I look at that cultural appropriation shit and I just ignore it because it’s ridiculous, it really is. You cannot act a color. Do not tell me I’m acting black because I’m not. I’m acting “urban,” or whatever you want to call it.
In the final month of 2017, 14 year old Danielle Bregoli Peskowitz appeared in an interview for The Fader, an online pop culture news blog. Better known by her nickname, The Cash Me Ousside Girl, or by her stage name “Bhad Bhabie,” this young girl has just celebrated the 1 year anniversary of her wild, abrupt rise to fame. In the time since her catchphrase became a hot internet joke, Danielle has become one of the most surprising child stars in the US and the poster child for every liberal Millennial’s favorite concept: Cultural Appropriation.
When I began writing this particular article, I didn’t know that much about Danielle, but you can learn a lot about an internet star from her social media platforms. Whether it’s Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube, Danielle is constantly in touch with millions of fans uploading photos, promoting new tracks, or speaking to them directly through her camera.
But let’s rewind a little over a year to September of 2016. Amidst the turmoil of a divisive election season, American life went on and where American life goes on, so does daytime television.
The September 14th episode of Dr. Phil was no different from any that had aired before it. In a segment that desperately proclaimed “I Want To Give Up My Car-Stealing, Knife-Wielding, Twerking 13-Year-Old Daughter Who Tried To Frame Me For A Crime,” a woman with a soccer mom haircut stared intently into the camera and gave a melodramatic account of her encounters with her disobedient adolescent child. The star of our show appeared to be your typical 13 year old girl, with a typical unpleasant twist. While most Gen-Z 13 year old girls are busy checking their Instagram mentions for TBHs and catching up on the latest episode of Bunk’d, Danielle was breaking down doors, picking fights at school, and stealing car keys. She sports poorly dyed cherry red hair, a spaghetti-strap black tank top, long pastel pink acrylic nails, and a pair of huge gold hoops. Danielle is just another one of Dr. Phil’s domestic horror stories and just like every other episode, a probably scripted montage of Danielle’s quick temper gives way to an interview in front of a live audience.
It is during this interview that Danielle whipped out the line that would become her first trademark and make her an internet child icon. Our star eighth grade drop out boldly challenged Dr. Phil’s audience of complacent stay-at-home mothers to “Catch me outside, how about that?” Though Danielle took herself 100% seriously, everyone else did not. Her classic “hood” accent muddled the phrase which instead became, “Cash Me Ousside How Bout Dah.” Just like that, Danielle Bregoli Peskowitz of Florida became known as the “Cash Me Ousside Girl.”
The base meme first emerged in October of 2016 as a classic meme (image with white block text) on memecrunch. The image was circulated through Instagram meme pages, but didn’t reach full popularity until December of 2016 when it was posted by the Facebook meme page Digital Memes in the late 2010s classic meme style of an image preceded by black text in a white box. Once the meme reached peak popularity in early 2017, it went through a regular meme life cycle and had died down within the month leading up to Danielle’s second appearance on Dr. Phil.
However, Danielle’s influence remained strong. In the three months she was away at horse camp for troubled teens (TM), Danielle’s Twitter and Instagram were bombarded by tweens across the country. By the time she returned to the Dr. Phil show, the power had already gone to her head, telling Dr. Phil that she was the cause of his fame.
Her image blew up from there. She appeared in two WorldStar HipHop music videos, guest-starred in videos with popular young Viners and YouTubers, and started her own YouTube channel. She went on to rebrand herself as rapper Bhad Bhabie and released her first rap single “These Heaux” shortly after.
This story sounds ordinary enough and like any popular young person with a brand, Danielle was soon faced with as many critics as fans each claiming that she had committed one of the most vile crimes of the 2010s: cultural appropriation.
Which brings us back to her interview with The Fader.
Danielle is in some ways right: you cannot act a color. One of the most glaring flaws of the controversy surrounding the phenomenon of cultural appropriation is that it incorrectly cites cultural borrowing as the root of the problem when the real issue is stereotyping and caricaturing. There isn’t anything wrong with wearing hoop earrings because you like them or getting cornrows because you think they look nice. To be fair, I don’t think Danielle is trying to be racist or intentionally trying to capitalize on appearing black. The color of your skin comes with the weight of your personal experiences and the prejudice you may or may not face and I think Danielle knows that as much as the rest of us do.
However, what she misses is that the “urban” stereotype is most commonly associated with black and latina women. Regardless of whether or not she is trying to act Black, her clothing and her attitude are most commonly attributed to the poor “hood” girls you see on Maury or snippy Latina girls from the bario in edgy 2000s dance movies. Danielle’s behavior occupies a gray area of discomfort for many people. Sure she isn’t in full black face, but it is upsetting to see a white girl from Florida creating fame and empowering white girls in clothes that women of color are often discriminated against for. A white girl with cornrows and long acrylics nails isn’t really harmful and in a perfect world, Danielle should really be able to dress as she wants. But for black and latina women those hairstyles, nails, and earrings remind them of dirty looks from white cops and the aching fear of a stop and frisk as much as they remind them of famous rappers and Jimmy Choos.
Her misunderstanding of the controversy over her own brand to popularity and her assertion that she understands the situation at a higher level than her haters shows just how young she really is. Even if she isn’t intentionally doing it, she is taking advantage of stereotypes that are part of the collective experience of being of color. Putting on an accent and hoop earrings doesn’t change the color of your skin, but it gives you the appearance of someone who wants to. Danielle isn’t fully aware that the brand she has created and the look she has adopted have always belonged to Black and Latina girls and always will and that those that came before her suffered for it in some way or another.
Meme Myself and I 