Black Culture and the influence it has on society

The viral 2019 dance that took the internet by storm and launched the careers of influencers such as Charlie Damelio and Addison Rae was created by a young black girl Jalaiah Harmon from Georgia. Influencers who posted videos of this dance were able to gain millions of followers, likes, snag lucrative brand deals, and live halftime dances at Nba games while Jaliah was left without credit. It wasn’t until the 2020 NY times article that highlighted her as the original creator that she finally began to reap the benefits of her creativity. But even then she still wasn’t able to get near as many brand deals and opportunities and gain millions of followers like white the influencers who used her dance. Black people’s major contribution to current pop culture is rarely returned with people from the community being able to profit off of it. Viral dances on tik tok being created by young black people not only profit the artist of the song but the app itself. But these creators also find themselves fighting to get credit for their creativity. If we look at current shoe culture, this stems from hip hop music and artists along with the Y2K aesthetic that has made a return. Music groups like TLC and Destiny’s Child along with artists like Aaliyah and Missy Elliot pioneered the way for the current fashion culture.

The popularization of baby hairs, long dramatic nails, big lips, weaves, and wigs, all things that black women were ridiculed for are the epitome of hyper-feminity in the current day. Non-black women are even able to build brands off of this exact aesthetic when not many years ago black women were shamed for partaking in to express themselves. AAVE (African American Vernacular English) is now being rebranded as “ gen z slang” and terms and phrases that have been used in the black community for years are now being misused and the terms being diluted. AAVE carries the modern-day slang terms and a lot of funny quotable lines we see used on social media come from people like reality T.V star Nene Leakes or rapper Nicki Minaj. Black culture’s impact is undeniable because black people are beautiful, creative, expressive people and naturally this aesthetic is desirable.