Gendered Analysis of Language Transfer in the Internet Era
The transfer of language from African American Vernacular English, AAVE, to mainstream English has been well documented. However one aspect of it that is often overlooked is that this language is not universally appropriated but instead follows strict rules based on the gendered connotations of individual phrases. What has been discussed even less is the unique ways in which the internet changes both the speed of these processes, and the depth of it. That being said, there is a clear path that both masculinized and feminized language takes as it travels from minority groups into the mainstream. Looking specifically at AAVE, the path of mainstreamification has been clear since the 1980s, and has only become more defined since.
Masculine Language
The viewpoint that AAVE is masculine has been common since its association with gangster rap in the late 1980s. Specifically it was a common occurrence to see that young men would begin to adopt the “slang” of these rappers in an effort to seem more like a man. Today, this masculine appeal of AAVE is still present, not as an active effort to masculinize oneself, but instead as a necessity to talk like a man. As this trend has continued into the modern day, and changed with it, it is best expressed through narrative accounts. In this context, masculine language is specifically referring to the hyper-masculine register of English that is shared by the most extreme cases.
I had first noticed the use of AAVE by non-black speakers in my middle school which was predominately white. Within my eighth grade, 2019-2020, there were a total of three black boys (including me) and 2 black girls in my grade level. None of the surrounding areas had high black populations and most of the kids in my class lived in suburban homes far from anything that could be considered the streets. Regardless, starting with the athletes came the desire to feel stronger than those around them and this including the masculinization of their language and behavior. For this time period the trends of school kids were heavily decided by social media, much more so than cable TV, movies and other parts of the mainstream media ecology.
The trends at the time promoted black culture as something to be laughed at or to be afraid of, and so it was appropriated accordingly. The first group of boys that began to appropriate black culture did it out of a desire to be “edgy” and fit the humor trends of the time. In this wave of appropriation is where the most mock language was used and where language was appropriated with the intent of harm. One of my most vivid memories from this year was one of my school's white basketball players coming up to me in gym class with a grin on his face. He held out his hand as he smirked backed at his friend and said “Whats my nigger” to me.
This act was for the approval of others and to show that he was edgier than all of the other boys in the school. For the sake of this essay, we will refer to him as “Boy A”. From the perspective of language, we can see that the power to oppress others satisfies an urge to be masculine. The use of mock language and crossing to do so is a continuation of the historical trend of white controlled and dominated language (Spears, 2015).
While Boy A’s character did not change with age, the way that he appropriated language did and it began to express the return of a much more traditional form of appropriation. Just as high schoolers have done in the 80s, Boy A had begun appropriating AAVE without the mocking approach but instead for the advantage it gives you when trying to invoke fear. As our high school days began to pass and the view of black culture changed to a glorification, Boy A had begun to make AAVE his main mode of operation. Of course it was obvious that it was inauthentic, but his use of it was no longer for the purpose of mocking. Within the space of my high school a level or prestige was granted to students who spoke with AAVE. This was because masculinity was praised and black men have been caricaturized as beastly.
The path that AAVE was appropriated for Boy A, and the way that it still is for many men today follows a clear pipeline that is distinctly different than feminine language has. Since it has such a relation to power the masculine appropriation pipeline tends to skip any middle men and focuses on idols. Those idols could be rappers, internet personalities, or self proclaimed thugs, but the things they share tend to be a hyper masculine persona. The pipeline tends to be direct from idol to speaker. The words that follow this trend tend not to fully enter the mainstream but maintain a strong grip on masculine culture. There are many common words that have entered the masculine mainstream this way: vro, blud, gang, game, grind, fuh, fade, etc. It’s not just words that enter but also speech patterns and grammar. The habitual “be,” and the prosody associated with AAVE are common examples.
In the internet age the creation of a masculine, red-pilled, dialect of English was created. With AAVE as a base, more masculine idols such as Andrew Tate, have crafted a toxic and radical variant of English fueled by hate. Despite the existence of this radical side of masculine language, it does not reflect the way that most people begin to incorporate AAVE into their speech. Many of those who had appropriated AAVE to the most extreme levels forgo such appropriation as they grow. Those who continue to appropriate tend not to be problematic with the exception of the extreme cases. While this pipeline brings a mass amount of AAVE into the radical masculinized register, a small amount of these terms and patterns slip through into the mainstream.
Feminine Language
Despite the masculinization of AAVE, it is also appropriated in ways that exist for feminine registers. Because of the masculinization of AAVE, the feminine appropriation of it tends not to be nearly as direct as the masculine appropriation and instead goes through a longer channel before it reaches the mainstream. It is often the language of black women which is first appropriated which includes standard AAVE but also includes specific phrases that are popular among women almost exclusively. This includes phrases like queen, slay, tea and shade Davis, 2023).
This language often experiences its first transfer as it becomes prominent in black queer communities. The next is through the connection between black and white LQBTQ members. Just as whiteness is seen as the invisible norm, so is white queerness; out of a desire to index themselves, the larger queer community has a tendency to take the smaller parts of its community and scale them up. This is how the black ballroom culture of the 70s and 80s became essential to the common way that we define gay speech today (Pratt Institute Libraries, 2025).
