Hasn't this always been happening? Some kid in some neighborhood coins a term, that becomes slang, that spreads, it enjoys a short period of exclusive usage by those in a certain demographics then someone in some marketing department or writer's room incorporates it into their media and a few years later it's now in songs, cartoons, TV shows, etc that want to seem modern/relevant.
The only difference is it now takes less time to spread and thanks to social media you can track the term almost to its source (since we don't actually know if the person was the first to coin the term or the first to use it online and popular enough for many others to see it).
This is what happens with any social phenomenon, I don't think I'd want a world where every little thing that gets coined is trademarked/copyright by its source and you have to pay royalties to use recent "slang".
If it is correct about the origin and shaping of copyright law, then the author has a point.
I am a woman. I got married at 19 to another 19 year old. We both made choices that supported him having a career and undermined me having one. After we had been married a few years, I wanted to live in another city to finish my college degree. I was told I was trying to destroy the marriage. I rebutted that with "You go away all the time because of your job." I was told that was different, someone had to support the family.
He could not acknowledge that he and I de facto had different "rights" in the relationship and the expectations that drove that were gender based -- i.e. sexist.
Be very leery of saying that the intellectual property rights laws of a culture that overwhelmingly lines the pockets of whites and keeps blacks poor is race neutral and the different outcomes are mere coincidence or happenstance.
Maybe it's my white privilege talking, but I don't see the racial angle here. Would "Corporations" be any less inclined to appropriate and profit from the creations of white teens? Would the moral wrong of the taking be any less egregious? Sometimes bad behavior directed at minorities is just generally bad behavior and not racism.
The article is implying that corporations take from black teens specifically because they want to seem "black cool" (such as the case with IHOP using "on fleek" in marketing). In America a lot of what's considered "hip" has come from black culture- jazz, hip hop/rap, clothing, slang etc.
A majority of people who listen to and consume rap music are white. In the 90's, tons of white people wore FUBU (a clothing brand whose name is an acronym for "For Us By Us").
So I don't think the article is only getting at corporations stealing black teens' viral content, but corporations taking ideas from black culture in general, with viral content being a specific instance.
The problem is that bad behavior is usually more acceptable and tolerated when directed at the vulnerable and disenfranchised.
I am currently homeless. I face a lot of classicism for being open about that online. The cherry on top: When folks tell me the shitty treatment I get is my fault for being open about it. "No one knows your dog online if you don't tell them." In other words, the prejudice is a-okay. If I want to be treated like a person, it is on me to hide my status.
I have reason to believe this approximates the experiences of a great many other groups that are de facto second class citizens.
Is there any evidence that Newman invented the phrase "on fleek", rather than just being the first person to document it/publicize it outside her subculture?
This is the same sort of thinking that leads people to believe Shakespeare invented many thousands of words, which always struck me as a dubious claim.
The only difference is it now takes less time to spread and thanks to social media you can track the term almost to its source (since we don't actually know if the person was the first to coin the term or the first to use it online and popular enough for many others to see it).
This is what happens with any social phenomenon, I don't think I'd want a world where every little thing that gets coined is trademarked/copyright by its source and you have to pay royalties to use recent "slang".