About

7/11 or 9/11 Brown refers to a racial joke in which one person asks another if they are "7/11 brown" or "9/11 brown," with 7/11 brown meaning of South Asian descent and 9/11 brown meaning of Middle Eastern descent, playing off the stereotype that people of South Asian descent supposedly work in convenience stores (i.e. 7-Eleven) while Middle Eastern people are terrorists. The joke first started appearing online in late 2021 on TikTok and became increasingly popularized over the following years.

Origin

While it's unclear where exactly the "7/11 or 9/11 brown" joke originated, the earliest known popular reference to it online is a video by TikToker^[1] @miss.mango.1 posted on November 5th, 2021, using the the woman was too stunned to speak audio, garnering over 1.1 million views in three years (shown below).

Spread

The joke gained viral spread over the following years. On October 27th, 2022, a post was made to the /r/redscarepod^[2] subreddit sharing the joke that gained over 700 upvotes in two years. On November 3rd, 2023, it was defined on Urban Dictionary.^[3]

On February 20th, 2024, TikToker^[4] @akaashsinghcomedy posted a clip of the question being asked during a comedy show, garnering over 12.2 million views in three months (shown below).

On May 14th, Redditor u/AmbitiousConcept6028 posted a screenshot to /r/peterexplainsthejoke^[5] of an unknown or deleted TikTok video captioned, "someone just asked me if I was 7/11 or 9/11 brown," garnering over 4,400 upvotes in two days (shown below). It was posted to /r/facepalm^[6] on May 16th, garnering over 17,000 upvotes in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References