amyntrun

[amyntrun]

Criticism or Mockery

we all know the controversial app Tiktok and it’s main audience being teenagers. Videos get posted and they either go viral for good or bad reasons. Good usually means that it was funny or educational or brought up something everyone can agree with. Bad on the other hand would typically mean that it’s a result of something grotesque, something being called “humor” when in actuality it is not even remotely close to being funny. The same thing could be said about vital trends. 

At some point, it was viral on tiktok to post videos mocking classmates. Creators like strangeK3vin got a lot of his following posting videos about “the quiet kid”. (Some of these videos would get views between 5-14 million). Some tiktok users would post videos about certain classmates making fun of their accent, looks, behavior, or anything like it. it seemed like it was trendy calling classmates out for being “extra” or being “that one type of classmate”(Cooksauce, 3-6-22, with 6442 views). A bit reason this kind of thing began to trend in the first place was because users thought they were criticizing this behavior; maybe if they call it out, people would stop behaving a certain kind of way. Then, as more and more of these kinds of videos started to pop up, the line got murky and these videos became blatant mockery if not even racist. This kind of “blackface without the face paint” ( QUARTZ, “Teens on TikTok have no clue they’re perpetuating racist stereotypes“) has deep rooted history and while kids may not understand, can result in a damaging future. 

Classmates would post videos with specific, damaging stereotypes for views, and likes. People that noticed this issue would use this trend to set these kinds of videos for “good” using the same stereotypes but instead of making the main character annoying or “extra” they would end up being quite nice and someone that just wants to help. Regardless of the character, this kind of thing became normalized in tiktok and you can still see examples of it today. 

Why is this an issue? Isn’t this just an app for kids? Well, yes, but these are the kids that have it in them to change the world we live in tomorrow. Constantly throwing out damaging stereotypes doesn’t get up anywhere and everyone should understand that this kind of behavior has consequences. More on this you can watch “ Digital blackface: Here's how teens are perpetuating racist stereotypes on the internet “

[amyntrun]

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A post shared by Movemakers Philly (@movemakersphilly)

I found this video on Instagram when I was broadly searching under the hashtag “hiphop”, and this education program came up. Premier Hip Hop Dance Education Program Is for elementary, middle, & high school students in downtown Philadelphia. The classes range from in person to online dance tutorials and even teach children as young as 3-4 years old. All of the instructors are close and grew up together, so they already know what the community needs because in a way, they are sharing the community that they grew up in and are now helping grow up. They made this program growing up without one and just wanted others to grow up expressing themselves through dance.

What really caught my attention as I was looking into this program are the different age groups and the different kinds of kids. I guess I didn’t expect so many children in one place to have such a strong passion towards dance in the first place. As Camille Brown explains in her video A History of African American Social Dance, “Why do we dance? To move, to let loose” and that is exactly what we get to see in these videos of little kids just having a blast with their instructors and its pretty darn cute!

Camille Brown's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpCBMwAweDI