Sorry SNL, Gen Z Didn’t Invent That Slang
A recent sketch highlights how little people understand about the Black origins of internet language.
ICYMI · Slate Podcasts
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Show Notes
Rachelle and Madison discuss Elon Musk’s episode of Saturday Night Live. Specifically they break down the ”Gen Z Hospital” sketch, where everybody seems to be speaking in internet slang, and the backlash to it. Rachelle explains how all the language used isn’t just from the internet or from Zoomers but from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). This isn’t a new thing, of course—white Americans have been appropriating Black culture for as long as America has been around—but as this Paper magazine article by Rob Dozier points out, the internet has made it particularly easy for those words to lose their original context.
Podcast Production by Daniel Schroeder and Derek John.
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