That's Racist!

About

“That’s Racist” is a catchphrase that stems from a popular GIF animation featuring a little boy mouthing the phrase with the text “THAT’S RACIST!” overlaid at the bottom of the image. The GIF is often used in forum threads across the web, usually within the context of humorously pointing out the politically incorrect or insensitive nature of a post.

Origin

The GIF comes from a clip taken from the short-lived TV series Wonder Showzen, that aired from 2005 to 2006 on MTV2.^[1] It can be seen at 1:44 in the video below:

Spread

The first YTMND^[1] page featuring the GIF was created on June 4th, 2005, and was titled “That’s RACIST”. On June 16th, 2005, the GIF was submitted to deviantART^[2] by user dmario. That earliest archived 4chan^[3] thread using the GIF comes from Mayth 10th, 2007. The GIF has been used in various forums including Team Raw Dog^[4], Body Building^[5], Team XBOX^[6], and Hip Hop Mindset.^[7]

Search

Search queries for “that’s racist” rose in September 2005, several months after the first YTMND was created.

Das Racist

A Brooklyn rap group named “Das Racist” claim to have been inspired by the Wonder Showzen clip. From Wikipedia^[8]:

I think being minorities at a liberal arts college and that type of environment had an impact on both the way we view race and our sense of humor, which people often use as a tool to deal with race. I always felt like Wonder Showzen was a television show that captured that type of thing perfectly. When I saw the little kid yelling “THAT’S RACIST” it blew my mind. And then it became a game … to take all the seriousness out of making legitimate commentary on race, because that can get very annoying. So when something veering on racially insensitive would pop off in a commercial on television or something it would be like, who could yell “That’s Racist” first. And then we thought it would be a cool name. Das EFX may have been an inspiration.

NPR Story

On June 27th, 2011, NPR^[9] published the story “’That’s Racist!’ How A Serious Accusation Became A Commonplace Quip” that explained the cultural significance and origins of the catchphrase.

Our sense that “that’s racist” was evolving into a commonplace catchphrase that only occasionally had to do with racism and race was confirmed by conversations with parents, teachers and a website that tracked how it started as an online meme. A video clip from the cult TV show Wonder Showzen showed an African-American kid with the words “that’s racist” underneath. It became a virtual retort on online message boards. People started dropping it into Internet arguments, to quench or inflame them.

Derivatives

External Links

^[1]YTMND – That’s RACIST

^[2] deviantART – THATS RACIST

^[3] chanarchive – dear /b/ / 5/10/2007

^[4] Team Raw Dog Forums – That’s Racist!

^[5] Body Building Forums – That’s racist gif

^[6] Team XBOX Forums – That’s Racist!

^[7] Hip Hop Mindset – That’s Racist

^[8] Wikipedia – Das Racist

^[9]NPR – ’That’s Racist!’ How A Serious Accusation Became A Commonplace Quip