The Pick Me Paradox: when misogyny comes full circle

pickme girl not like other girls tomato girl vanilla girl girls girl not a girls girl horse girl boy girl girl girl you know when you say a word so many times that it stops sounding like a word so let's try it right now picking say it with me everybody picking picking picking picking picking picking picking picking picking actually it still kind of does sound like a word but you get what I mean don't you it it does happen you know it I know it don't argue with me you better listen to me because I'm definitely

an authority on this topic because I know at least a hundred words in one language so yeah are you a woman who wears makeup pick me are you a woman who doesn't wear makeup pick me are you a woman who's mean to women pick me are you a woman who's suspiciously nice to women pick me but really ladies please pick me I I can neither swim nor drive but I make a swell day I promise oh since we're meeting I better introduce myself my name is Tarone and this is the only Channel on YouTube where

all videos are written and produced by a c she couldn't be in the video today because she's actually at a boine auction trying to get picked herself but if you like And subscribe she might appear in the oh oh god oh pH okay she's okay she's okay we we just misunder said what a Bine auction was that was a close call I thought it was you know like a bachelorette auction I'll never make that mistake again so for those who have just tuned in and are thinking pick what uh pck me girl is a term

used to describe a woman who puts down other women for male approval at least that's my simplified definition and if you're thinking wow this Tara mney person is way behind the discourse uh uh uh bite your to I've already made a video on this in fact two during the Heyday of the pck me discourse I listened to this band before it was cool so here's a rundown of the video where I was growing out a buzz cut and I didn't know how to apply acrylics I owe that first pick me video essay my YouTube career

basically when I uploaded it I had 300 subscriptions I then took down the video due to various mistakes factual eras you know and these things started to matter because I suddenly had a platform which was Wo I then re-uploaded it in December 2020 so just a few months later but it still is my most viewed video to this day you know I stand by a fair chunk of the things I say in it but that video has always caused a lot of internal conflict for me which is why I took it down for so long

I wasn't sure if I wanted it to represent myself you know and my content especially cuz it's the First videos you see if you go by most popular but I've decided to put it back up again recently because it's an important part of my career and you know transparency and growth and yada yada yada with all that in mind I think it's important to a few years down the line make an update video because oh a lot has happened since and the phrase pick me and mine and many women's many people's relationship with the phrase

pick me has has changed you know for starters it was a phrase that originated in African-American communities but the internet did its thing and now it is ubiquitous and having edited most of this video already if you need a drinking game just drink every time I say ubiquitous in this video and I promise you you will get very happily Tipsy unless you're underage then don't do it but yeah today's tale is going to be about a phrase that originated as a term to call out internalized m but then devolved into its own Frankenstein's monster where

it has now become a tool and a weapon to Aid misogyny arguably one would argue so how did this happen it's a mystery actually it isn't I'm I'm about to explain it but I do love me a mystery Alexa play mysterious girl by Peter Andre my non-british viewers are probably staring at me like but as I said I love mysteries I love the Great Gatsby and I love me a mobile game so imagine if there was a mobile game that involved a murder mystery and was set in the 1920s I mean that just sounds too

good to be true right there is June's Journey June's journey is a hidden object mystery game/ detective story set in the Roaring 1920s your main girl is June Parker who is determined like the girl ball she is to Sol her sister's murder and and unveil her family secrets and Scandals I like how you can have your own unique spin on the game by customizing and remodeling your own mansion and your garden Island H me query it's also just a very aesthetically pleasing game and has really made me want to go thrifting for 1920s clothing and

importantly the game is free to download you can get it on iOS or Android mobile devices or down download it on your PC using Facebook game so you can play it wherever and whenever suits you best if you fancy embarking on a murder mystery and Marie conding back in the 1920s download June's Journey free by clicking the link in the description box below or scanning the QR code on screen thank you jun's Journey for sponsoring thank you for helping out the channel and thank you for picking me get it anyway let's get back to it

[Applause] I'll keep this brief because I already have two videos on the pikme discourse but here's a cliff notes summary the term stems from bve aav black vernacular English africanamerican vernacular English and gained online notoriety when it trended on Twitter in 2016 with the hasht Tweet like a pme where black Twitter users tweeted satirical posts impersonating the caricature of a pikme its use then expanded across YouTube Tik Tok Instagram you name it and to those unaware of its Origins some misguidedly believe that it is a jz/ tick tock phrase a pikme puts down other women

in pursuit of being being picked by men whether it's romantically or for General male validation she wants to be picked over other girls whether it's being the love interest the guy's best female friend or hanging with the boys when no other girl is invited she's not like other girls she might refer to how she doesn't feel the need to wear makeup how low maintenance she is how she's one of the boys how she doesn't hang out with other girls because she doesn't like the drama if she's in a relationship she might be superior to other

girlfriends by going above and beyond what is required of girlfriend duties basically by waiting on him hand and foot and prioritizing his needs over her own if a woman says or does these things she might well be a pikme or at the very least dealing with some internalized misogyny she uses the phrase real women red flag she shames other women and places herself as the Madonna against the boy moms boy moms are massively pick me and if you aren't familiar what a boy mom is it's a mother of a son who has a fraan obsession

with her son my heart goes out to their daughters if they have any she might downplay women's struggles in order to score points with men you know saying really just silly claims like periods aren't even that painful I just pop an ibuprofen and I'm good to go maybe women shouldn't be allowed to vote and I'm saying that as a woman fellas she also might actively partake in rape culture whether it's victim blaming individuals or making blanket statements about women who accuse men of saay this term has at this point become ubiquitous you'll see it all

over YouTube Tik Tok Instagram Publications hell even psychology have studied the phenomenon but its use has strayed far from the original meaning and its original intention and well it's a mess and someone needs to tidy it up women get the to the [Music] kitchen there was a time and a place for the pi me label there were SLR women who actively put down other women whether it's women as an amorphous demographic or targeting individual women there are women who hurt women's causes and want to take away rights that other women benefit from or even survive

off of I think of women back then not being able to vote and having the whole one house one vote thing why would you marry a man who wouldn't vote in your best interest or you wouldn't agree with politically to begin with they don't like the other girls they have so low maintenance they don't even need rights the label didn't come from nowhere it's touching on a very real phenomenon and demonstrates how internalized misogyny plays an important role in sabotaging and stunting women's rights and progress however with the spread of the phrase its meaning has

become distorted I don't know if you ever played telephone as a kid but it's that game where you're in a circle you whisper something in the ear of the person next to you and it goes around the circle and then eventually you find out what the phrase has become I feel like that's what's happened with the phrase pick me one would argue one being me I am number one at I skating backwards and you can't disprove it women and girls are now labeled as pick me even when they're not making fun of other women at

all now where is this happening well would you be shocked if I said Tik Tok the hash pickme girl on Tik Tok has 3.1 billion views with many videos parodying or impersonating socalled pickme girls as Dr Christina Riley professor of critical race theory gender and critical race studies at American University explains the ubiquitous presence of these skits on TV and social media enables everyone to add something to the list of grievances pitted against this figure to the point where literally anything could qualify someone as a pikme girl ultimately this trend further perpetuates the sexism it

so vehemently strives to decry broadening the terms for women bashing and I'm aware that Tik Tok isn't the whole world but it is where the kids hang out and I would argue that younger people misusing the phrase will only pave problems for the future and now the initial use of Pik me was an Earnest attempt to deconstruct internalized misogyny I just don't think women should be president like I wouldn't trust me with the nuclear codes my hormones make me absolutely crazy I feel more comfortable in the kitchen than in an office if your man cheats

on you it's probably because you're getting fat I hardly wear makeup makeup is just for girls who are insecure objectify me please I'm begging ah most women actually like to be cheated on they're addicted to the drama but it a spiraled out of control and become yet another way to police female Behavior achieving the exact opposite of what it originally intended oh is that a spider ew oh my God you're such a pikme because I don't like spiders oh I hate when girls pretend to be scared of spiders I'll kill it okay most girls wouldn't

be able to do that but I can't do you know what pick me means I'm just wondering irona Tik Tok has given teen girls and grown women permission to tear each other apart for being too much too annoying too attention seeking too friendly too cool my best friend Christy is the Pinnacle of an unrealized pikme girl but basically the concept of an unrealized pikme girl is a girl who just doesn't even have to try like it doesn't matter what they do they're just cool then they just aren't pikm Chrissy I don't know what to tell

you excessive in whatever way annoys you that day I love those people who are like I'm so small don't laugh at me stop so what makes you pick me now having a name that starts with a and ends with a pick me like pick me pick me like pick me God it's a bit of a tongue twister but basically the song just says pick me I know this might seem like a cherry picking example but this video has 2 million likes wearing your skirt a certain way being openly bisexual and oh my favorite as a

slightly below average height girly being short and daring to be aware of it let's go get our skates wait for me I got little legs we should like compare hand sizes I know it's like you're holding a baby's hand like try and carry me stop I do not buy my shoes in the kid section okay maybe I do at least I get a discount I would literally be swimming in your clothes I'm just is so petite and Nimble and thin can you help me get something from the top shelf I can't reach it oh my

God you're so much taller than me what a lot of people don't realize that being petite is about your height and not your dress size anyone under 53 qualifies as petite whether you're skinny fat curvy regardless of body type I'm so small that's right peti girlies you're not allowed to be in on the joke about your height it's only okay for other people to make fun of it I love how every few years on social media we Rebrand a type of internalized misogyny with a sort of pseudo feminist twist this reminds me of that trend

on Tik Tok where women were vanilla shaming the girlfriends of boys who didn't like them back it it was a sight to behold and this kind of reminds me of that because there's this imagined enemy I'm not saying that women who you know over cut see themselves no and it's not even that I just feel like everybody just so taller than we are literally the same height and play up their cuteness to the boys don't exist but to act like this is characteristic of fatique women even to a majority is just absurd when someone mentions

my hype but I'll be a Pik me if I say anything I'm so short SL small equals pck me I'm not that short SL small equals pck me no one knows pck me means anymore say what you want when a man says to me you're so sure I know my reputation is done just disintegrate on the spot trust me it works you're so short a defend yourself you'll sound like a Pik me B insult back you'll sound like a Pik me c agree SL smile SL laugh you'll sound like a Pik me D say nothing

safest option we can't win #p pickme do you see the problem here and I know that me saying that this is going to piss off some of the girlies but listen let's be honest most of you are American what you going to do I live across an ocean come fight me here's the thing I'm not even that sure I feel like my whole life people have made a massive deal out of my height they're the ones talking about it not me I just want to get on with things so now when they mention it I

might just change the subject to my massive dong number of videos I've seen sharing this sentiment would make you think that the majority of short women fetishize themselves when actually they just want to be taken seriously and Trea as grown adults and to be clear I am very conscious of the fact that t women deal with misogyny and get sort of masculinized in a way also used your platform to talk a lot about the masculinization of tall black women tall dark skinned women I face like a lot of CRI ISM from people who have an

issue with me expressing my femininity I used to play sports a lot growing up so no one had an issue with me being the athlete but the moment I wanted to you know start wearing makeup and start looking pretty and start doing something that's out of the norm of what you know people are tall supposed to do people started trying to make me bring me back to that masculine side if you're a tall girl and you're insecure about being tall just remember Jennifer Lawrence is 5'9 Zenda 510 Naomi Campell 510 Blake Lively 510 and Taylor

