To think this isn't racist?

[Sparklfairy]

There's a trend doing the rounds on tiktok at the moment. For those who don't know, this is when a particular dance or trick is recreated by many users.

This particular trend involves mining a comedy skit on contouring, while applying makeup. The skit is very funny, so I looked it up. It turns out the original video is by an American vlogger, and someone has 'lifted' the audio without their permission and now it's doing the rounds on tiktok.

The original creator is furious, and is calling racism, saying 'white people think they can steal everything'. It's turning into a massive race row on SM.

As a white woman, I'm not sure how it's racist. It's not a piss take of her and makes no reference to race in the skit. She seems to be insinuating that it wouldn't have been 'stolen' if she was white

Am I wrong here? The way I see it, she's got a million more views on YouTube as a direct result of this, and yet she's turned it into something completely different. If a man lifted my creative work I wouldn't automatically cry misogynist...

Miming not mining*

There's been lots of thinking that's developed recently around eg twerking as cultural appropriation or using memes of Black actors as digital blackface.

Does it really matter what majority-white MN posters think?

What would be worse about your life if you chose to respect that for some people including the person who had content stolen for tiktok videos, it does represent an issue?

I haven’t seen the thread so can’t comment really. I doubt that it was deliberately racist but it sounds like cultural appropriation. Google it. It’s possible that the original creator felt that the copier took her idea without due care for the cultural nuance and tried to emulate the ideas as a white person in a heavy handed way. It’s a complicated area: not straightforward old fashioned racism but more unwitting and institutional racism.

I haven't seen it so it's hard to know without context.

Are you saying that they are taking the piss out of a black woman basically doing a make-up tutorial? (ie doing make-up aimed for black women) And that the people taking the piss are white people?

Apologies if I've misunderstood it, but if that's correct then yes it does sound like it has racist undertones to be honest. It certainly plays into a stereotype about black women's hair/skin/make-up being something to be mocked/belittled

Ok, yeah sorry I should have said it's not cultural appropriation either. She's a black American woman, putting on a British accent and saying funny things about how women must contour in order to bewitch men into handing over their wallets. I'll post the link so you can see what I mean.

Plenty of white people's stuff has been lifted for tiktok 😏

Sick of Americans appropriating all the good British stuff!

Uuurgh! I am Scandinavian and if we acted the same way regarding "cultural appropriation" and "disrespect" towards our culture, there would be massive issues every single time a movie or television series with Scandi setting come out. Like in the Avengers movies where Heimdal is black and the golden-haired (as in actual gold, not blond. Actual gold) Sif has black hair and is not married to Thor nor does she appear to ever have been married to Thor. Also it is a bleeding warhammer he has. In "Vikings" they like to go on about how Thor hits his anvil! That is not insulting at all! Don't get me started on how the names are pronounced!

In the films, they have mountains in Denmark and there appear to be no big cities in any of the Scandinavian countries. Even when it is supposed to be a modern film, all the Scandinavian countries are suddenly stuck somewhere around 1830 both in clothing and behaviour. Despite being known to be the countries in the world to be some of the most modern and most egalitarian. We joke about the time difference between Scandinavia and the US is approx 8-10 hours and 60 years.
We just go "Tsk tsk, Americans! What are you gonna do?". Maybe in the future we will instead show up at the movie studios and throw surströmning at them and leave legos on the floor. That'll teach them.

She's a black American woman, putting on a British accent

Could this not be seen as cultural appropriation? (not that I'm particularly precious about all that stuff).

In the films, they have mountains in Denmark

oh dear

But then, in an American film the houses in Regent's Park are quite clearly transplanted from Bayswater, so what can you do?

If you don’t get your own way and all else fails cry racism and everyone will agree with you for fear of being labelled racist (opinion of person claiming racism not OP/PP)

But, by her logic, surely what she’s doing is cultural appropriation and therefore she is being racist? Anyway, she’ll be doing it for the YouTube hits and will be delighted with all of this.

By God she's annoying, watching that video 😬

Sick of Americans appropriating all the good British stuff!

I don't know. Her other videos have her natural voice, not this faux British accent (which imo is cultural appropriation itself, yes). She is funny but I must admit I was disappointed that her reaction was to call racism. It could all be some clever pr trick though to garner more controversy and attention I suppose.

But maybe people in Scandinavia would be sore about it if a few hundred years ago people in Southern Europe abducted and enslaved a huge proportion of their population, bought , sold and abused them in pretty much every way possible, and excused their behaviour by saying that they were animals with good speaking skills.

It is hard for white people to understand racism when it is not directly filled with hatred, but it is quite easy to see with the above as your history that you’d be more inclined to take offence at anything the oppressing race did that feels a bit off, because you are already way over sensitive due to old wrongs that have never been/ can’t be righted.

@ohyesiam but Africans also sold their prisoners and slaves to europeans during that time. In fact the slave trade sadly hasn't stopped and many, many white and black people are still being sold to be abused and subjected to a life most people could never imagine.

She annoyed me after 15 seconds.

There's a certain trend of black women's work being meme-ified without attribution that fits a pattern of misogynoir. I think you might want to do soem googling. Not telling you what to think but a lot of black women have written about this and it might be helpful for you to read their perspectives rather than asking a largely white message board if you are genuinely seeking to understand..

There's nothing cultural about twerking or contouring!
Try going to an art gallery or reading a book.

BAME women are often disenfranchised, I can totally see that their work would be appropriated / misattributed more readily than the work of white women.

Is it normal for people to make their own versions of other people's videos on tiktok, or is this generally considered something like plagiarism? I don't really understand the joke of her video to understand why others would copy it.

My god she's annoying, isn't she? From what I could bear to watch, there was nothing whatsoever in the video that could be seen as specifically cultural and relating to WoC, or any other race for that matter.

The only thing I can surmise is that she doesn't like people taking the piss out of her, and she's decided to play the race card.

Speaking as a WOC, if I never hear the words "cultural appropriation" again it will still be too soon.