THE ART OF TEA THE ART OF TEA
To those who live for the drama and can’t go a day without the freshest tea.
YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.
LET’S TALK ‘TEA’
Spill it, sip it: Just make it HOT
If you’re on the Internet at all, you’ve likely seen the meme of Kermit the Frog sipping a cup of tea. In fact, it’s so popular that it has its own category on the GIF repository Giphy.com, and the famed frog himself has commented on it. But Kermit isn’t the only one with a cup. Plenty of skeptical people on Twitter sip tea.
All well and good: but what’s it all about?
As we see with many slang words that take off on the Internet, tea didn’t originate online. But it does share an origin point with many other common terms being passed around social media.
Like shade before it, tea originated in drag culture, and specifically black drag culture. When it was first popularized in general print, it could be spelled T or tea and it didn’t refer to the drink. One of our early print uses
of T comes from John Berendt’s nonfiction best seller, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. In it, he is interviewing The Lady Chablis, a prominent drag performer in Savannah, about her dating life, and she notes that she avoids certain men because they’re prone to violence when they “find out her T”:
— Lady Chablis quoted in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, John Berendt, 1994
“Your T?”
MY T. MY THING, my business, what’s goin’ on in my life.”
“Yeah,
Chablis’ interviews in Berendt’s book gave the world a peek into the vocabulary of black drag culture. T here is short for truth, and her truth is that she’s transgender. (It’s worth noting that Chablis herself uses the letter T instead of the word tea in her 1997 autobiography, and glosses it as “my Truth.”)
It appears that T, also spelled tea, had a double-edged meaning in black drag culture. It could refer to a hidden truth, as Chablis uses it, and it could also refer to someone else’s hidden truth— that is, gossip:
this point. The phrase “spill the tea,” used as an encouragement to gossip, has been used in everything from Harlequin romance novels to “RuPaul’s Drag Race”; “no tea, no shade” has been featured in explainers on black gay slang; comedian Larry Wilmore used “weak tea” regularly on his 2015-16 Comedy Central show in response to people who weren’t telling the absolute truth.
And, of course, tea has shown up on social media in a plethora of reaction memes, GIFs, hashtags, BuzzFeed listicles, and even a meta take on the 2015 show “Scream Queens”. (Whether that last one is a positive or a negative is up to the individual reader.)
As drag culture—and particularly black drag culture—gained prominence, so too did this dual meaning use of tea. It’s spread far beyond black drag culture at
Straight life must be so boring. Because everyone conforms. These gay kids carry on. ... They give you dance and great tea [gossip].
— “Nate” quoted in One of the Children: An Ethnography of Identity and Gay Black Men, William G. Hawkeswood, 1991
For now, we’re letting it steep.
DRAG THRU TIME BLACK
Marsha was a prominent figure in the LGBTQIA+ community serving as a “Drag Mother” to many homeless queer youth.
1945
1992
WILLIAM DORSEY SWANN
1858
1925
William Dorsey Swann is not only the first selfidentifying drag queen, but also the first to lead a queer resistence group in the U.S.
SYLVESTER
1947
1988
Known as the “Queen of Disco,” Sylvester was an LGBTQIA+ activist with a focus on AIDS awareness and prevention.
MARSHA P. JOHNSON
Lady Chablis, the Grand Empress of Savannah, is the woman behind “tea”! Originally spelled ‘T’ for ‘truth.’
LADY CHABLIS
1957
2016
The Vixen is best known for founding “Black Girl Magic”, an all-Black drag show that celebrates Black feminity and queerness.
THE
1990 PRES.
1960 PRES.
RuPaul became the first openly gay national television host in 1996 with The RuPaul show before launching hit show RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2009.
VIXEN
RUPAUL
SPILLING TEA THE
How drag culture gave us today’s slang
The top definition listed for “yas” in the internet’s bible, Urban Dictionary, is:
“an annoying expression used by girls expressing extreme liking.”
“Yas” arguably entered mainstream pop culture when “Broad City” was at its peak on Comedy Central. Even if you haven’t watched the show, people tribute “yaaaaaaas queen” to Ilana Glazer, whose eponymous character says it all the time.
In fact, when the stars of “Broad City” were interviewed by TheWrap in 2016 about the origins of their “catchphrase,” they credited a writer who had loved a then-viral video of Johnny Versayce screaming the phrase after meeting his idol Lady Gaga. That video, which came out in 2013, was immediately dubbed by
BuzzFeed a “new meme,” and “yas” became a new, quirky way to “tell someone you love them.”
