Black Panther made me go bald

Everyone and their mothers have heard about the hype surrounding Black Panther: the installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that broke records and glass ceilings and whose impact can be seen around the nation.

Even I, a stoic badass who has no time for tears, found myself tearing up about 15 minutes in. And again 5 minutes later. And again at the end of the movie. There was just something so impactful about seeing powerful, strong, sexy Black people in a blockbuster movie that’s not about slavery.

Surprisingly, I’m not here to talk about how incredible Black Panther is. I’m here to talk about me. More specifically, I’m here to talk about this:

My friend Noelle shaved my head.

It felt fun, fuzzy, and freeing.

I shaved my head.

During Black Panther’s end credits, through my torrential tears, I turned to my friend Noelle and said: “I wanna shave my head.” After making sure I wasn’t making an impulsive decision I’d regret later, she drove me to Walmart so I could buy a razor, and then she shaved all my hair off.

For those of you who know me, you know that my hair has always been a big part of my identity. I’ve been cutting and dying it since I was 14, and I consider it an extension of my personal style and ~creative expression~.

Red bowl cut-27.8.13

Black bob-31.10.14

Natural-colored afro-4.2.16

Blue pixie cut-10.4.16

Purple w/ undercut-13.3.17

Multicolor w/ undercut-16.12.17

Though I’ve done just about every short style under the sun, I never pictured myself going bald. For Black women everywhere, hair has always been an important element of beauty and culture.

Anti-Black racism across the world has created a global culture that prefers straight hair. Many Black women, including myself, grow up thinking that their natural hair can’t be appropriate, professional, or beautiful.

I tried to go natural right before I started college, but I wasn’t ready. Though at the time I appreciated the beauty of Black people’s natural hair, I couldn’t accept those same styles on myself.

After less than a year, I found myself back at the salon, getting my hair pressed once again. I told everyone that straight hair that I didn’t have to detangle fit into my college schedule which was partially true, but it wasn’t why I went back to straightening my hair.

I didn’t know how to love myself with my natural hair because growing up, I never had any role models with hair like mine. My standard of beauty was entirely centered around Eurocentric ideals, and the blackest thing about me has always been my kinky, coily, untameable hair.

I shaved my head as an act of rebellion against these ideals. I shaved my head because I am not my hair. I shaved my head to show myself that I don’t need hair to be beautiful.

I don’t want any more little Black girls to feel like they have to have long, straight hair to be beautiful. In all honesty, I don’t want anyone to feel like they have to be beautiful or anything other than who they are.

To me, Black Panther is about more than just the addition of a Black superhero. It’s about giving little Black boys and girls people to look up to. People they can aspire to be like without feeling like they have to discard their culture or change parts of themselves.

The Man with Night Sweats is a survivor

Thom Gunn’s collection entitled The Man with Night Sweats is a snapshot of the HIV/AIDS epidemic as it unfolded. As usual, Gunn’s expert use of imagery brings the reader with him through the journey of a man watching his friends and lovers fall victim to the vicious disease.

The Hug

The collection begins with “The Hug” in which Gunn writes about a night of intimacy with a loved one. The innocence of their encounter comes through in his descriptions of their night together. In the moments captured in this poem, it’s clear that neither Gunn nor the other man involved had any idea of what was come. Gunn writes, “I only knew/the stay of your secure firm dry embrace.”

Philemon and Baucis

This piece tells the story of two trees that have grown together and molded to each other. Though he never equates the trees to himself and his lover, the connection is clear. Reading this, I found myself invested in the trees’ relationship to each other. Gunn explains how the trees, who once “woke separate through the pale grey night” have now “met and wedded in one flow.”

The Man with Night Sweats

The third poem in Gunn’s collection shares a title with the entire collection. It gives the reader an intimate look at the pain of a man with AIDS. In this poem, Gunn tells the story of a typical night of physical and emotional misery. He reflects on his youth when “[his] flesh was its own shield: where it was gashed, it healed” and laments the risks he took that led to where he is now. Of the whole collection, this piece offers the most all-encompassing view of the experience that Gunn was trying to capture.