Swift is 511 okay all my life I was taught that I was ugly because I was tall but once you get older you realize just how powerful it is to be tall so be proud of yourself accept yourself love yourself as I'm sure you've gathered this issue requires approaching it with intersectionality I'm by no means trying to say that my experience as a slightly shorter than average woman is on par with being masculine eyes as a tall black woman absolutely not but I went into it in such detail in this video because it seems to

be the thing that's associated with pigmies and it's something I can speak from from my personal experience back to the point of intersectionality when we're thinking about short women different countries have different average heights so that's worth thinking about when you make generalizations about short women basically to summarize if you are average height don't comment on people's Heights I don't want to hear it it zip it I'm in My Librarian era my flatmate a librarian she'd be very pleased now that I've pissed off a whole genre of Tik Tok I want to dissect a new

Frankenstein's monster the anti-pick me girl ooh in short the anti-pick me girl is a girl who shamelessly Embraces feminine interest rather than the mainstream distancing from them that was very popular in NY teen movies she's the anti pikme girl I love Trader Joe's iced coffee and all that weird astrology stuff oh yes my skin care routine is the favorite part of my day in other words I'm exactly like the other girls and proud of it she's the anti-pick me girl I think women are the coolest not only do I have several consistent female friendships that

I have valued greatly throughout the majority of my adult life but I love watching women in general become more assertive about what they deserve and support one another some may call it drama she's the anti-pick me girl while I do clean sometimes I definitely won't be cleaning up after you and before you ask no I can't name three songs from the band on my t-shirt and you can see where this comes from you know this Reclamation is a response to the fact that feminine interests have almost always been the butt of the joke shopping vapid

boy bands crit ice coffee basic pink no get it away as a result the girlies are fighting back I am exactly like the other girls I love girls I love women I love our silly little coffee walks I love getting ready together before we go out love a margarita love a bottomless Branch I love that we love getting a good pick in fact some even even lean in on the Dy feminine basic stereotype and this is a valiant attempt to fight the Relentless denigration of stereotypically feminine interests another thing that's fun about all this is

that I will admit I have a bit of a petty streak do I get a kick out of exclaiming to a circle of men in a pub why don't we just print more money and seeing how red their faces go oh I live for it but Whitney chst we have a problem the anti-pick me girl might do more harm than good for one it reinforces the gender binary that certain branches of feminism fight so hard to deconstruct a girl might not want to wear makeup not because she's a Pik me but just for any other

reason some of it has become so invested in defending feminine interests that they dismiss the possibility of women organically having masculine interest here is my response to being called a pck me girl ever since I've talked about living with all guys one of the most popular comments I get is you're a pickme girl I want to share my perspective on that pickme girl to pickme girl it's not pick me to have guy friends it's just not I also talk about my girl best friend all the time I'm not claiming to only have guy friends I

get it when a girl is tearing down another girl for a guy I get how that's pick me but comments like these are pck me to me people call Kendall Jenner a pck me for liking basketball that's not very girls supporting girls that just feels like we're moving backwards to me why can't someone like Kendall Jenner like basketball let's start there why does everyone think she's lying when she says that that's just one example why am I a pck me for having guy friends and don't even get me start on girls who like sports like

oh you like sport you're going to sit on this couch and watch an entire football game and enjoy it no honey you just want to impress Chad Brad and Thad like pick me choose me love me because she could only possibly be doing it for the boys right the Pick Me girl I could type highlights just how deeply embedded the idea of the gender binary still is in our society no matter how it's interpreted the girl archetype diminishes the personhood of individuals who may possess identities and personalities that are mixture of the feminine and the

masculine and continues to Peg gender expression to biological sex remember earlier where I showed that Tik Tok that mentioned bisexuality this reminds me of how when girls in school would make out with each other other and other women would exclaim oh they're doing it for the attention of boys now I'm going to put on my tin foil hat cuz I have my own theory about that honestly I think most of them were using it as a cover I reckon they were just feeling a bit gay and I can't help but notice that often when girls