In reality, “yas” has been used since the 1890s. It’s an expression used during drag performances to offer encouragement and support. Many performers were often young or part of the Black and Latinx communities, so it was a way to help them feel welcomed into the house and to include them in shows.
Ball culture — AKA the drag scene — essentially has its own vernacular that is commonly used to help identify other members of the community and to disguise conversations in public. Back in the early 1900s when homosexuality and drag were considered cardinal sins, words like “yas,” “work,” “gagging,” “eleganza” and “hunty” became ways
to covertly communicate, especially for people of color.
DRAG is not just about OUTFITS or wigs MAKEUP or
It’s rooted in race and marginalization. A lot of the language comes from the blending of slang in queer Black and Latinx communities. That’s why when cis-gendered young women — the leading demographic for creating widespread linguistic trends — pick up words or when certain phrases go viral online, it can blur out the politics and complicated history behind them.
There’s a fine line between forgetting the past and normalizing speech and behavior that was forbidden years ago. While some can point to the release of “Paris is Burning” in 1991 as the reason drag became mainstream (or even Madonna’s “Vogue” around the same time, for which Madonna hired real drag ballroom members to help her), it really wasn’t until
recently that drag culture became widely accepted.
But while drag is being welcomed into the mainstream lexicon, the words that define the culture still hold a deeper meaning to the community. The language is what connects the LGBTQ community not just to the now, but to their history.
While we might not be able to change what we’ve already done to the language, it’s important to move forward with the understanding that this slang is delicate and meaningful.
AND WE SHOULD TAKE THE TIME TO THANK A QUEEN!
CAN SPREADING GOSSIP & HOAXES ONLINE LAND YOU
IN JAIL?
MANILA, PHILLIPINES –
On July 24, one Gabriel Ilano, through a Facebook post, accused Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) secretary general Renato Reyes Jr of corruption. Ilano’s post was picked up by the page Filipino Trends, which spread the rumor further.
Over the next few days, Reyes called out Ilano on what he called “fake news.” He threatened to take the case to court. Ilano came forward, apologized, and claimed that his account was hacked.
Reyes is still set on pressing charges against Filipino Trends and the other websites that spread what he called “fake news” about him – cybercrime complaints that will count among the hundreds that the Department of Justice (DOJ) receives every year.
Increase in Complaints
When it comes to cybercrime complaints, it’s usually famous personalities’ issues that make it to the news – take, for example, a teenager’s cybercrime complaint against Ellen Adarna in May.
It can, lawyers say, if the information you spread harms the reputation or the rights of another person.
However, there are hundreds of cybercrime complaints like Reyes’ that don’t make it to your nightly primetime newscast. According to the DOJ’s Philippine Cybercrime Report for 2016-2017:
Respondents are Ordinary Citizens
3,951
There were complaints for cybercrime and cyber-related offenses in 2016 ALONE.
These were the combined number of complaints from the government offices in charge of monitoring cybercrime in the Philippines: the DOJ-Office of Cybercrime, the National Bureau of Investigation-Cybercrime Division (NBI-CCD), and the Philippine National Police-AntiCybercrime Group (PNP-ACG).
The graph below shows increase in the number of such complaints over time.
Among the top 3 cyber-related complaints from 2014 to 2016 was cyberlibel, an offense that can cost someone 5 to 8 years in prison if found guilty by the courts.
The punishment for cyberlibel is higher than ordinary libel –up to 6 years and one day of imprisonment under the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines.
Since the cybercrime law was enacted in 2013, the number of cyberlibel complaints have increased drastically by 124% from 2014 to 2015, compared to the 8% increase from 2015 to 2016. That’s 249 complaints in 2014 to 558 in 2015 and 603 in 2016.
This is despite the increase
penalty.
in
What is more significant is the increase in the number of respondents who are ordinary citizens.
In the past, libel and defamation complaints were mostly made against media outfits or businesses. Information and technology law expert JJ Disini
however says there has been an increase in libel complaints filed against ordinary citizens.
“This is a natural consequence of social media, where a single person has the ability to hold the attention of more people than ever before,” Disini said.
Global Phenomenon
The same is happening across the world. Comparatively, in 2013, Thomson Reuters reported that in the United Kingdom, defamation cases against media decreased by more than half in 5 years. In the same report, they observed that defamation cases involving private individuals increased, because email, blogs, and web forums made it easier to defame personal or business contacts.
