always processed it as the idea that this frog is someone you know of and are excited about.

For a non-AAVE example, see Zafo.
posted by duffell at 5:34 PM on May 25, 2016


I'm confused. All these examples y'all are calling AAVE are what I've always just thought of as Tumblrspeak. I had no idea there was a racial angle, I just thought it was how "kids these days" talk/ write...?

That's one interesting thing the internet has done. In more hierarchical media like television or journalism there would be no room for AAVE except where it's explicitly racial references. But Tumblr and the like will have minorities talking without any reference to their minority status, and memes will get picked up from there just like anywhere else.
posted by solarion at 5:37 PM on May 25, 2016 [13 favorites]


Here's a thought experiment: replace "here come dat boi!!!!!!" and "o shit waddup!" with phrases that don't evoke/appropriate AAVE. Something like "here comes my friend!!!!!!" and "how are things!"

It still works.
posted by a halcyon day at 5:42 PM on May 25, 2016 [27 favorites]


can anyone tell me more about visiting Weird Facebook?

in addition to the great macro round-up naju posted, the Know Your Meme page on Weird Facebook is a good starting point. Weird Facebook is, at its core, a farrago of meme pages, but going to your broader point about FB seeming pretty bland, here is a Reply All podcast which focuses on the rise and fall of a Facebook group, Stackswell & Co. It's not exactly Weird Facebook, but as a group which parodies corporate culture, it's an example of what people are doing on Facebook that isn't engagement announcements and photos of babies.

The teens, back at it again with the light pranks.
posted by Collaterly Sisters at 5:56 PM on May 25, 2016 [8 favorites]


A thing can exist without you knowing about it or with you knowing about it but misunderstanding it. It sucks if you find out after the fact you perpetuated something you wouldn't if you had known it was problematic to do so, but that is not justification or proof that it isn't problematic.

If you think it's tumblrspeak and black people say it's AAVE, it is AAVE. Authority rests in cultural/anthropological/scientific/experiential expertise, not in (as is usually the default) whatever white people say it is.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:08 PM on May 25, 2016 [5 favorites]


acb's link about how racifying emoji make inappropriate for white people to use is fascinating. Like, I follow the argument:

1. white people should not promote their whiteness because to do so would be white pride/power.
2. They should not use the "default" yellow because by doing so they whitewash the default.
3. They should not use shades of brown because that is appropriation and rude.
∴ they should not use any emoji.

I understand each point in this argument and disagree with each. But I could see this Becoming A Thing.
posted by rebent at 6:08 PM on May 25, 2016 [6 favorites]


Hardcore epic shoobie dog meme's. There seems to be a whole constellation of weird Facebook dog-related (or doggo-related) meme pages.
posted by BungaDunga at 6:25 PM on May 25, 2016


But if a whole generation is speaking/writing in that dialect now, how can it still be called AAVE? Maybe I'm just inadvertently following a statistically unusual subset of Tumblr users but it honestly seems almost universal among the under 25 crowd.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:29 PM on May 25, 2016 [5 favorites]


Weird Facebook is, at its core, a farrago of meme pages

This is true, but I need to clarify this (as well as the link I posted earlier) by saying that Post Aesthetics is not "a meme page." Most of the posts are not meme-related at all, and many of the more obvious or played-out memes like Dat Boi get deleted outright. Original content is valued, non-meme text posts are valued. Most of the "meme pages" are more about creating memes than spreading existing memes, in fact, which is a tricky notion if you think about it. And many lurking spots for smart/with-it people on the internet are places where attention and culture are so hyper-accelerated that memes are played out before you even hear about them. All of which is to say there are different avenues of sub-weird to go down, internet irony has Inception-like layers within layers, and nothing is cut-and-dry.
posted by naju at 6:44 PM on May 25, 2016 [6 favorites]


Voici venir que Boisvert.

Ce qui se passe?
posted by srboisvert at 6:45 PM on May 25, 2016 [8 favorites]


But if a whole generation is speaking/writing in that dialect now, how can it still be called AAVE? Maybe I'm just inadvertently following a statistically unusual subset of Tumblr users but it honestly seems almost universal among the under 25 crowd.