are accusing other girls of seeking male validation I can take your manil if I want to I can take a man if I want to they might be projecting me thinks the lady doth protests to too much and the jealous gatekeeping of male attention just brings us back to square one and ironically it's in a similar vein to the I'm not like other girls Trend I'm sorry but girls who drink beer because they like it are pic like nobody likes beer except for guys oh and girls who are like oh I'm going to eat a

burger at this restaurant cuz I'm on a data with a guy and like I need to prove to him that I can like you're a Pik me pck me pck me P You're a Pik me people like this assume that they know when someone is being an authentic they can point it out in other people and then they pat themselves on the back for their Superior authenticity Casey aonzo makes this point in her pck me video but in short only you are in your head you know your own intentions you're not a mind reader you

don't know why people do the things they do or like the things they like and it can be comforting to be dismissive of other people and assume that they're being in authentic as a way to validate your own identity they're doing it for attention whereas I genuinely like this thing when in reality we don't know what's going on with other people we all just need to stay in our own Lanes which unfortunately humans are incapable of critiques of the term believe that through its definition women are still centering men in the way they navigate life

where you fall on the pikme scale is parallel to the way you interact with the men in your circle and nothing captures this better than the very video that inspired me to talk about this topic again and that is the infamous Subway Tik Tok oh boy oh girl we're about to dive into some [Music] discourse so what's your take my take is that all guys think they want to date the like cool hot artsy baddy girlfriend with like baby bangs and a bad father but that's actually not the case at all what all guys in

New York want is to date the like candid girlfriend you can trademark that candid girlfriend is a girl who's like 55 and a half naturally thin has mousy brown hair no longer than shoulder length she's like from New Hampshire maybe studied art history and I would say the biggest part of her personality is that she like loves pomegranate and her boyfriend thinks that's like so quirky and adorable 100% agree she's never the like overt center of attention but her boyfriend is always posting film photos of her # 35mm on his Instagram story and she's always

just kind of like the candid girl is the patient zero of the pikme girl she's not even trying to be Pik me she just authentically has nothing going on in her brain pikme girl is a girl who pretends to be interesting and unique to get attention this girl just has nothing going on in her brain she like likes good pottery and so all guys want that all guys want that because they can make a muse out of her also this girl is always referred to as this one in the caption of the photo happy birthday

to this one and it's always like a photo of the back of her head they're like in Tokyo on vacation in the spring do you know what I'm talking about they like both love Japanese culture but they're both white I've really only seen her on like the third slide of like an IG photo dump on her boyfriend's Instagram I would love to meet one of them I'm a girls girl I want to see you up close I want to touch your skin I her name's Emily forgive me my chronically online is about to show and

don't tell me to touch grass because I have hay fever and that's Grievous bodily harm so yeah but yeah I feel like I could make a whole video on the subway Tik Tok situation this situation is a cocktail of discourse it has pck me discourse girls girl discourse comedy discourse discourse about what comments you're shown and how it distorts your perception of Internet beef and so much more but I want to focus in on the pck me aspect most importantly she doesn't even Define pikme correctly she's not even trying to be pikm she just authentically

has nothing going on in her brain pikm girl is a girl who pretends to be interesting and unique to get attention this girl just has nothing going on in her brain what she's describ in as a manic pixie dream girl but it doesn't just end there no no no this video was polarizing you either got it or you didn't get it and I'll be honest when I first saw it I didn't get it I didn't find it funny I still don't find it very funny to be honest I suspected like many that she was projecting

about a real girl she'd met she since clarified that she wasn't and I'll take her word for it it did resonate with some people though this is literally Alex Turner's type literally Suki water house I love her but tell me she doesn't fit all the boxes mousy brown hair no longer than shoulder length is so real whereas others did not like it she definitely lost someone to a candid girlfriend this rubs me the wrong way she isn't wrong but it's wild to punctuate this with I'm a girls girl ma'am this is way too specific to

not be projecting I'm a girls girl after she said all of that is wild the has nothing in her brain and I'm a girls girl seething jealousy the gag is that by explaining to a man how you're better than another type of woman and labeling her a pikme you are in fact engaging in your own beautiful and unique pikme Behavior like a pikme snowflake the most misogynistic description of a woman but I'm a girls girl I don't know her maybe she's very nice but this is a tough look for anyone yeah it's a lot and

