Why do people call it “woke”?

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨sbeak@sopuli.xyz⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

It’s a broad label for anything they don’t like (LGBTQ+, feminism, DEI, etc.), but doesn’t “woke” mean you are awake? Would that imply that things that are not “woke” or are “anti-woke” are “asleep”?

Then they go on about conspiracies (“climate change is not real”, “deep state”, “5G is harmful”, “vaccines cause autism”, the list goes on unfortunately…) where they’re claiming that you need to “wake up to the truth”. Surely they don’t consider “woke” to be “the truth”, so shouldn’t they call it something like “asleep”, “sleepy”, “snoozy”, or similar?

I needed to use a lot of quotation marks there…

source

Comments

Sort:hotnew top

recently_Coco@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It’s from the 30s, actually.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke

Implies waking up to the systemic violence and oppression and beginning to do something about it.

Then it began being used as a bad thing because people were understanding systemic harm and those in power did not like it.

Overuse the word, make it mean nothing, remove its power, push the people back into oppression.

source
- adry@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  same happened with anarchism. I bet someone will come reply to me, saying that anarchism is actually bad because it means “chaos” and “no laws”, yada yada.
  
  source
  - grandel@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Im willing to bet that everybody who doesnt like anarchism, doesnt know what anarchism is
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
- SacralPlexus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Image
  
  There is an interesting precursor from the election that made Lincoln president. There were groups of young people forming “Wide-Awakes” clubs and demonstrating.
  
  Source
  
  source
  - Quexotic@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Free coffee at meetings?
    
    Seriously though, a club sounds nice. Individualism is overrated.
    
    source
- prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  Overuse the word, make it mean nothing, remove its power, push the people back into oppression.
  
  Conservatives have really been leaning on this tactic a ton lately.
  
  Unfortunately, it seems to work every time.
  
  source
  - FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Liberals have been the ones doing it, which is why no one cares or fears being called a Nazi, racist, bigot, -phobe, fascist, or any of the other overused leftist favourite names to call anyone who doesn’t agree with them anymore.
    
    It was working, it radicalised their loyalists and scared a lot of regular people into submission, but like you said - overuse, especially when it was clearly not appropriate, made the tactic less and less effective.
    
    source
- sbeak@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  ahh interesting, I did not know that
  
  source
- nialv7@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Yeah, but then the neoliberals appropriated it to mean things like changing corporate logos to rainbow colors during Pride month while doing absolutely fuckall for the marginalized.
  
  source
  - recently_Coco@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Correct.
    
    Those in power overused the word and made it mean nothing.
    
    Neoliberals are a part of that.
    
    source
meejle@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It’s from African-American English, from the 1930s! And it’s always had more or less the same meaning – originally “being awake to (aware of) racial discrimination”, but now it’s obviously grown to cover discrimination and inequalities in general.

Would that imply that things that are not “woke” or are “anti-woke” are “asleep”?

Yep! 👍 But don’t forget, these people are also against Antifa, i.e. “anti anti-fascist”. They don’t care how bad the labels sound, as long as they’re making people’s lives miserable.

source
- MeowWeHaveAProblem@toast.ooo ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  i.e. “anti anti-fascist”
  
  You mean anti-fascist, not the double negative? That might be an important typo. 🙂
  
  source
  - just_ducky_in_NH@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    No typo. OP is saying that “these people” are anti-antiFascists.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
  - cecilkorik@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    No that’s quite accurate, they are against antifa. For example, Fox News hates antifa. They regularly call them a terrorist organization, use them as a pejorative or a bogeyman to dismiss protests or opinions. One could reasonably conclude they are very anti-antifa, making them anti-anti-fascist. This is indeed a double negative, which can be confusing and even misleading. If you seek to clarify the situation by removing the “anti-anti-” double negative, what does that make them?
    
    … that’s correct, “fascist”.
    
    Does that clarify things at all? Yes, I think it does. Interesting.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
morphballganon@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Have you heard the term virtue-signaling?

Selfish people want to paint people better than them as bad, so they try to adjust the narrative to suggest that those better people are actually faking it. The term virtue-signaling suggests that these virtuous acts are actually just for appearances, and insincere.