In Ilano’s confession video, Reyes’ lawyer, National Union of People’s Lawyers’ (NUPL) Krissy Conti, pointed out what these private individuals might not have realized:
She said in Filipino:
“First of all, [Ilano’s account] spread wrong information, gossip, and because it was shared to a lot of people, it hurt not just a reputation but a person. There were threats that, from the point of view of some people, would have eventually come true. So at this point, when you are already stepping on the rights of others, in fact you are violating and stepping on the right to due courtesy and respect as accorded to every other person, you can be sued.”
Building Trust
Those accused of cyberlibel may cry freedom of speech, while accusers like Reyes cry “fake news.” But Disini points out that fake news is an old problem –urban legends or propaganda –with a new name.
Disini spoke to Rappler through email and Conti was giving a message to Reyes’ Facebook followers. They both said the solution to “fake news” is more speech.
“Stifling fake news probably won’t stop it from proliferating. In the end, people will believe victims of cyberlibel,
Social media posts can be damaging, not only to but also to those accused.
sources that are credible and learn to disregard unreliable and untested voices – including propagandists and political operators,” said Disini.
He said we must accept that spreading malicious rumors and believing in them is attractive to political operatives and those whose world views are affirmed by these. He remained hopeful that not everyone would believe claims like those made on Ilano’s account.
“When people start to leave sites that have or lead to fake news, then there will be a drive towards building trust from information sources. That process is ongoing and we do see many sites and organizations who hold themselves up to a higher standard when it comes to truth-telling. In the end, they will prevail.” – Rappler.com
“Perhaps the problem of fake news is temporary.”
THE TEA? WHAT’S THE TEA? WHAT’S
WHAT’S THE TEA? WHAT’S THE
FRESHLY BREWED
Today’s TEA
Relationships are messy. Let’s talk about it.
Maddi: So Aliza, what’s the tea? What’s the shit today?
Aliza: Here’s the tea, here’s the shit. So we have these two friends and they’ve got a lot of problems, you know?
M: What kind of problems?
A: Mental problems. Like they need to see therapists. One of them refuses to, but that’s a whole other thing. The other one needs to get a better one.
M: *laughs*
A: So the reason this is coming up is because those two friends, we’ll call them Mary and Kaylee, have recently gotten out of relationships, long-term relationships, that affected them.
A: I mean, once you’re with someone for a while, you’ve given a part of your life to them and it’s pretty hard to let that go, but you shouldn’t let that interfere with other people’s lives.
M: Oh? What do you mean?
A: Well, we have this other friend, we’ll name him Sam, and Sam was going out with our friend who we’re going to call Marley for this story. So Sam and Marley had a thing going on, right? And you know how relationships are, it’s not always perfect, so eventually, Sam and Marley decided to break things off but there were no hard feelings.
A: We all consider Sam a good friend so we invite him along to a lot of stuff. But, Mary and Kaylee decided that they were going to start excluding Sam on Marley’s behalf.
M: Seriously? Like how? What are they doing?
A: Like one night, we were all going out to a party. Sam was also invited so he was really excited about going, but Kaylee decided to uninvite Sam, texting him and lying to him about the situation super last minute.
M: Holy shit. Do you know why they uninvited him?
A: I don’t know. It was something about Sam making Marley uncomfortable, but she never said that, so none of us know where Kaylee got that from. But yeah, the whole situation just made everyone super uncomfortable to the point that a few of us decided not to go.
A: We’ve talked to Marley about it and she’s pretty upset that they keep speaking on her behalf, like Mary keeps shading him when we’re all hanging out, telling Sam that he doesn’t have any friends and that none of us like him, and a bunch of shit like that. Which is obviously not true, because she doesn’t speak for the group, especially because she barely knows him! She was abroad last semester!
A: She doesn’t know him at all!
M: Especially not in the way that we know Sam.
A: No. We all know Sam on a much deeper level. So Mary keeps saying all these rude things and refuses to apologize because “Well, I don’t care. I’m never going to talk to him after I graduate.”
M: That’s kind of fucked up…
A: Oh absolutely. Now there’s a divide, well there was already a divide, but we don’t need to get into that. And I feel really bad because Sam doesn’t feel as close to Mary and Kaylee because of how he’s being treated and he doesn’t deserve that. I still consider him to be a good friend and I really value the relationship that I have with him. I, personally, plan to keep it that way, so that’s the tea.
M: That’s some really hot tea. Like a hot cup of English Breakfast. Well thank you for spilling the tea with me and I hope this all gets resolved eventually.
M: That’s really true. She pretty much just met him.
u
can’t come 2 the party.
y?
the guys at TKE hate ppl named sam. srry :/
what?
DID YOU KNOW . . .
Tea can be used like watercolors! Brew a cup and get creative in the space above.