Lament

“Lament” is the most emotional piece in the whole collection. Gunn shares his experience of losing a loved one to AIDS. Throughout the poem, he details the journey that he and his lover took that starts with his lover falling ill and ends with Gunn alone. In the end, Gunn remarks that his emotional state is “not enough like pain.” Again, he brings up the risky behavior that he attributes to his lover’s death, but his regret is paired with something like a fondness for the “fickleness” of their earlier lives.

The Missing

In Gunn’s “The Missing,” he details the losses that he experienced after that of his lover. Through the gay community, Gunn had a vast network of friends and acquaintances whose “push kept [him] as firm as their support.” Losing these connections has left him “less defined” and “unsupported.”

A Blank

As the closing poem of the collection, “A Blank” offers a realistically optimistic conclusion to Gunn’s experience with the AIDS epidemic. In the poem, he depicts encountering an old lover with his adopted child. The reader can imply that this lover’s decision adopt and raise a child “without a friend or wife” kept him from contracting HIV/AIDS.

By choosing to end the collection, which focuses on illness, death, and loss, with a poem about a man and his child, Gunn is showing that the AIDS epidemic, while profoundly impactful to the gay community, was not the end of all things. The child in the poem is “blank” because as a four-year-old, he has no experience with HIV or AIDS. This is a child who will move forward in his life without the darkness that the epidemic imposed on the lives of its survivors which, to Gunn, is the best thing that could’ve happened.

A meme by any other name…

These days on the internet, you can hardly go five minutes without encountering a meme. They’ve all but taken over Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and every other social media site under the sun. But what makes a meme a meme? Seriously, do you know? Because I have no idea.

The term has been rising in popularity since its creation in 1976 by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene. In it, Dawkins wrote “I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate ‘mimeme’ to ‘meme.’”

 

I doubt Richard Dawkins ever could’ve foreseen being turned into a meme himself.

 

Forty-one years later, the term “meme” has never been more common. While Merriam-Webster defines the word “meme” as both “an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture” and “an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media,” it’s pretty clear which of these definitions won the fight for the word.

Given the latter definition, it seems that almost any internet joke can be called a meme, thus explaining the term’s widespread use, and while I’m normally all for the fluidity and malleability of language, I’m not exactly on board with the idea that internet joke = meme.

One thing I really don’t like when it comes to language is redundancy. We create new words out of necessity, not just because we feel like it. The word “lit” exists because, in three letters, it captures a concept that is otherwise almost unexplainable. Once upon a time, the same could’ve been said for the word “meme.” And by once upon a time, I mean about 6-7 years ago.

Even though I’m only 20 years-old, I’ve been on the internet for a long time (having an older sibling will do that.) I saw the rise of the meme as a genre, and I’ve watched it devolve into what it is today. As a society, we cannot allow the word “meme” to become a term meaning any joke on the internet.

In my opinion, even Merriam-Webster’s definition is too broad because it ignores the copy quality of the meme. To me, what makes a meme a meme is the idea that it’s a structure to be replicated. In this way, a knock-knock joke could technically be considered a meme, but a standard question-and-answer joke couldn’t. The Smithsonian website features an amazingly comprehensive article entitled “What Defines a Meme?” that I highly recommend reading if you ever find yourself with an hour of free time.

Maybe I’m getting too caught up on semantics; a friend of mine always calls me pedantic, so this is highly likely. At the end of the day, how much does the evolution – or devolution – of the word “meme” mean? Do you agree, or do you think I’m getting too caught up on specifics? Are you wondering why I don’t dedicate my time to more important, pressing matters? Do you have a sick meme that you’re dying to share, but your friends just wouldn’t understand? Leave a comment and let me know.

Slang is not the root of all evil

In grade school, I used to be a rule-obsessed member of the “grammar police,” but like most other high schoolers, I eventually grew up. I realized years ago that upholding everyone to the same rules we had to follow when writing essays for school is a waste of time. It didn’t make me any better than anyone; it did make me an elitist jerk.

Language is an art to me—that’s why in elementary school, it’s called “language arts.” It is meant to be used in different ways to convey meaning, and as long as that meaning is conveyed, basically any use is correct.