The next connection that makes this pipeline possible is that society views queer culture, especially gay men, as feminine. As a new variant of AAVE takes over queer spaces, specifically the queer spaces that are most visible, it also takes on a feminine persona. Through media like Modern Family, RuPaul's Drag Race, and countless others, the stereotypical gay man in the eyes of society becomes a white man who talks like a black woman, specifically an over exaggerated black woman. And just as a dog is to a man, the best friend of the white woman is a gay man. So their language begins to combine.
It is important to note that by this point in the pipeline the language has already undergone extreme changes. Unlike the masculine appropriate which tends to copy the grammar and prosody of black language, the feminine appropriation has a much greater focus on the vocabulary and pitch. The pitch first changes as it enters into queer spaces to become more exaggerated, and this exaggeration stays through the rest of the pipeline. The vocabulary on the other hand typically tends to lose its nuance and some meanings begin to change.
A common example of this is the word tea which acts as both a noun and an adjective in AAVE with two clear meanings. The noun meaning typically refers to drama, but to be more precise it is something worth talking about. The adjective on the other hand refers to something being so good that it is worth talking about. One common expression you could hear is “your body is tea” meaning you look great. This term had a positive connotation and both meanings had the nuance of something being conversation worthy. However in its appropriation into the mainstream it lost its adjective usage and its meaning was boiled down to just meaning drama. Even phrases like “throwing shade” are being recognized by the Merriam-Webster dictionary (Jenkins, 2018).
Unlike in the masculine appropriation of language which exists and a radical register that only seeps into the mainstream, the feminine language appropriation has a much higher success rate of entering the mainstream. The main reason for this is because the people it ultimately appropriates from those who have fought for acceptance into society instead of rejecting it. One example that is relevant to the appropriation of Boy A is the rapper XXXTentacion or X. X’s personal life revolved around an active rejection of mainstream society and a hatred for things that could be considered corporate, white, or professional. As a result those spaces rejected him and his use of language.
This is contrasting with the idols of feminine appropriation such as Oprah Winfrey and other black women who instead fight for their place to exist within the system. Since the feminine idols of appropriation tend to be regular people who are marginalized, it only follows that their language use is accepted in most places they would be. The feminine appropriation of AAVE is considered acceptable in many workplaces, some corporate settings, and most social settings, and as a result it is easier for this appropriation to reach the mainstream. With white women being the last part of the pipeline before it enters the mainstream it is much easier for older generations to chalk it up as the way young people speak and not the way that black people talk. By distancing itself from its black identity, the feminine language and traits of AAVE are able to enter the mainstream with ease.
The feminine appropriation pipeline can be summarized as follows: the language of black women is first appropriated into queer culture, then into the lexicon of white women who then pass it on into the mainstream. The inclusion of the queer community acts as a middle man to separate the public's ability to interpret this as black speech which helps it enter the mainstream more effectively than the masculine appropriation. The feminine register also benefits from more positive representation in the mainstream media ecology.
Effects of the Internet
Following the 2020 covid pandemic the world, and especially the youth, became much more reliant on social media and short form content to form their idiolects than ever before. With engagement and retention being the driving force behind most algorithms it is unsurprising that irony and novelty became such a large part of internet age appropriation. The result is that what we consider as new, nonsensical, and ironic form trends in the speech patterns of those chronically online. As white people don't suffer the same oppression that black people do for using black culture, and as AAVE is still the driving force behind new slang, the internet exacerbates and speeds up this process dramatically (Crowly, 2025).
Since this is often started as humor, misinterpretations, and purposefully incorrect interpretations are incentivized for the sake of engagement. One common example is the phrase “ts” which in AAVE is a shortening of “this shit,” however it has been misinterpreted into the mainstream as just meaning “this.” It results in new phrases that are grammatically incorrect in AAVE being used in the mainstream as if it was AAVE. Such as “ts dude pmo twin” being nonsense in AAVE as it literally says “this shit dude pisses me off twin” instead of “this dude.” Another consequence that this has is the characterization of AAVE as being “gen alpha speech” as AAVE gets mixed with other internet trends.
The lack of a mainstream culture post cable TV has been a common fear that media ecologists have spoken of, however, linguistics, and the creation of a global internet-English register shows us that mainstream culture still exists and has once again become centralized around the way that we speak to each other. Within the US the internet has created a hodgepodge of linguist characteristics that can be shared between two speakers from across the country. It may be made using AAVE, timely trends, and appropriation, but that is no different than the way it has always been.
The internet era creates a system where the appropriation of AAVE into the mainstream, both through feminine and masculine appropriation styles, is expedited and less accurate than ever before. It has created an internet register of English that has incorrect and over exaggerated interpretations of AAVE as a base and time dependent trends defining its vocabulary. While there are elements of erasure as its users tend not to acknowledge its basis in AAVE, it is not geographically dependent and is often easily distinguished from the AAVE in the community of its users. Despite the mass amount of appropriated language and customs, it tends to be more of a nuisance and annoyance than a genuine threat to black culture or AAVE representation.
