Bestie Flopped the Linguistic Vibe Check, No Cap

A rieh Smith, a polyglot and language enthusiast better known as “Xiaoma” from his popular YouTube channel, was invited to give a speech to high school students about the importance of learning languages. He spoke onstage in their “native tongue,” namely “Gen Alpha slang.” Here’s an excerpt of what he said:

Now, I know it’s giving delulu for this cheugy boomer to speak in such skibidi brain rot. . . . You’re legit patching the English language DLC with fresh updates, literally shifting the English meta. Language evolves because you’re constantly cooking new ways to pass the vibe check, and honestly, your memes today finna hit as textbook vocab of tomorrow. . . . And this is exactly why learning languages hits different. Just like how your casual pookie talk could soon be the dictionary definition, picking up another language gives you front-row seats to how people around the world give the deets. It’s like unlocking infinite drip, allowing you to catch dubs across cultures, connect deeper with the squad, and stan new perspectives that would otherwise leave you ghosted.

For those of us who don’t spend hours scrolling online, Smith thankfully added “subtitles in Standard English” to his YouTube video of the speech. So here is what Smith meant:

Now, I know it seems ridiculous for this outdated millennial to speak to you in such bizarre slang. . . . You’re genuinely updating the English language in real time, literally changing the way people speak English. Language evolves because you’re constantly innovating new ways to express yourself, and honestly, today’s memes might very well become tomorrow’s standard vocabulary. . . . And this is exactly why learning languages matters so much. Just like how your casual slang with your friends could soon be the dictionary definition, picking up another language gives you front-row seats to how people around the world share ideas. It’s like unlocking a whole new style. It lets you win socially across cultures, build deeper connections with others, and grasp new perspectives that you would otherwise miss completely.

You might not find the speech funny or insightful, but most of the kids in the audience laughed a lot and seemed to enjoy it. Despite the fact that Smith accomplished the near-impossible task of keeping a large group of high school students engaged and entertained, he’s faced a lot of harsh criticism. In fact, he’s facing strong accusations: He’s being called racist.

Supposedly, Smith perpetuated white supremacy when he dubbed the words and phrases “Gen Alpha slang” rather than “black slang,” “African American Vernacular English,” or “ebonics.” One person on Twitter declared the following in response to the video: “Gen alpha slang? B**** you bastardized Ebonics. I hope your brakes fail.” Another said, “Being a polyglot who studies linguistics and failing to recognize the sociological overlaps of your field that basically have you micro-aggressing Black members of your audience is actually so f****** funny to me. White people are insane.” Another user stated, “Specifically, the microaggression is this white man being a ploygot [sic] and linguist, someone you would expect to understand the cultural connection to language, actively participating in the cultural erasure of black vernacular (I don’t like saying AAVE bc even that is gentrified).”

For the sake of argument, let’s just assume that the words and phrases Smith used were, in fact, largely “black vernacular.” I don’t understand how it can be an example of “erasure” if more people are saying it. And, since Smith shared the video to his more than 6 million subscribers on YouTube, it seems that he might be actively promoting it rather than obscuring it. More importantly, Smith is condemned as “racist” because he calls the speaking style “Gen Alpha slang,” but a white person who does insist on a firm divide between “Standard English” and “black vernacular” will similarly be branded as “racist.” Consider the following statement from the 2012 book Articulate While Black: “The cultural dominance of Whiteness — the fact that White people consider themselves the ‘standard’ by which ‘Others; are measured — has real and tangible effects on the lives of people of Color.” Somehow, we’re supposed to simultaneously treat “black vernacular” as categorically distinct from English but also not engage in “othering” by noticing any differences.

All the harsh reprimands are somewhat ironic, since Smith’s speech was against linguistic balkanization, and he emphasized how learning a language different from your own provides a valuable opportunity to engage with new people, perspectives, and cultures. From a progressive point of view, why can’t Smith be hailed as an “antiracist activist” who is “doing the work” to “decenter whiteness” by using “black vernacular”? Perhaps his critics should engage with the substance of his talk, since they seemingly believe that learning a language or dialect means you hate that language’s general population of speakers. Of course, the weaponization of the “racism” accusation has been inconsistently applied; Smith supposedly committed “microaggressions” against the black students by using “black slang,” but apparently he wasn’t committing “microaggressions” against Chinese people when he learned Mandarin. The attacks on Smith are ridiculous, but they are also concerning: Not only do unhinged activists want to control your speech in your native language, but they want to dictate what languages you can speak.