An analogy: If everybody in Brazil knows English, it does not stop being English, nor does its heritage change.

A corollary: If that happened, then how we considered English in Brazil would change. The past and the present can be considered together, and there will still be elements of colonialism in such a scenario even if a large segment of the population accepts it happily.
posted by solarion at 7:02 PM on May 25, 2016


But we wouldn't tell Brazilians to stop using English.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:04 PM on May 25, 2016 [5 favorites]


True. I was more "A dialect is defined by history as well as current usage". I have no comment on who should be using it as such.
posted by solarion at 7:08 PM on May 25, 2016


But we wouldn't tell Brazilians to stop using English.

We would if they were using it to mock us, or as a shortcut for less-smart people.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:20 PM on May 25, 2016 [5 favorites]


Adopting a dialect as the teenage slang of the now isn't mocking it.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:29 PM on May 25, 2016 [4 favorites]


If it's only ever used or promoted for silliness purposes...that's mockery.
posted by Doleful Creature at 7:34 PM on May 25, 2016


"But if a whole generation is speaking/writing in that dialect now, how can it still be called AAVE? Maybe I'm just inadvertently following a statistically unusual subset of Tumblr users but it honestly seems almost universal among the under 25 crowd."

I feel like a way to reword this is a more generic way is "If it has been thoroughly appropriated, how can we say it still belongs to the people it was appropriated from?"

I think that decently illustrates one of the problems with appropriation. One of the reasons people try to guard against or it or at least consider it.

And more specifically, the people who use it on tumblr: do you think they speak that way face to face, in person? With people they know or strangers? In a class or at work? If it's only in specific contexts, why is done there and not others?

(Edited due to accidentally copying most of the post. Dang iPhone)
posted by defenestration at 7:36 PM on May 25, 2016 [4 favorites]


I don't know any of them in person so I don't know how they speak and write in other contexts. But everyone code-switches when changing from an informal environment to an academic or professional one, so I don't see how that's relevant?
posted by Jacqueline at 7:45 PM on May 25, 2016 [3 favorites]


This is interesting to me because I understand enough about US politics and race to 'get' the discussion, why it's inappropriate, etc., but am far enough removed (from the US) that I don't really have a horse in the race, and can just view it as interesting sociological spectacle.
posted by signal at 7:50 PM on May 25, 2016 [1 favorite]


But if a whole generation is speaking/writing in that dialect now, how can it still be called AAVE? Maybe I'm just inadvertently following a statistically unusual subset of Tumblr users but it honestly seems almost universal among the under 25 crowd.

To me the "dat boi" thing read as a "lol AAVE" meme right away....I would have to think about it more to figure out just how it works, but there is to me a real difference between AAVE-influenced default tumblr speak and AAVE itself...partly I think it's stuff like "dat" and "dem" which are so historically AAVE, partly it is the fact that the whole thing is AAVE words, not just maybe one word, partly I think it's that it's not just a new word like "fleek". It's a gestalt.

I am glad people called this out - the frog is amusing and productive of weird kitsch sensations but the phrase is wrong enough to kind of ruin it.
posted by Frowner at 7:51 PM on May 25, 2016 [5 favorites]


> Adopting a dialect as the teenage slang of the now isn't mocking it.

Maybe not deliberately, but there's a certain slumming quality to it. If a non-black teen is using AAVE cadences, I think the default assumption is likely to be that that teen is in fact "adopting a dialect as the teenage slang of the now." That it's a vocal mask they can take on and off at will for their amusement, and doesn't taint them as being fundamentally unintelligent or uneducated. It's a cool little feather in their cap of versatility. And I don't hate them for that. Nevertheless, if someone hears me, a black person, speaking AAVE, there may be a quite different assumption that I'm "ghetto" and limited to speaking "substandard" English. I'm not saying we necessarily need to worry about people's faulty assumptions. But let's acknowledge there's an asymmetry there.
posted by xigxag at 7:57 PM on May 25, 2016 [31 favorites]


Honestly? The humor of the meme to me always seemed to be the juxtaposition of the excitement of seeing a friend, and the fact that "dat boi" was actually a frog on a unicycle.

