I'm amused: Cultural Osmosis

[proteanmix]

Evidently people are puzzled by the pound Obama and his wife shared this week.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=kX9tU7VwBq4

A few months ago, Obama brushed his shoulders off at a rally and people didn't get it either.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FlR9DNfqGD4
2:29 into video

For suburban white kids (starting in the early 90s) being the number one purchases of rap I'm a little surprised by the lack of basic cultural signs that mainstream America doesn't seem to know. It's like once people finally mastered high fives a "phew!" was emitted and people promptly sank down exhausted on the couch. This pound!! oh god, what is this new thing to be mastered and coordinated?! Damn, people have been giving pounds since I was a kid!

Eh, I suppose Bush was gently ribbed for his cowboyisms and what not.

 

[heart]

Bush uses "cowboyisms" I never heard before.

 

[disregard]

I think Bush's cowboyisms are completely affected.

 

[Randomnity]

that's weird, it's more common to do that than to high-five around here, at least in my experience. I didn't know it was called a pound, though, or that it started as a rap/black culture thing (?).

 

[Samuel De Mazarin]

I think most people thirty-or-under, particularly people living in cities, know exactly what dusting off the shoulders or pounds are... it's the forty and fifty-somethings in the media who are playing up the general ignorance of white America... older white America...

 

[LucrativeSid]

Aren't things like that clear based on the context in which they are exhibited? It may be hard to come up with a precise definition, because there isn't one, but anybody who's not autistic should be able to guess what's going on. Whoever claims to not understand it would probably be right if they had to guess what it meant. Maybe they just want to believe it's more complicated and secretive than it really is so they can be mad about something or so they can fight against something.

I've never heard anyone call that a pound, and I've never heard them call it anything else, for that matter, but I've been seeing it for a long time.

I really hate it when people want to do a "pound" and then try to turn it into some kind of complex handshake that takes 10 seconds to do. I'm a big fan of head-nods. I like you, and I'm not afraid of touching you, but let's not put more effort into the goofiness of it than we do into the point of it.