opinions on slang appropriation??

the linguistic background of tiktok is very interesting

no, not the good "hmmm!" kind of interesting, the bad kind of interesting that gets you raising an eyebrow upon further scrutiny. 

tiktok is known for harbouring many kinds of people and communities, however, upon watching mainstream popular boy/girl humour content, one question might come to mind:

why are they talking like they're black???

dont know what i mean? here's some examples:

"hi twin" tiktoks, "unc/son/neph", "🥷🏿" etc. etc.

you might be wondering, "okay, how is that an issue?" and you wouldn't be wrong for asking that, it becomes an issue when these terms and phrases are taken from their communities and are used by #thosepeople; it becomes a form of cultural appropriation. unfortunately, this applies to situations outside of social media as well

while im all here for the spread of our culture, i feel like its not right for people to cherrypick what they like about it, such as the way we speak, act or dress, and leave (or even mock) the rest; these people don't understand the struggles of being black (more specifically african american), yet take what they find as "cool" or "hood" about the way we act and push it to the masses

that brings into question however:

what about the people who arent of black descent that are apart of these communities?

of course, there will always be people who grew up in these communities that are familiar with the culture and the stigma surrounding it, however #thosepeople doesnt refer to them; the term is in reference to the people who take culture and weld it until it's "palatable" and "acceptable"

does that mean you're a bad person if you talk like this?

hell no!!! language evolves overtime, words enter the vernacular of the general population, and its natural to speak the way the people around you do, but next time, when saying a word or phrase you heard on tiktok, think for a moment about where it came from or if you, as a white surburban male or female should be saying it 😭

glossary!!!:

scrutiny - observing something critically (according to google)

#thosepeople - white people

harbouring - keeping