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| This is Diddy; Drew Gooden; Tim Thomas |
apparently the new nickname for comically large suits is "Chopper Suits", so named after our old friend Chopper (from Da Band) who put out a video in 2009 to take shots at some folks and let the world know he's a boss these days. Except no one informed him that bosses who survived the 90s now wear tailored suits, not one-size-fits-all from off the rack at the big-and-tall store that's going out of business. So he embarrassed himself and now he's an internet meme, and every day, literally, people eat breakfast, say their prayers, get dressed, make a joke about chopper suits, then go to work where they will probably read other people's jokes. There's well over 500 comments, and counting. Someone in 2009 said, "yo, the comments are the best!". if you want to squint a little, here's a sampling.
that was in 2009. here's some of the 2011 variety
a couple quick takes on the comments:
1. everyone is saying the n word, but most people are not actually spelling the full n-word. which is sort of amazing per the Louis CK theory of Might As Well Say It...
2. the cultural details in threads like this are ridiculous. Overton from Living Single, every Michael Clarke Duncan character, nuggets on OJ, sports commentary. it's a black pop culture seminar, basically.
Anyha. Chopper Suits! Maybe you want to wear one for Halloween?
"the cultural details in threads like this are ridiculous. Overton from Living Single, every Michael Clarke Duncan character, nuggets on OJ, sports commentary. it's a black pop culture seminar, basically." - it seems like Black culture has maintained a set of shared communal references longer than white culture has (era of 3,000 channels, etc.). Do you think this continues/will continue to be true in the the Internet Age?
ReplyDeletei don't know if having reference is any different black v white. writing thati thought about this catalano generation piece on slate. and there's different ecosystems with, maybe, different rules. but they're both chock full of references
ReplyDeletei think internet age makes all that more accessible and tangible. an overton from living single gif is amazing workaround to the problem of maybe not getting that reference in anecdotal writing or conversation
Great article...But isn't part out the point of it that our-ish generation (How old are you? 40?) or mini-generation is distinct from Gen X but not atomized by the millennial generation?
ReplyDeleteThe dominant theory is that the Millenials don't have shared references - you don't think that differs across racial lines?
Probably not...maybe it's just the acute awareness of the outsider perceiving those on the relative other side of the glass as more united than they are...but it sometimes seems to me there's still a certain set of black cultural fare that more Black people share knowledge of, just because some black cultural products (esp. movies and TV) are still more limited, casting still segregated, etc.
These suits convos are definitely older references - so there's probably just as many white cultural references for *that* time. What I'm asking is, do you think there are any racial differences around the cultural atomization phenomenon?
Diddy looks so young, how old is he in that picture?
ReplyDeleteThere were over 6000 comments on that post. THey deleted most.
ReplyDelete