The term woke has a similar implication. It’s like “this person is trying very hard to appear to be virtuous, and in doing so, they’re going too far, and doing more harm than good.”

That’s my intellectual take on it, anyway. Plebs just adopt the term without understanding the implied meaning. “Other team == woke == bad” is all 95% of them think.

source
- chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Buried in your argument is the assumption that people accused of virtue signalling are actually being virtuous. In many cases they’re actually just doing harm in order to appeal to their own tribe. This is virtue signalling and there’s nothing virtuous about it.
  
  People who walk around calling everything woke are virtue-signalling to their right wing tribe, for example.
  
  source
  - morphballganon@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Only douchecanoes use the term unironically, so it follows the person they are criticising is likely doing something morally right.
    
    source
- ulterno@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I came here to say this. You worded it better.
  
  source
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
AFAIK “woke” started being used by woke people as something good.

Then the right stole the term to turn it into something insulting.

source
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
“They” don’t like the term “woke” because like all good music it has Afro-American origins. It started off as describing somebody who was aware of racial discrimination and over the decades broadened in meaning to include a host of other social issues. And then it was thrown into the culture war meat grinder.

I like the parallel to the “wake up, sheeple, do your own research” crowd. I hadn’t noticed it before. It’s funny how two uses of this inoccuous verb that can probably be traced all the way back to the Proto-Indoeuropean language have ended up on opposite sides of the aforementioned meat grinder.

source
- sbeak@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  interesting, so it was originally about awareness!
  
  source
- ethaver@kbin.earth ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  eh. there's also polka.
  
  source
  - swab148@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    It’s like ska but with more horns
    
    source
- frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  I like the parallel to the “wake up, sheeple, do your own research” crowd.
  
  Or “take the red pill”
  
  Any time someone says something like that, they invariably mean “start believing what I believe”
  
  source
blarghly@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
As others have mentioned, the term has its origins in African American English, basically meaning “stay aware of the systemic forces that oppress us.” According to another user here, apparently this word was in use since the 1930s.

However, I never heard it until about 15 years ago or so, when I started noticing it filtering in on the more left wing spaces on reddit. Initally, I was mostly confused by why anyone would mangle english so much - but through more exposure, I realized that the word wasn’t being used to communicate information, so much as signal cultural affiliation. And the word’s transition from use in black american culture to reddit, where I found it, became obvious. Like so many other things in black culture, it had been coopted by white people - in this case, 14 year old Tumblr feminists.

Bill Burr has a great bit on this change, where he points out that “woke”, in its traditional black usage, sounds very cool. But, coopted by white people, immediately becomes uncool. And it’s uncool not because of the word itself, but because of the people who use it - white people trying to boost their social capital among their peers by demonstrating their familiarity with black culture. And thus, the term takes on a negative connotation - the connotation of “ugh, fuck, here we go - another lecture.”

In pockets of liberal/left wing culture, “woke” may retain its original meaning to those who use it. But among the vast majority of the population, self-describing as “woke” is cringy. It is basically outing yourself as being terminally online, basing your self esteem on how much of a good person other people think you are, and feeling holier-than-thou.

Hence, conservatives identified a natural slur against their enemies, and started tossing it around as much as possible. This works for them because, even if their takes are as dumb as possible (and lord knows they try), no one wants to defend “woke people”, because woke people are cringe.

source
- bizarroland@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Being woke: very cool.
  
  Performative “wokeness”, specifically the overbearing type that attempts to impose your beliefs and opinions on other people: very uncool.
  
  When those right-wing jackasses say woke, they mean the latter, even though they’re using the former.
  
  Also, since the actual thing they are against is the “attempting to impose your belief and opinions on other people”, it’s hypocritical of them because that’s what they’re doing.
  
  They’re just not doing it in a way that attempts to make everyone all peace, love, and joy.
  
  The irony is that they expect to receive peace, love, and joy in exchange for their anti-performative wokeness stance against the peace love and joy types.
  
  source
Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
As others already wrote, the original meaning has been specific to awareness of racial discrimination, later broadened to general discrimination topics.

But that is just the US, and e.g. in Germany these roots (and also the connection to wake/asleep) are mostly missing.

So it is just a normal imported word, with no clear antonym existing.