It's not fair to ask if it'd be as funny if replaced by "standard English," because it still leans on familiarity and colloquialism. Ask instead if it'd be as funny if it were:

"Here comes Graham!"

"Fuck yeah, what's shakin'?"

Except, well, I'm a 34 year old white guy trying to put together the right slang on the spot, and it's really hard to separate slang from AAVE, since a lot of English "cool" language is derived from AAVE. I think it's perfectly possible to enjoy Dat Boi because of its use of AAVE, without the humor being at AAVE's expense.
posted by explosion at 7:59 PM on May 25, 2016 [14 favorites]


So, maybe it's cause where I'm from were all familiar with Caribbean culture, but I read "Dat Boi" as clearly Jamaican. Weird.
posted by oddman at 8:27 PM on May 25, 2016 [5 favorites]


This is astoundingly bizarre to me, because when I first saw "dat boi", I was blown away by how goddamn cool it was. The frog is undeniably weird, sure, but the idea that regardless, you know him and are thrilled to see him, and greet him with such cool goddamn language was fantastic.

The fact that the language was AAVE never occurred to me, but the idea now that people would see that as a mockery of AAVE and not a celebration still outright befuddles me.
posted by Imperfect at 8:29 PM on May 25, 2016 [12 favorites]


I think the interview with the mod summed it up - "Honestly, I feel as though everyone in PA was missing the point [of a lot of the dat boi discussion]. This isn't even about dat boi inherently, but a concerning increase in the commodification of black culture on the Internet as one of many mass media platforms that does this... It's not that dat boi doesn't borrow from AAVE, but it does seem nonsensical to pick at this one unicycling frog meme in particular."

Dat Boi is sort of too inherently silly and explanation-shrugging to be any kind of referendum on the topic. But it is a trend in anything that goes viral these days, because the dominant culture has a compulsion to trade in borrowed cool from less-dominant cultures. Whether it's brands saying "bae", borrowing endless vernacular from black drag queen culture, or whatever else is going on. You don't see it at first glance, and then, like putting on the They Live glasses, it flips like a switch and you see it EVERYWHERE.
posted by naju at 8:44 PM on May 25, 2016 [6 favorites]


can anyone tell me more about visiting Weird Facebook?

One of my FB friends routinely shares stuff from Useless, Unsuccessful, and/or Unpopular Memes (uncontroversial example), which has 133k members. The related group UUUMPlayedOut seems relevant to this thread today. Apparently UUUM is moderated to remove some problematic content, but their FAQ suggests being "subversive enough" is a reason it may be allowed to stand. YMMV for sure.
posted by Wobbuffet at 8:44 PM on May 25, 2016


Fellow white people ... I am pretty sure we don't get to decide whether our usage of phrases/spellings which are likely (but perhaps not certainly) cribbed from AAVE is or isn't harmful.

Assuming for the sake of argument that the provenance of the phrasing could be proved pure of any racist mockery, what injury do we suffer in not, personally, utilizing the meme?

Back away from the meme.
posted by allthinky at 8:54 PM on May 25, 2016 [4 favorites]


The assertion that it's strictly a mocking thing just seems kind of out of touch with the degree to which younger people have been exposed to AAVE presented as cool. But this take seems right on:

Maybe not deliberately, but there's a certain slumming quality to it. If a non-black teen is using AAVE cadences, I think the default assumption is likely to be that that teen is in fact "adopting a dialect as the teenage slang of the now." That it's a vocal mask they can take on and off at will for their amusement, and doesn't taint them as being fundamentally unintelligent or uneducated. It's a cool little feather in their cap of versatility.
posted by atoxyl at 9:38 PM on May 25, 2016 [4 favorites]


It's already been shown in this thread that the meme is equally funny in AAVE or more formal English (I'd argue it's more funny the second way but that's not the point). I'd also argue that this is funny for the same reason tharDammn Daniel is funny: it's the making a big deal out of nothing. Damn Daniel is a couple of white kids talking like white kids. You don't need AAVE for the laughs.