I'll be honest when I first saw this I landed on the latter side you know thinking this seems a bit mean calling out a girl's intelligence but after having some distance and introspection I've changed my mind here's why I have been taking the day to sift through all your comments and God I mean the love and support is so big it's almost invisible you know something so massive is actually naked to the human eye I just want to clarify for anyone who thinks I am anti-woman I.E misogynistic like oh my God nobody loves women more

than me ask any of my guy friends they'll tell you I literally spent the whole day researching my favorite woman of all time truly obsessed with everything she has done I love how she just decided to troll more so listen I didn't find the video particularly funny but her response has made me a fan and has reminded me about how uncharitable we are when women are making jokes notice how if a male feminist comedian wants to make a misogynistic joke most of the time we are able to accept that he's being ironic and laugh about

it whereas women cannot make jokes about other women without them being accused of internalized misogyny being Pik mes not like other girls and I'm not saying there isn't any of that going on here but people went all the way there rather than stopping for a moment and just thinking this joke just isn't hitting for me I'm a uh working touring standup comedian wrote a joke for Subway takes that I thought was like surface level nothing kind of like easy relatable joke about the like cognitive dissonance between what men think they want and what what they

actually want and and also making fun of girls like me being the character of a girl for being jealous of a girl who couldn't possibly exist Emily doesn't exist nobody doesn't have thoughts in their brain which by the way would be awesome live laugh labotomy my girls joke didn't land for some people that's fine I think we need to separate a joke not Landing from someone being being a misogynist plenty of people guys especially have gone on Kareem show and said like way more like controversial things for the purposes of humor you know one guy

went on and he was like you should beat your kids did not spark discourse and it shouldn't cuz it was a joke then I go on make up this like character and just kind of like Yap for a few minutes one take you know I don't have I'm not in charge of the edit and everyone's so mad and maybe just maybe is it because I'm a girl online and famously historically we love to on those we just love to hop on that bandwagon the point being maybe we shouldn't assume the worst of everything and everyone

we see online and I have experienced this personally a few years back I made a commentary video about the school of affluence which is a channel that gives basically feminine tutorials how to gender content as I like to call it and listen I was not prepared for how mad people were going to get and this isn't me whining like people didn't find it funny but I did think it was interesting that something with pretty light-hearted jokes was received as being a pikme I intended that video to just be a silly roast but some people really

thought I was being a Pik B and assumed personal malice towards this person but yeah I do think it's just something that women have to be more mindful of when they're making jokes that it can be perceived as I definitely feel like the lack of charitability has been the case for the subway lady so two questions to anyone who's like horny for discourse right now on this whole thing the first being like why are we so hellbent on defending like a madeup girl Emily who who couldn't exist that was the point and so comfortable putting

down like a real girl you know she wasn't talking about a real woman or at least she didn't name drop anyone she was talking about the dissonance between what men say they want versus what they actually want notably in one study published in 2015 researchers found that men were more likely to declare their attraction to women who had outperformed them in an intelligence test but when men actually met women who had outperformed them they distanced themselves more from her tended to rate her as less attractive and showed less desire to exchange contact information or plan

a date with her perhaps her delivery was clumsy but people love to be outraged so it became discourse and I thought this was a handy case study in showing how the comments we read can influence our opinion and trigger a reaction and R trigger this reflexive outrage when instead if we took the time and were measured we wouldn't respond how we do and that was me in this situation I think the subway Tik Tok lady was done dirty and something I love about this job but also scares me is that I can make a full

video with a take or thesis if you want to sound more academic then a few months later I come across more information and I can change my mind like this very video you're watching as culture shifts so do our opinions and that's good another example of this is the girls girl discourse that was also sparked by this Subway Tik Tok which she actually references in her response so I want to stand by and say with confidence that I am a girl girl and for anyone wondering what even is a girl girl I'll Tell You by

