Skip to 3:20 for the meme itself.
The full phrase, "cash me outside, howbow dah," didn't exactly come from the heartland of memes. The star of the video, 13-year-old Danielle, first appeared in September of last year on the Dr. Phil Show, where she challenged the giggling audience and the good doctor to the equivalent of a parking lot brawl, complete with a rather, um, unique accent. The phrase was intentionally misspelled in order to capture her accent, and thus, a meme was born. Unlike Salt Bae, this one took a while to hit the mainstream internet, finally exploding onto Twitter earlier this month.
The now-famous line inspired a host of parodies, as well as a pretty good trap remix. Beyond the meme's various humorous aspects (and there are a lot), it does raise the age-old question: are modern kids more disrespectful towards authority than ever? Of course, every generation mutters "kids these days," under their breath in regards to their successors, but the concept does have real basis in reality.
Just give me a full ride to college howbow dah pic.twitter.com/AS7QP8SjIw— Dory (@Dory) January 21, 2017
Please do.
Dr. Leonard Sax, a Pennsylvania psychologist and author, conducted research into changing parent-child dynamics for his latest book, The Collapse of Parenting. Sax argues that within the last 15 years, there has been a transfer of authority from parents to children; in other words, kids are making all the decisions without the maturity to back them up, and their parents are left powerless to stop them. Sax, among many other family psychologists, attributes the change in power to the increasing influence of technology in children's lives.
According to Dr. Alex Packer; "Texting and tweeting encourage brief communications, which can lead to a lack of clarity, nuance, and sensitivity, in other words, bad manners. Relating through electronic devices creates a breeding ground for rudeness since it’s easier to be rude anonymously or remotely; you get less practice for ‘real’ relationships; and, for most people, brief written communications are more likely than face-to-face interactions to lead to rude, insensitive, or misinterpreted remarks." In other words, kids learn behaviors from their parents; for example, how many times did your parents tell you to use your manners when going to a friend's house as a kid?
But it's not just the kids' fault; parents are to blame, too. They learned how to bury their faces in their phones from somewhere, after all. The solution, Packer believes, is to establish appropriate and inappropriate tech behavior to instill manners in kids while remaining cognizant of the digital world. I know my family has had to implement this; I'm still not allowed to use my phone at the dinner table.
Children are highly susceptible to outside influences, and model behavior after what they see on social media, among other things. So, if your daughter threatens to throw hands out in the driveway, at least you'll know why.
Children are highly susceptible to outside influences, and model behavior after what they see on social media, among other things. So, if your daughter threatens to throw hands out in the driveway, at least you'll know why.
*Filling out a job application*— Ana Guerrero (@_analiciousss) January 10, 2017
“ How do you handle a difficult situation with a rude customer?" pic.twitter.com/8tqLgg9CUc
Fantastic post! This is one of my favorite memes from this year so far, and as always your breakdown of it is incredibly accurate. Do you think that shows like Dr Phil and Maury actually do any good or that it's just too late to help the families on them?
ReplyDeleteThis post was extremely clever- connecting a meme to a psychological/societal phenomenon. It's interesting to wonder whether assertions like the one Sax made are actually valid, considering that age can be a confounding factor when it comes to observations. In other words, maybe the transition from adolesence to adulthood for Sax led him to see something that had always been there, but think that it was a new phenomenon. Anyways, great post!
ReplyDeleteWhen my friend first showed me this clip, I thought it was a joke - this girl was literally threatening to fight her mom on national television. What?!?!?!? My mom would never let me do that, but I would never do that to begin with, soooo... It's so interesting how you brought up the psychological aspect that power has been transferred from parents to children. I have a specific family friend in mind who perfectly demonstrates this phenomenon, and it's not a good thing. I look forward to reading this blog next week- it's so funny!
ReplyDeleteYour blog literally kills me. I cannot get enough haha! It is so interesting how you connected social interaction and psychology to a meme! "Didn't exactly come from the heartland of memes" honestly makes this post 100% more interesting because it makes me want to read more. You're such a good writer! Thanks for another great post Ian!
ReplyDeleteI really liked your post. It's really cool that something as simple as a meme can get into such deep psychology. I'm pretty sure last night my friends told me she was going to be back on Dr. Phil again, but I don't know if that's true. Your post was really cool, and I look forward to your next one.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you took the meme and took a compelling question from it, "Are modern kids more disrespectful towards authority than ever?" I think it was very clever to ask this question and it is extremely relevant for your audience. My mom told me recently that she notices the youngest generation in her work place seem to be disrespectful without even noticing it. It's interesting to realize that this might come from twitter, and other habits like that.
ReplyDelete