*WARNING:
NatDivine and Blogger cannot be held liable for any ratchetness you may incur
whilst reading this post, watch the videos and clicking the links. You may want
to hide yo wife, hide yo kids, yo finest lace front and yo ebt card before
you read this post!*
To get a better understanding of
what this post is in reference to, click
this link to Part 1. Read before continuing please :D
Just as the internet, video-sharing
sites and the Colored-Folk run blogs with content geared toward “black folk”
catapulted the awkward
black nerd identity, so has
it spawned the sporadic f*%kery that is “Supa Ratchet”.“Ratchetness” itself is
not a new phenomenon in the treasure trove of identities ascribed to black
people over the few hundreds of years. However, the term "ratchet"
has been recently labeled to the content.
The word is actually a southern
colloquialism. The word “ratchet” is the ebonic cousin to the English
word for “wretched” (which stands for someone or something of low caliber, poor
quality or unpleasant state). When written in its romanized form, it looks like
“ratchet”, when spoken it is said
with a southern twang.
Social media and video sharing sites
have been the primary sling that has shot “ratchetness” to Sup Ratchet status
and the forefront of what identity of blackness is supposed to be.
Mainstream media can also be named a culprit in the creation of le
“Rachet” and one could point out stations like VH1, news
stations, shows like “House Wives” shows, and MSNBC
docs for maintaining the
black stereotype of le “ratchet”. These shows and relics of old media
don't hold a thing to the impact new media and sites such as world star hip hop,
Media Takeout , twitter and the power of Youtube that not only accept the ratchetness,
but celebrates the tom-foolery that occurs as a result of le ratchetness. (and
profits exponential)
Old media outlets (news, television
and cable networks) were able to contain and present ratchetness between items
of serious news and entertainment segments of the day (except VH1 of course).
Ratchetness was (is) spread to the masses but not to its fullest capacity. The
mainstream media lacked continual visibility. To become a true
all-encompassing structured identity ratchetness needed another faster, strong,
dedicated avenue to mature. The miracle (or curse) of online media is that it’s
a 24 hour content monster that can dedicate whole sections of the web to the
nurturing and molding of a variety of different identities; hyper stimulation
for the fiends of ratchet content. Hence why I call this identity “Supa
Ratchet.”
From cursing kids, to anthems,
to churches singing fast food jingles on the
corner, to gangsters dancing in diapers, to this *ish, and much, much, more; ratchetness has come into its
own. Ratchness can be identified, has its own language , music (See: Youtube ), styles, websites (See: world star hip hop) and epistemology (yolo). As noted in one of the
links I've presented, ratchetness is not only a "black thing" but can
be enjoyed by members of all races. However, if you were to google ratchetness...mmmhmmm. (The ire of a
community can be seen here).
Ratchetness if its
own distinguishably unique identity; however, even with ratchet content being
streamed at the online community at the speed of light it has not been able to
quell the online communities hunger for come content.. From pure ratchetness to structured ratchness you can see
throughout YouTube and other online mediums. From ratchet girls
anthem, to faux-ratchet
rap, to sketches,
Supa Ratchet is born. Supa Ratchet is just a
In my last identity clash post I
was able to identify the King and Queen of the Awkward Black Nerd identity;
however, for this identity I can't quite peg a queen and king because of the
nature of ratchets. Ratchetness is an identity but it isn't a consistent
one; it is capricious, fleeting and amorphous. Ratchetness is had within a
moment and reveals itself at the most inopportune timing for the perpetrators
of it. The Sweet Browns and
Antoine Dodsons weren’t out to be “ratchet”, unfortunate events occurred and
they reacted…while the public labeled and auto-tuned their reactions. I'd have
to update this post at least 3 times a week to crown a new King and
Queen.
The
awkward black nerd identity is fairly new it has a solid foundation; “pure”
ratchetness is not a new phenomenon is very inconsistent and forever changing.
The awkward black nerd was constructed by the black online community as opposed
to Ratchet being another identity that was constructed and placed upon the
black community like the jezebel, the crackhead, the mammy, the welfare queen
and the other more deplorable identities. With the nurturing of the online
community, with its infinite supply of ratchet content coupled with 24 hours
access created the Supa Ratchet identity.
So where does the black community
go from here with these two emerging identities? I don't know. \o_0/
I think both are very interesting
and more attention needs to be given to these and many other new
black identities emerging from the online revolution.
Part 1 Here