naming a few of the best damn ones in history Margaret Thatcher that girl who told me I looked good in pigtails in my yearbook photo in fourth grade so that I would have a bad photo next while her comments which she later clarified were jokes do highlight that she suffers from some internalized misogyny those who claim to be true girls girls didn't think to address her with kindness or to empathically explain to her that she subconsciously projecting sex's ideas onto other women something all women sometimes find themselves doing under patriarchy instead girls girl feminism has

emboldened women to bully and ridicule one another when those within our gender slip up and make mistakes it hasn't even been a year since my girls girl video and I've already seen so many points that I just didn't think of when researching and writing it when dazed shared this article on Instagram the writer was called a pck me in the comments and it all felt so cyclical so tiring as expressed by the writer of this article and young women online for many a girl's girl is a wolf in sheep's clothing it's white feminist M now

In fairness one could respond saying isn't it just feminism practice imperfectly let's not throw out the baby with the B water and I would agree however if someone is wearing of phrases like not a girl's girl or pick me girl rather than accusing them of being guilty of said charge perhaps dig in deeper into why these labels make them wary [Music] Tik tok's greatest trick is its ability to Rebrand things that have always existed a walk around the block is now a hot girl walk a person who hits the gym before work and takes vitamins

is now that girl setting boundaries is now the villain era a turnoff is now the ick a founding member of this family of Internet age definitions is a pickme girl which is really just a rebranding of the not like other girls Trope I disagree with the last sentence I really do a pickme girl and a not like other girls girl are two distinct things but this person is on to something Tik Tock loves lingo they love it so much that they'll even misuse it and even journalists misattribute it to Tik Tok take that SNL sketch

about gen Zed talk so bestie's going to be okay right I'm sorry but uh at this particular time that's looking like cap bro can we see her unfortunately not right now bro you know the Vibes but I promise if they were talking about aav so why does this matter well remember at the beginning of the video where I mentioned pick me Origins on Black Twitter and in aav bve well firstly let's be clear I'm not a Authority on this obviously there are already some great videos on this such as t noir's video where she highlights

the double standard between when white people use aav versus when black people use it why people can use it without their Intelligence being called into question it's like a fun quirky little thing right and the sad thing is that bve gets co-opted and used against the very people who invented it so an example of this is the term wope which originally meant an awareness of social issues you know like racism but now you see conservatives using it to be racist so black person in a Disney movie woke black person in a Saints Breeze commercial woke

yeah terms that originate in Black communities like canel and woke are often stripped of their original more nuanced meanings among black people and that's exactly what's happened with the phrase pck me pikme once upon a time was a tool to point out internalized misogyny and I imagine it must be very frustrating to see the term be bastardized and used to do more misogyny I mean and if you are using it correctly you might get called a misogynist so yeah I completely get where this writer is coming from some people like to dismiss language appropriation because

it's more Insidious than you know people wearing Native American headresses at Coachella or the Kardashians visual appropriation is a lot more shocking right whereas this is a lot more subtle but I would say that makes it all the more Insidious and therefore ubiquitous and before people comment strawmanning black journalists who have talked about this the people I've referenced aren't saying that no white person is ever allowed to say woke or pick me they're just kindly asking you to use it accurately and credit it properly you know just show it respect don't use bve for the

purpose of parody not for the purpose of reinforc for in marginalization and for anyone thinking that this is still trivial tral Martin a 17-year-old African-American teenager was fatally shot in 2012 when the case was brought to court George Zimmerman the man who shot Trayvon Martin claimed that it was self-defense trayvon's friend Rachel jeanel was on the phone with him before and during the affair and was a key individual for the prosecution due to her testimony yet John R rickford A Stanford linguist professor argued that Rachel's use of aav meant that she was misunderstood and invalidated