So, if the meme doesn't have to be AAVE in order to have the intended effect, the question is: should it? Well, if we knew the identify of the, um, "author", we might be able to answer that question more definitively (I'm assuming, of course, that if the author was an African American folks wouldn't feel the need to tell him or her how to speak in a goddamned meme).

But, even if the creator is white, or even a non-AA black person, is the use of AAVE, in this context really so bad? The meme uses what, AFAICT, is understandable and coherent AAVE without unnecessary mangling, without connotations that tie it to other anti-black stereotypes (drug use, guns, absent fathers, etc). Even if the intent of the creator was to be racist -- isn't it generally agreed that impact is more important than intent? And, unlike some of the stuff that I see on "black" twitter, this isn't doing much besides acknowledging that AAVE is a thing that exists (and also, there is a frog on a unicycle).

Overall, I don't think that I want to be on an internet where white people are discouraged from creating or sharing "black" memes, because I don't want all the memes to be white memes.

And in closing: Raceemojis are a terrible idea. Everything should have just stayed yellow (and whoever started implementing the white skinned ones should be fired).
posted by sparklemotion at 9:38 PM on May 25, 2016 [3 favorites]


The white folks' version of dat boi is James Baxter.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:39 PM on May 25, 2016 [4 favorites]


Is that confirmed, or is it just an assumption based on reddit's loudest userbase?

Reddit as a whole sitewide has interestingly(convienently?) not included race data when they do their huge user surveys, but any time i've seen any sort of survey on another subreddit it was not only young and male but young male and white. Even in anti-shitty-reddit/minority subreddits.

Even shitredditsays is 80% white.

And it's proven extremely hard to find, but there was a long SRS thread where someone drilled down in to multiple profiles of people sarcastically posting in AAVE on that sub, and they also regularly shitposted in some very racist or just generally shitty subreddits, like gamergate type stuff.

Reddit as a whole is probably something like 80% white and 80% male. This is hard to quantify or prove, but if you watch the fights that go down over shitty behavior in not super tightly moderated subs with any kind of minority population it becomes pretty clear that a large portion of the users, even if way lower than that, are defending shitty talking points ala the people fighting against the "pc police" on post aesthetics.

Could it be POC disagreeing with other POC? Yea, but on a site that's consistently full of shitty white dude behavior it seems impossible that at least a good hearty helping of it isn't that.

So i guess it is partially an assumption, but i spent a lot of time watching how people behave on reddit and seeing subs like that get essentially invaded. Womens subs, minority subs, etc. A lot of those subs are run by white guys. It's a weird, weird dynamic.

I really don't feel like i'm whitewashing a subculture. I feel like outside of super tightly moderated or private subs, any subculture on reddit will be invaded and whitewashed on its own.
posted by emptythought at 10:10 PM on May 25, 2016 [5 favorites]


Overall, I don't think that I want to be on an internet where white people are discouraged from creating or sharing "black" memes, because I don't want all the memes to be white memes.

Um. White people don't do all the things?
posted by allthinky at 10:12 PM on May 25, 2016 [1 favorite]


Um. White people don't do all the things?

Yes, but they do make up a sizeable population of the English-speaking Internet, and probably have an outsized effect on what does or doesn't get disseminated or go "viral" (see, e.g. discussion of reddit demographics above) to the point where it turns up on my radar.
posted by sparklemotion at 10:17 PM on May 25, 2016 [1 favorite]


I also encounter a heck of a lot of younger people who speak in AAVE, like Jacqueline mentioned. It most likely happened because of the popularity of rap and hip hop culture. It's everywhere. I hear it from my (many) nieces and nephews, and especially from 20-somethings and teens at music events, even if it's nothing to do with hip-hop. It's appropriation, but if you're 14 and you're a white suburban kid who listens to rap, and all your friends are speaking AAVE, you're probably going to figure out how to fit in and speak like everyone else. I feel like this kind of humor isn't really about mockery for a lot of people, because AAVE has become their vernacular, but it's appropriation and is still problematic.
posted by krinklyfig at 12:20 AM on May 26, 2016 [4 favorites]


If I say "oh shit waddup", you would not be able to tell if I was enthusiastically embracing black culture or mocking it. I'm fairly convinced there is no way my middle-aged white arse can use AAVE without it having at least an echo of mockery, no matter my intention.