If you pay attention to the internet, you’re probably aware of the constant flow of articles about the countless things that Millennials are “killing.” From napkins to diamonds to golf, our generation is, according to some, singlehandedly bringing about the destruction of several different industries. Unsurprisingly, the accusations don’t end there.

http://myotpisgay.tumblr.com/post/72308183006

Though the post is extremely sarcastic, the quote “durr hburr techonology is bad fire is scary and thomas edison was a witch” resonates with me. I basically just hear this whenever people try to condemn technology around me.

The idea that texting and the internet are ruining the English language is a common sentiment. It is also completely unfounded. Language is constantly evolving, and according to Donna L. Roberts, PhD in Psychology, “if our language never evolved … English may not have been created at all.”

People like William Shakespeare and John Milton who were considered extremely innovative in their times when it came to language are now cited as examples of old school, traditional English-users that we should all try to emulate. This is just evidence that since the beginning of time, people have looked to the past as a shining example of perfection while criticizing the youth for their own innovation.

 

What does this exchange even say? Darn millennials and their text-speak.

 

It does matter whether you say the party you went to last night was “exquisite” or “lit,” but not because one is superior to the other. Every new word added to the English language has a specific meaning. Calling your friend group “fam” isn’t the same as calling them your family because it denotes a closeness while making it clear that they’re not actually related to you. As English-speakers, we create new words when there is a need for them.

I suppose the main lesson I want you to learn from this post is that there’s nothing wrong with slang. If you choose to use it, more power to you. If not, that’s perfectly fine, too. Just don’t act like that makes you better than anyone else because, at the end of the day, the English language, along with every other language, is completely made up anyway.

So do you agree with me? Do you disagree? Did I say anything that made you angry, or did you read this whole post muttering “same” to yourself? Leave a comment and let me know what you think about my thoughts, opinion, and overall value as a person.

When you need to be relatable…

There are a few linguistic trends that have been popular on the internet for as long as I can remember. One of the most popular is the use of “when you” to start a sentence — and I use the term sentence loosely because in most cases, this phrase isn’t used in actual sentences.

The tendency to do this probably started way back in Ye Olde Internet when memes were composed of Rage Comics and Rickrolling.

A popular meme of the time was this nameless man, who was often accompanied by text depicting certain strangely specific emotions. Said text often included variations of “When you” phrases. Years later, the “tfw no gf” — or “that feel when no girlfriend” — meme gained popularity, thus increasing the prevalence of the “when you.”

 

 

 

The phrase “that awkward moment” definitely helped in increasing the commonality of “when you” statements. For a few years in internet history, almost every Facebook post and tweet started with “That awkward moment when…” (and the moments usually weren’t that awkward). This trend devolved into any sort of moment, be it awkward, annoying, depressing, or what have you.

Nowadays, people just usually start their posts with “when you.” Why? It denotes that the reference is supposed to be relatable, and people on the internet are all about relatability. Imagine if this adorable pug video was instead captioned “He’s way too excited about food.” That changes the impact completely, making it about the pug instead of it being about us.

I guess at the end of the day, “when you” statements are all about making sure that internet users can stay focused on themselves. To be fair, we’re all pretty self-obsessed these days, and starting a post with “when you” instead of something else makes sure that the reader knows it’s about them.

What do you think about “when you” statements? Do you love them? Do you wish they’d go the way of Rage Comics, or do you think they’ll stick around like Rickrolling. Are you wondering why I basically only cited Know Your Meme in this post? Leave a comment and let me know!

Punctuation humor is a thing

In 2017, punctuation has all new functions. Many years have passed since the advent of a mashup of different punctuation marks being used to signify cursing.

Nowadays, this trope is fairly uncommon, but punctuation has different uses in comedy. I’m a frequent user of #ironichashtags. I use them in tweets, Instagram posts, and even text messages.

I suppose I should start by explaining how a hashtag can be ironic. Any use of a hashtag other than it’s intended use as a mechanism for tagging things on social media is technically incorrect, but when it’s used to mock that intended use, it becomes ironic. For example, if I post an obviously edited photo on my Instagram with the hashtag #nofilter. For a further explanation, Ben Zimmer wrote a fabulous piece titled “The Art of the Self-Mocking Hashtag” that does a good job of summarizing the ironic hashtag’s use on Twitter with examples.

