yt folx
[wahyt fohks]
What does yt folx mean?
Yt folx is internet slang for “white folks.” Sometimes serious but often humorous, yt folx is typically used by people of color, usually black Americanas, to call out white privilege, racism, or cultural appropriation.
Where does yt folx come from?
The yt in yt folx appears to stem from the slang term whitey. Whitey, evidenced since at least the 1830s, has been used by black Americans to disparage white people, especially implying oppression and racial discrimination. By at the early 2000s online, whitey was spelled phonetically at yt.
Black slang has a history of alternate spellings (cf. phat or thicc), and folx, for folks, seems to follow in this vein. We should note that elsewhere in culture, folx serves as a gender-neutral way to refer to members of or signal identity in the LGBTQ community.
Together, yt folx became a slang phrase for “white folks” by the mid-2000s. It’s evidenced on 2006 on Twitter, the year the platform began, and thus likely had been in use in black internet spaces before it.
https://twitter.com/EmpressShanae/status/987379481550704641
The deliberate misspellings of yt folx may have spread as a way around censors and moderators online, given that some may see white folks as a slur. Indeed, some white people have pushed back against yt folx, seeing it as a racist term—a reverse racism viewpoint which often overlooks the long-running inequality and inequity minorities have faced in the US.
Yt folx exists alongside other internet slang terms for white people, including wypipo, a humorous term based on the phonetic pronunciation of “white people.” Y.P. Pull, Why Pee Pole, and Wipe E. Puh are other variants, meant to look like names.
Examples of yt folx
Yt folx and nbpoc are free to say the n word around me in 2019, but I hope you can fight
in short: im tired of yt folx trying to tell me what's best and what we need and what we should do and what we shouldn't do like they can't
Who uses yt folx?
As its spelling indicates, yt folx is internet slang primarily found on social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook.
People of color, especially black Americans, may use yt folx in both humorous and serious contexts, typically to call out white privilege.
Sometimes yt folx playfully stereotypes things white people like or do.
https://twitter.com/ameeraconrad/status/735149642111983616
Other times yt folx addresses unjust practices black Americans experience or perceive.
https://twitter.com/EKFSuarez/status/933034443668799488
These injustices can include forms of cultural appropriation…
https://twitter.com/thepbg/status/1157173811
Idk why yt folx tell black folx 2 go back 2 Africa like they nosy thievin asses wudnt follow us just 2 see wut we doin & steal wut we create
— Night Skin Nerdy Girl (@NightSkinGirl88) July 21, 2017
…as well as more systematic forms of oppression black Americans face.
Yt folx swear that being a poc isn’t that difficult and that we’re just being sensitive/weak/offended on purpose but start to unravel at the seams when faced with any racialized situation.
— crispylicious juicylicious (@originalwaifu) October 8, 2018
https://twitter.com/klondyke_bar/status/979112978959171587
NOTE
This is not meant to be a formal definition of yt folx like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of yt folx that will help our users expand their word mastery.
