An influencer got backlash for claiming Black slang terms belonged to internet culture. It highlights a common problem online.

• Influencer Brittany Broski, better known as 'Kombucha Girl,' landed in hot water after discussing criticism of her usage of African American Vernacular English phrases like "periodt" and "Chile, anyway."
• The TikTok personality said in a now-deleted post that she believed certain phrases traditionally thought of as part of AAVE had become fundamentally part of "internet culture," excusing her usage of them.
• Broski apologized for the statement, but the incident highlights the frequent issue of appropriation that occurs in internet culture.

Internet users know the language. Words like "lit," "slay," and "period" (occasionally spelled "periodt," for a little extra emphasis) are commonly used in digital spaces and have been warmly embraced by a diverse array of people.

But now, debate has erupted over the common usage of such words, specifically "chile" (as in "child").

The conversation began after 'kombucha girl' Brittany Tomlinson (AKA Brittany Broski), who is white, posted a video on TikTok explaining her thoughts on when she felt it was appropriate for non-Black people to use African American Vernacular English (AAVE).

"The Nicki Minaj thing, 'The big boobs? Chile, anyway,' that's a meme, obviously. So when someone quoting that or when someone says 'period,' 'sis,' 'snatch,' all that, it's very much like internet culture. Like stan twitter. Stan culture has it's own language," she said.

—flo millicent stan account (@slitmyclitt) July 31, 2020

Tomlinson has since deleted the videos noting that she was uneducated on the issue. "I made some videos speaking my mind on something I wasn't properly educated on (AAVE) and I've since taken all the videos down," she said.

—brittany (@brittany_broski) July 31, 2020

While Tomlinson quickly reversed her position on the appropriation of AAVE, it highlights an incredibly common phenomenon on the internet and in pop culture that many say is harmful.

AAVE was born out of chattel slavery

AAVE is a dialect of English created and used in Black communities. Although commonly used on social media, speakers AAVE are often criticized or made fun of in a wide variety of contexts.

Linguist Geoffrey Pullam described these criticisms in his 1999 essay "African American Vernacular English Is Not Standard English With Mistakes." He wrote most speakers of standard English think AAVE is "just a badly spoken version of their language, marred by a lot of ignorant mistakes in grammar and pronunciation" used by "an ignorant urban underclass."

Despite this, AAVE's lingo is now being normalized and adopted by non-Black people and corporations who've framed it as "internet slang" among other ahistorical variants.

According to linguists at The University of Hawaii, AAVE developed through the "processes of second language acquisition" among slaves. "West Africans newly arrived on plantations would have limited access to English grammatical models because the number of native speakers was so small (just a few indentured servants on each plantation)."

John Rickford, professor of linguistics at Stanford University, wrote "American Ebonics was shaped by the high proportions of Creole-speaking slaves that were imported from the Caribbean in the earliest settlement periods of the thirteen original colonies."

How AAVE appropriation can be harmful

Those critical of the appropriation of AAVE by white or non-Black people say that the practice reinforces toxic racial power structures in society that have an actual cost for Black creators.

Kayla Newman is a prime example of someone who has seemingly been harmed by the appropriation of AAVE.

Newman is most recognized for the phrase she created — "on fleek."

The phrase became popularized after Lewis, also known as Peaches Monroe online, posted a video of herself describing her eyebrows as "on fleek."

In years past, it was unlikely a corporation would use "fleek" to describe their pancakes, but in 2014, that's exactly what IHOP, Denny's, and Dominio's Pizza did.

Since then, the phrasing has become a bit of a phenomenon, but Lewis would not be part of that story. And, according to a 2017 Vox interview with Lewis, she hadn't received any compensation for the phrase's use by companies or celebrities, and was embarking on a mission to trademark it. The effort was abandoned in 2019, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Newman isn't the only Black creator who had their work co-opted and had to struggle for recognition and potential profits.

In February, The New York Times' Taylor Lorenz revealed that amongst all the fun around the popular TikTok dance the Renegade, its creator Jalaiah Harmon did not receive recognition or compensation for the use of the dance despite its virality.

Harmon felt that at the time the lack of credit hindered her ability to have other professional dance and choreography opportunities — and it seemingly did.

The NBA invited TikTok influencers Charli D'Amelio and Addison Easterling, known for popularizing it, to perform the dance during All-Star weekend, contributing to the appropriation. Harmon was not there.

And while they technically righted this wrong by having Harmon also perform the dance later that weekend, it took a large online uprising to create that change.

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