In some ways, it doesn't seem a lot different than telling a stranger she's beautiful. It may be heartfelt, or even meant as a way to make her day better, but there is such a fraught social dynamic there it's far better to keep it to yourself.

Outcomes are important, intentions not so much.

Whites are the dominant culture. I think it's OK to let non-white parts of our society have things that are theirs alone, even if we admire those things. Maybe when we've written the reparation checks, stopped killing black kids with our cops, and reformed our institutions to eliminate institutional racism we can truly embrace black culture without it being just another bout of colonization.
posted by maxwelton at 12:44 AM on May 26, 2016 [9 favorites]


I feel like this kind of humor isn't really about mockery for a lot of people, because AAVE has become their vernacular, but it's appropriation and is still problematic.

I feel like most of it isn't about mockery necessarily, but i also got the same distinct feeling Frowner did that in this instance it is.

It's something about how yea, it's the entire sentences and how every variation of the meme riffed on "haha look here it is in OLDE english!" and such.

Individual phrases can also be used in mocking ways too, and are regularly. But nah, i grew up with this happening in middle/high school/college online and off, and this one stinks to high heaven of "the joke is that it's AAVE". Just because AAVE gets appropriated a lot doesn't mean that this is just how kids speak now.
posted by emptythought at 12:50 AM on May 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


It seems like we keep trying to parse the intent and/or the impact of using this meme. As in: are people mocking black people? And should anyone be that upset by this? The answer could be yes or no to both of those questions and this still would be cultural appropriation.

As a general rule, I think we should believe people when they say "hey this is taken from my culture." In this case, I think there is additional evidence: there has been discussion around this meme about how it is contextless ("no one knows where this came from!"). My sense is the "contextless" is the frog on the bike part (for sure!), but there is added "ha! What is this?!" if you don't speak AAVE/see AAVE as a foreign language.

Finally, my respect for mods has skyrocketed after reading this piece. I really liked that window into things. Are mods unionized?!
posted by CMcG at 1:15 AM on May 26, 2016 [5 favorites]


I'm curious if we're hitting peak meme soon or if it's going to be a staple of Internet distraction for a while yet.

FWIW I thought "dat boi" along with "o shit waddup" was just an odd pairing of British and US slang meant to be absurd. Sort of like a a frog on a unicycle…

Thanks for the article naju.
posted by monocultured at 1:33 AM on May 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


I understand each point in this argument and disagree with each. But I could see this Becoming A Thing.


One could expand it to culture:

White people adopting Black language/music/culture = appropriation, thus racism
White people avoiding Black language/music/culture (i.e., listening only to country music and speaking in a combination of business-school jargon and steampunky aristocratic anachronisms) = White supremacy/separatism, thus racism

In other words: everything has a racist subtext if you look hard enough, and subscribe to the idea of the death of the author (i.e., that intent is irrelevant)
posted by acb at 2:09 AM on May 26, 2016 [11 favorites]


Didn't Spike Lee say something like, black people make up 10% of the US but provide 90% of what is cool about it.

I think that may have been pre-internet or some time in the 90's. Maybe I should make a meme of that!
posted by asok at 2:37 AM on May 26, 2016 [5 favorites]


it the same meme? Does it read the same? If not, then the words used within it are important to its meaning, and it's worth considering what that meaning is—and what the joke of the meme is and whether it's problematic.

Let's not leave out Thug Kitchen as an example. There have been some threads here on it, though I won't grab them now as I'm in transit. Without tha appropriation it's basically "dude, here are some vegan recipes."
posted by Miko at 3:10 AM on May 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


Just going to say that I violently disagree with a lot of what has been said here on appropriation, but after two metatalks about this topic, I've learned not to expend my energy arguing with white people about it. But just wanted to put that out there in case anyone thinks that the conspicuous silence from PoC on this topic now means that we all approve.
posted by Conspire at 6:17 AM on May 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


people going lol aave sounds silly/dumb (even subconsiously) drives a lot of internet language/memes, IMO -- see also: on fleek, fuckboys, ain't no one got time for that, etc., etc., etc.


