Wednesday, August 15, 2007

The White Man's Overbite


I was recently introduced to a phenomenon known as "The White Man's Overbite." I personally thought C.K. was making this up when she first told me, but having done some research about it on the Internet and found a quite large response, I have since had to acknowledge that this is in fact a well-known phenomenon.

For those of you in the dark about it, as I was, it is basically...how should I say it...a dance "style." I put that in quotes, because it is not really a style so much as a butchered copy of an actual style of dance. As you can probably tell from the name, it was first seen or is at least most often done by white people. It is an attempt to capture the seemingly natural rhythm and movement that black people express when they are bumping and grinding on the dance floor. However, most white people's movements are stilted and choppy, and the attempt looks completely unnatural. To top it off they are concentrating so hard on getting it right that they often will bite their bottom lip with their top teeth, forming what looks like an overbite.

So, now that I have taken the time to actually mention this on my blog, maybe C.K. will be happy and start reading it again. And maybe the rest of you will be more apt to recognize this when you see it in the future.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Now I am Happy! I laughed so hard I cried!

xoxoxoxox

CK