Also because of this only recent import of the term, it is less connected to its original meaning, but often only associated with a well-intended, but superficial kind of activism.
E.g. it is heavily associated with a generally not very popular over-gendering going on in official and news texts, which leads to a broken kind of the German language. (German is heavily gendered, but a word’s gender often has nothing to do with the sexual gender).

So the term had a somewhat negative connotation to begin with, even in more progressive circles.
Doesn’t hinder the far right from doing anti-woke campaigns nonetheless, wokism is just such a nice (but actually in the broader population none-existent) opponent. And they use the term “Anti-Woke”, because it just makes sense for an imported word.

source
styanax@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Where I’m from, “woke” is a generic code word used by white racists to refer to anything which doesn’t align to their principles. Any disagreement with their belief is simply labeled as “woke” because they cannot actually define and defend their use of the word, or directly name “the thing” (hard n----R word) out loud in public.

source
Colonel_Panic_@eviltoast.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Anyone using woke or Antifa or liberal or dei as an insult doesn’t care about the actual definition. They probably don’t even know the definitions at all. It’s all just hate and propaganda and racism and bigotry and tribalism.

Surprise, MAGA is what happens when pathological liars and narcissists and abusers and bullies and racist bigots get into politics. And they are non stop DARVO on everything.

source
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It’s a buzzword for anything they don’t like.

source
frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
The man stopped and asked, “My friend, what are you? Are you a celestial being or a god?” “No,” said the Buddha. “Well, then are you some kind of magician or wizard?” Again the Buddha answered, “No.” “Are you a man?” “No.” “Well, my friend, then what are you?” The Buddha replied, “I am woke.”

source
iii@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It means they dislike the people that brand themselves as woke.

source
- ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  You need to refudiate SVM’s right now, in front of everyone
  
  source
  - iii@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I did not have sexual relations with that support vector machine
    
    source
remon@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Image

source
KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Image

source
lystopad@mbin.twink.men ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
see article by linguist: https://www.languagejones.com/blog-1/2020/9/21/on-woke

source
NarrativeBear@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Never understood this as well. During COVID the anti-vax crowd was calling people “sheep” as in being asleep or easy to control and direct.

Somehow that seemed to have morphed to “woke”, but woke to me implies that your are “awake” or “thinking”. If someone calls me woke I assume it to be a compliment.

source
- Drbreen@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Lol the sheep analogy. For shits and giggles, I like to reel them in by saying. Generally when a sheep is controlled and directed it’s in their best interest because they aren’t aware of the danger around them. So yeah, I’m not an immunologist and I’m not aware so I’ll be a sheep to protect myself.
  
  source
  - NarrativeBear@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Nicely said, it’s generally the sheep that goes it alone that gets eaten by the wolf!
    
    source
peacepath@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It seems “woke” come from groups of activists uniting in the belives that as long as their will be some kind of discriminations they will all be in a threat.

Therefore, all discriminated (including those who were, and those who could become) should unit and oppose, both to that discrimination and to the principle of discrimination.

Just as you may or not be actualy victim of some type of racism, but if you have some origines that could become discriminated some day. And the woke view is that you should refuse and oppose all kind of discrimination based on race or origines, because as long as one is seen as acceptable, yours could become (remain, or become back) at threat.

This as made a big union of groups opposed to conservative views. So feminist would also fight against racism, etc.

So by extension and out of fear, “woke” is the union of all type of those who do not fully follow the actual system ; at least for those who fully follow it.

source
deathbird@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
“Woke” was what some people said they were when they said and did certain things. Then some other people decided they didn’t like that first group of people, sometimes for what they said, sometimes for what they did, sometimes just for who they were, and they saw that those people called themselves woke. So they decided that they didn’t like woke, and when they saw other things they didn’t like that reminded them of the first group, they called that woke too.

There is not necessarily only two groups.

source
Hector@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Do not look too deep into Political catch phrases for meaning. It is all very stupid.

Woke came to be associated with overly politically correct people that like to falsely accuse people of bigotry, by design the right wing Media made sure those people that suck were associated with it, and so it was used as a catch-all phrase to target anything they want to change. It really is as simple as that.

source
edgemaster72@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
More time is required to type the word woke than is spent thinking about what it means by people who use it as a pejorative

source