I think this is a true yet slightly difficult way to approach this, because I think a lot of white people (me included) don't see memes like "dat boi" as denigrating anyone, or even as something that sounds silly or dumb. I found humor in "ain't nobody got time for that" because it is cool, casual, expressive . . . it's just such an on-point way of expressing that sentiment and yet so unexpected that it's humorous to me, and I assume to other white people. Saying "you are mocking AAVE and people of color with these memes," will get, as we can see in this very thread, a response of, "What?!?! No I'm not!!!!"

Regardless of whether white people realize it, though, the fact is that in these memes, someone else's minority dialect is being used for entertainment purposes, and that's pretty gross in my opinion.
posted by chainsofreedom at 6:31 AM on May 26, 2016


Yet somehow we all *immediately* process the joke.

No. Not all of us.
posted by Splunge at 6:54 AM on May 26, 2016


I've found it very interesting how quickly the "YouTube personalities" are appropriating AAVE. And the vast majority of these personalities are white teens. I saw fucboi burn a fire through these communities, and fleek, and a ton of other things, and there's probably a ton I didn't even know were appropriated from AAVE.

And it's very specific and intentional. It's amazing how effectively these kids have already learned how to wield appropriation to their advantage and literal profit.
posted by mayonnaises at 12:19 PM on May 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


I think there's a huge difference between mockery and emulating something because you think its cool or fun. Additionally, not all forms of emulation are appropriation.

Personally, it never occurred to me that "oh shit waddup" was AAVE (much less meant to mock AAVE) because "waddup" just sounds like another version of "wassup," which I've been using myself ever since that zany beer commercial a zillion years ago.
posted by Jacqueline at 1:48 PM on May 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


I think there's a huge difference between mockery and emulating something because you think its cool or fun

So, I don't think many people are getting that this is still totally the problem we're talking about. It's still, to quote the FPP, "a concerning increase in the commodification of black culture on the Internet". Using AAVE for borrowed cool or for 'zany fun' is 100% part of commodification, colonization, etc.

Not everything can or should be viewed through the lens of mockery=bad, non-mockery=good. That's an overly simplistic, cartoonish view of a complex topic!

For the record, I posted this FPP not to be a debate on the racial politics of Dat Boi, believe it or not - I posted it as a very fascinating case study in the new ways that online communities filled with young people are parsing and grappling with these questions. Metafilter has been dealing with them, but in fact, so are Facebook groups that are mostly just designed for ironic laughs and shitposts. There's a lot to learn about our changing values, changing awareness, and maybe what happens post-4chan internet lulz when digital natives who want to be mature and progressive try to find spaces to enjoy themselves.
posted by naju at 2:07 PM on May 26, 2016 [8 favorites]


I suspect that there is a MLE type thing brewing on the internet, where kids that have grown up on snapchat/facebook/online gaming etc. can make a legitimate argument that they're not appropriating asian emoticons or AAVE expressions or brazilian memes, it's just how everyone posts. That being said, I thing you're shit out of luck in trying it on if you're older than 13.
posted by fido~depravo at 2:58 PM on May 26, 2016 [4 favorites]


Data Point: I live near Chicago and many people from various back-grounds speak like this. For example, for many years we have refered to our local sports teams as "Da Bears", "Da Bulls" etc. I call this local accent "Calumese". Not saying that the meme isn't AAVE, just that it's a bit bean-platey. It's a mostly harmless, not-funny meme that will probably be forgotten about come winter.
posted by ambulocetus at 4:16 PM on May 26, 2016


Darn, missed the edit window. Here is an example of a native Calumese speaker reviewing movies in his local dialect http://wxrt.cbslocal.com/audio/going-to-the-show-with-a-regular-guy-on-93xrt/
posted by ambulocetus at 4:26 PM on May 26, 2016


IIRC, "da bears" and "da bulls" gave rise to and fed off of Saturday Night Live parodies of Polish-American Chicago culture?
posted by gusandrews at 9:22 PM on May 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


Someone just sent me a pic with Bernie Sanders wearing a tie with frogs riding unicycles on it.
posted by BrotherCaine at 11:48 PM on May 26, 2016 [4 favorites]


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