Watermelon People

About

Watermelon People is a derogatory slang term for Palestinians and their supporters that spawned amid the 2023-2024 Hamas-Israel Conflict, which is based on the Watermelon Symbol for Palestine's freedom. The term was originally used for algospeak purposes because it was alleged that TikTok's algorithm was striking words related to Palestine in early 2024. Therefore, calling Palestinians "watermelon people," "watermelonians" or just "watermelons" was a common practice among their supporters as a way to discuss the controversial actions committed by the IDF against Palestinian citizens. Before Palestine-centric usage, "watermelon people" was notably used as a racist slang term for Black people based on the stereotype that Black people enjoy eating watermelon (similar to "basketball people"). Criticism of the usage of "watermelon people" for Palestinians surfaced en masse on social media sites like Twitter / X in mid-2024 following multiple tweets from seemingly Black, liberal and LGBTQ+ X users who criticized "watermelon people" for condemning U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

Origin

On January 11th, 2024, X^[1] user @legotrillermoth tweeted a screenshot of a TikTok comment that used algospeak, reading, "Boycott MAC! They support unaliving watermelon people." The comment was posted by a user named Maret 🌸. The X user captioned the image, "there has got to be a better way to say whatever you are trying to say here," receiving over 90,000 likes in seven months (shown below).

Precursor

Before its usage as a term for Palestinians, "watermelon people" was used as a derogatory slang term for Black people.^[2] For instance, a viral example was a Blob Showing Off Jell-O meme shared by Instagram^[3] user @edgingshack on November 1st, 2023, reading, "Me showing watermelon people the bottle of milk my dad just brought back," receiving over 367,000 likes in nine months.

The usage of "watermelon people" to label Black people was likely inspired by the more prevalent racist slang term "basketball people," which was used in numerous viral TikToks^[4][5] posted in 2023 and 2024.

Spread

X^[1] user @legotrillermoth's post in mid-January 2024 inspired viral reactions after its upload. For instance, on January 11th, 2024, X^[6] user @capybaroness quoted the tweet, writing, "I personally just would never use an app that forced me to talk like this," receiving over 3,400 likes in seven months (shown below, left).

On January 29th, X^[7] user @missnabulsiya tweeted, "Palestinians are not 'watermelons', just refer to us as Palestinians please and thanks," gaining over 46,000 likes in seven months (shown below, right).

On August 11th, 2024, X^[8] user @Drea_got_banned tweeted, "I told yall about them watermelon people 8 months ago 😒," receiving over 7,400 likes in three days (shown below).

The tweet amassed criticism in viral replies over the following days.^[9][10] It was said that @Drea_got_banned was reacting to pro-Palestine protestors confronting U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who said they wouldn't vote for Harris if she didn't condemn Israel and the IDF.^[11][12] On August 13th, X^[13] user @imzpali quoted the post and alleged the aforementioned claim, gaining over 5,100 likes in a day (shown below, left).

Other viral quote tweets were posted on August 13th, like one from X^[14] user @tasawwufn who imagined IDF soldiers typing the post, gaining over 22,000 likes in a day (shown below, right).

On August 12th, 2024, X^[15] user @lorigspeaks tweeted, "The watermelon people picked the wrong folks to fight with. This will not end well for them," which received over 6,200 likes in two days (shown below) and also amassed criticism in viral quotes.^[16]

The August 2024 discourse about the usage of watermelon people also spread to Reddit's /r/ShitLiberalsSay^[17] subreddit around the same timeframe.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References