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Quite simply, it's cultural appropriation.

You might feel it's all a bit of innocent fun, or even so-called 'anthropological study', but to quote raggedy grrl, it's problematic.

I won't even go into the power dynamic here. People should learn to love and accept their own culture. We can best show respect to other cultures by avoiding all interaction with them not by fetishizing and exotifying them.

This goes beyond racial boundaries. Class, too, is a consideration. People must learn to embrace their social class. It's insulting and degrading to see a wealthy person acting as if they're a product of urban poverty, or to see people in the lower strata of society adopt the mannerisms and aspirations of other classes.

Likewise for adopting subcultures. Gay culture, for example, has been formed by decades of isolation and oppression. It's not something to be to adopted by lipstick lesbians, college kids who are "questioning" and "experimenting", or the self-proclaimed 'f** hags'.

The same is absolutely true for gender-based culture. There's nothing enlightened about a heterosexual man pretending to "understand" women, for example. It's just patronizing condescension.

As a culture and as individuals, we need to get the ******** over this immature and toxic "grass is greener" attitude. There is nothing inherently interesting or different about other cultures. They are not your playthings or toys.

We need to accept who we are because we can be nothing else.

Let me say this one more time, because clearly some people still don't get it: Other cultures are not to be taken on and off like they were clothes.

This is how it is: do not learn another language, learn your own language. Don't imitate the dress, art, music, literature, speech patterns, dress, or mannerisms of other cultures. Listening to rap doesn't bring you closer to being black, watching Korean dramas won't make you Asian. You'll never have more than an embarrassingly half-assed understanding of another culture.

Protip: Assimilation is a lie.

You cannot change who you are. You'll never truly understand or belong to that other culture, and it's offensive beyond words to even try. It is theft, it is psychological assault, it is a morally repugnant meta-extension of post-colonial attitudes, social slavery.

In a sense, you are no different from the "Buffalo Bill" character in The Silence of the Lambs, the man who brutally murders females and uses leather made from their skin to make a "woman suit".

Got it? By seeking to become what you admire, YOU DESTROY IT!!!!.

We have learned zoos are shitty means of "protecting animals." That's because plucking a lion off of the savannah and dumping it into a cage preserves only our impression of what a lion should be. No matter how large the enclosure, no matter how carefully we recreate the environment, a cage is still a cage. The nature of the animal changes and is diminished. We not longer have a lion, we have a hollow shell.

The only real means of preserving lions, or any animal or plant, is to leave it alone. Even watching it changes its behavior.

This is exactly how culture works!!

One more time: you show respect to other cultures by sticking to your own culture. You'll find there's plenty there to amuse you.

It's something most normal people learn in nursery school: if it doesn't belong to you, keep your ******** hands off.

You got a lot of good points, but I do have to disagree with your stance of avoiding other cultures. I see the cultural exchange as a good thing. You're right that the Mighty Whitey/Rich person pretends to be poor is super insulting and a lot of your points are spot on.

But a lot of really great stuff comes from cultural exchange and sometimes that starts from the naive interest in culture. The whatever-ism still ain't cool. But if we didn't exchange at all, everyone would just be more ignorant of each other's culture and generalize the s**t out everything.

Maybe it's cause I live in a pretty multi-cultural city. I enjoy being able to enjoy foods of different cultures besides my dual-own. I don't think there is a problem as long as there is respect for every person as a fellow human being. Being isolationist is not a solution.


Of course, that is different from pretending to be Japanese or trying to adopt ghetto language and rap culture to sound cool when you're a middle class rich white kid.

Y'all need to get off tumblr and go outside.
Srsly.