This gets complicated, though, when you’re like me and have been ironically hashtagging for so long that it’s now just a regular vernacular.

Is the hashtag still ironic if you’re not sure if you’re using it to mock? It’s similar to how I started saying “yo” ironically, but it’s now just something I say. As the late great Harvey Dent once said, “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” (It’s amazing how applicable quotes from The Dark Knight are in everyday situations.)

A different example of punctuation used for humor is the ™. It’s less common than the hashtag, but it’s definitely one of my favorites, and the fact that it’s available on the iPhone emoji keyboard means that it’s almost always in my frequently used tab.

This is another punctuation mark that I don’t use “properly.” For some reason, my friends and I find it hilarious to talk about Money Problems™ or The Depression™.

The interesting part about this phenomenon to me isn’t how these forms of punctuation can be used, but how they cannot be used. For example. I could text my friend “my life is #sohard” because, depending on the context of the message, the hashtag can denote sarcasm, irony, or emphasis. I could not, however, say “I went to the #store to get some food” because the hashtag here isn’t adding anything (unless, of course, I have an inside joke with my friends about stores).

So even though using # and ™ the way I, and many others, do is not prescriptively correct, there are still rules. Just like most other grammar structures, even when you’re using them “incorrectly,” there’s still a right and wrong way to do it.

If you constantly find yourself #IronicallyHashtagging, comment below. I’m starting a support group.

@BlackTwitter

My father’s parents moved to America from the Bahamas, and my mother and her family moved here from Barbados. Both of these countries are part of the West Indies, a stretch of islands between the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean. Though I’ve been submerged in American culture, I’m very aware of the ways in which my West Indian heritage impacts my personality, primarily the way that I speak. Sociologist Tricia Callender published a paper about the linguistic tendencies of Barbadian Americans, and in it, she asserts that Black Americans who hale from the West Indies tend to speak more closely to Standard American (or British) English than Black Americans whose families have lived in the US for generations.

This tendency definitely applies to me personally. I’ve always heard that people think I don’t “sound like a black person.” Aside from the statement’s problematic and offensive origins, it is somewhat based in fact. I don’t exhibit many linguistic phenomena typically associated with AAVE, or African American Vernacular English. This causes a sort of internal conflict when it comes to internet grammar and slang. I know I’m unlikely to be called out for appropriating AAVE, but sometimes I feel like that’s what I’m doing. Speaking in a manner that isn’t native to me. I didn’t do things like drop postvocalic r’s or use “lit” and “woke” until they became popular. So when it comes to Black Twitter, I feel like a complete outsider. I’m black, “woke,” and active on social media, but I can’t bring myself to participate in the active internet movement. Even so, I find it incredibly important that many members of Black Twitter employ AAVE in their efforts to “[bring] about a wide range of sociopolitical changes.” AAVE is often associated with a lack of intelligence, and the fact that its members subvert this stereotype by proudly using slang and nonstandard grammar for activism helps remove the stigma.

Many viral hashtags have originated from Black Twitter, including #OscarsS0White. The hashtag itself isn’t prescriptively correct, yet it accurately represents the problem to which it attempted to bring light. According to Pew’s 2012 study on Twitter demographics, one in four Twitter users is black, so statistically, it makes sense that black users influence pop culture and slang so much. From tweeting #ICantBreathe to calling things “on fleek,” Black Twitter could almost be considered a cultural zeitgeist. Its members are diverse, including black and non-black Twitter users, which is likely a part of the reason that Black Twitter is so linguistically innovative. In one segment on the Today Show about teen slang, terms including “bae,” “straight fire,” and “goals” were listed as examples of popular slang terms, and these three, along with all of the other terms in the video, originated from AAVE and were popularized on Twitter.

Through the practice of signifying, members of Black Twitter post tweets with layered meanings “in order to make sense of social events that have broken the social contract or that somehow disengage implicit social norms.” This practice results in tweets of 140 characters (or less) that somehow convey very complex ideas and experiences. This practice allows for something like #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen to become so popular on Twitter. At face value, the hashtag may appear polarizing and even marginalizing, but with further understanding, it turns from a snarky hashtag to a rallying cry for black and intersectional feminists everywhere.