About

Hotep Kufi Exploitables is a Photoshop meme featuring an exploitable image of a multicolored brimless cap known as a "kufi," worn by men throughout Africa, Asia and America. The hat, a popular symbol of Afrocentrism and the African diaspora, is sometimes used to represent a performative progressiveness, faux wokeness or authority on issues regarding African American history. Online, particularly on Black Twitter, the hat is often superimposed on to the heads of various people and characters to present them as a parody of Afrocentricity.

Origin

The word "Hotep" has origins in Ancient Egypt and means "I come in peace." Following the Civil Rights era in the United States during the 1960s, "hotep" emerged as a greeting among some African Americans. As Afrocentrism grew in popularity during the 1980s and 90s, East African clothes, such as the dashiki and the kufi, grew in popularity in African American culture.^[1]

During the 1990s, men wearing this type of clothing and espousing progressive values while participating in negative behavior became a stereotype in comedies about African American culture, such as CB4 and Don't Be a Menace to Society While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (clips below, left and right, respective).

The origin of the Hotep Kufi exploitable, in which the people portray the meme's subject as an Afrocentric philosopher, is unknown. The earliest available example features Woke R. Kelly. On May 7th, 2019, Twitter ^[2] user @TevinsAGenius posted an image of "R. Kelly" wearing a kufi with the caption "Hancock was a film about black men getting weaker once they let a white woman into their life." The post received more than 69,000 likes and 24,000 retweets in 13 months (shown below).

Spread

Variations of the meme, in which social media users place a kufi on various cultural figures, continued throughout the year. For example, on December 2nd, 2019, Twitter^[3] user @HotepJesus shared "Hotep Baby Yoda." The post received more than 280 likes in less than one year (shown below, left).

Later that month, Twitter^[4] user @haaniyah_ tweeted a "thread of hotep memes" that featured numerous examples. The post received more than 13,000 likes and 5,300 retweets in less than one year (shown below, center).

The series continued into 2020. One popular example features recording artist Megan Thee Stallion wearing a kufi, which Twitter^[5] user @brooklynrwhite tweeted with the caption "Is our excessive use of emojis simply a return to hieroglyphics." The tweet received more than 108,000 likes and 24,000 retweets in less than six months (shown below, right).

On March 2nd, 2020, OkayPlayer.com^[6] published an explainer on the meme.

Various Examples

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Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References