by the jury Rachel was also put through public commentary that bashed her use of aav Professor rickford reasoned that this meant Rachel's testimony was not taken fully into consideration this is just one example out of the potential thousands and millions of instances this happens and the consequences it may have so you can see here how this dismissal of aav and lack of willingness to understand it and to take it seriously can be so detrimental and just reinforce white supremacy for actual change to happen it can start with the simplest acknowledgement like recognizing that the phrase

you use in your group chat is not just a funny word part of a vibrant culture a culture that deserves your respect [Music] all that pikm shaming and guess what pikm are still knocking about what was it all for there are still pikies there's still internalized misogyny so what now all the articles I read criticizing the ter pikme encouraged you know education and compassion over contempt and callouts and listen all of this sounds very nice in theory but I have a question for these writers have you been on the internet imagine coming across a Pik

me and being like Clarissa sit down it's time for a lesson putting aside my cynicism I do agree that empathy is more productive than ridicule which is why I would personally would reserve the term pck me for women who knowingly and gleefully put down other women and more importantly have actual power and platforms not teen girls on Tik Tok Sometimes the best way to cure a pikme girl is by forcing her to be around a much worse more extreme pikme girl when I was a little teenager like 15 years ago I was a mild pikme

girl I didn't make it other people's problem but I would like think things internally or consume that kind of dumb Tumblr content that was like I don't wear makeup I'm so special and I had this friend who was kind of like that too but she started bringing around this friend who was the worst example of a pikme girl I have ever experienced she was really into this guy that was a few years older than us and when he got a girlfriend she basically went full-blown Pik me insane she would call her cake face make fun

of the fact that she wore dresses made made fun of the music she listened to said things like oh I didn't realize that he was into such shallow vapid girls not just venting to her close friends or family like she would just randomly bring this up around anyone and I was so embarrassed seeing some of the mild thoughts that I had expressed in a very extreme and public way that it forced me to self-reflect and do an immediate 180 the self-reflection is hard as a kid and sometimes even as an adult but seeing what that

mindset that I had could potentially turn me into literally scared me into changing myself to quote the Tik Tok user bastard of Bolton a pikme suffers from internalized misogyny not the crime of being annoying you're allowed to find people annoying and to just not Vibe with someone you don't have to pathologize why they rub you the wrong way maybe she isn't a Pik me maybe she's just annoying and listen an individual can't solve all the issues that create pikm in the first place the desire for male approval stems from many things the desire to be

loved patriarchy trauma just a name a few all you can do is control your own language and your own actions my overarching advice after all this would be to be suspicious of any Trend that blames women for sexism before you invest a large amount of energy calling out internalized misogyny ask yourself if you channel that same energy to toward sexism you see from men now if you do I don't know where you're getting all that energy from I understand the tendency to want to hold women to a higher standard because they should know better but

I wonder if thinking that way is stunting feminist progress perhaps we need to remind ourselves that no one is born a feminist regardless of gender and last but definitely not least stop assuming you know what's going on in people's heads you don't know their story you don't know why they do what they do so ask questions before calling them names maybe that girl who you think wears the flashy blue football jersey to fit in with the guys actually done it as a reminder of her father who lives hundreds of miles away and sees her only

once a year maybe that girl who wears bright red lipstick every time you see her does so as a token of her late mother who loved red roses thank you so much for watching this video ended up being a lot longer than I expected so thank you for sticking through it thank you so much to my patrons for donating to the channel and helping with the cost so yeah thank you thank you to June's Journey for sponsoring make sure to click my link in the description or scan the QR code to download now it's time

for today's subscription pet shout out today's shout out is Ludo who is a poodle who is 8 years old he loves his ball and sleeping on the sofa he's also very clever as poodles are well some and always remember where you've hidden his ball he's very fluffy he's very handsome I've met him personally because he is my friend's dog who also happens to be one of my oldest subscriptions she was there from day one also I just have to show you this video of him being terrified of my tiny Italian Greyhound