As seen with many slang words taking off on the internet, tea doesn`t come from the internet. But it shares an origin with many other common terms conveyed on social media. The 2003 top definition in the Urban Dictionary states that tea is “gossip or personal information belonging to someone else; the shovel; News Spill tea on what happened at the club. According to Merriam-Webster, the very first known occurrence of the word “tea” in its current slang context comes from William G. Hawkeswood`s 1991 research publication “One of the Children: An Ethnography of Identity and Gay Black Men.” Other colloquial languages related to tea are “weak tea” and “give us tea”. As drag culture – and black drag culture in particular – grew in importance, this dual meaning of tea also gained prominence. It has spread far beyond black drag culture at this point. The phrase “spilling 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” was featured in Explainers on Black Gay Slang; Comedian Larry Wilmore regularly used “weak tea” on his 2015-16 Comedy Central show in response to people who weren`t telling the absolute truth. But how did this Internet slang become so deeply rooted in our collective vernacular? The most obvious origin is that it would have been derived from images of housewives or little old ladies sitting around drinking tea while sharing neighborhood gossip. * sips tea quietly while WSJ Facebook aaaalllll reads receipts * t.co/bCa7SLlvZG pic.twitter.com/bWLirLXxI7 By now, most of us are familiar with the term “tea,” but not in the context of, say, the hot beverage made by steeping dried tea leaves and crushed in boiling water — but like in a gutter. You know, the dirt, the juice, the shovel. It doesn`t matter what you want to call it.
Tea can be sipped, served or spilled, depending on whether someone is simply enjoying good gossip or spreading it alone. When you send someone a gift, they are more likely to answer your questions again! Sipping tea means “take care of your things.” It is usually used to describe a person who likes to listen and hear gossip, but does not want to share it or get involved in the drama. If you`re on the internet, you`ve probably seen the Kermit the Frog meme while sipping a cup of tea. In fact, it`s so popular that it Giphy.com its own category in the GIF repository, and the famous frog himself commented on it: drinking tea can be just as entertaining as spilling it. The language level icon indicates a user`s proficiency in the languages they are interested in. By setting your language level, you can give other users answers that are neither too complex nor too simple. “The upright life must be so boring. Because everyone adapts,” quoted a subject known only as Nate. “These gay children continue.
They give you dancing and good tea. Given the source, it makes sense that the word has finally found its way into the drag scene. The use of the word really took off in the drag community — especially the black drag community, as noted in another 2010 article: Pretty weak tea. Manafort`s lawyer says the real problem isn`t that prosecutors have the data of a potential scammer — but that we know it. t.co/Et1RH3hncG. A post shared by Kermit (@thatsnoneofmybusinesstho) on Nov 9, 2014 at 2:52pm PST “Your T?” Yes, my T. My thing, my business, what`s going on in my life. — Lady Chablis quotes #ItsNotEasyBeing memes in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, John Berendt, 1994.
But that`s none of my business. It seems that T, also written tea, had a double-edged sword in black drag culture. It could refer to a hidden truth, as Chablis uses, and it could also refer to someone else`s hidden truth – i.e. gossip: In the drag community, tea is particularly juicy or coveted gossip or information. Often, but not always, drag drama is associated. Tea is often served during or after drag contests, especially on online chat sites like Carrie Fairfield, where gossip madness is the order of the day with the latest drag-related news. However, the term “tea” took on a whole new life when Lipton released the following “Be More Tea” commercial in a joint promotion with the movie Muppets Most Wanted, which was released on March 21, 2014. But Kermit isn`t the only one with a cup. Many skeptical people on Twitter drink tea: #thatsnoneofmybusinesstho #butthatsnoneofmybusiness #kermitthesnitch #kermit #noneofmybusiness #notmybusiness To give credit where credit is due, the “tea lizard” and the “smockin” were @trillballins the inventions of the strange Twitter user, but from that day on, the Kermit tea meme was widely referred to as the “tea lizard.” The “But it`s none of my business” meme came back to life in 2016 when a photo of LeBron James crying while hugging teammate Kevin Love became a viral meme after leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to their first NBA championship in franchise history. The term “sipping tea” was coined in 2018 as an alternative to “spilling tea,” which encourages people to share gossip. It comes from “Spill the T,” where the “T” stands for “truth.” The phrase was introduced in 1994 by drag queen Lady Chablis in the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Chablis` interviews in Berendt`s book gave the world a glimpse into the vocabulary of black drag culture. T here is the abbreviation for truth, and her truth is that she is transgender. (It should be noted that even in his 1997 autobiography, Chablis uses the letter T instead of the word tea, concealing it as “my truth.”) Many were quick to compare the photo to the Crying Jordan meme. The idiot who ran Good Morning America`s Twitter account at the time trolled the internet with the question: “Are #CryingLeBron joining other great memes like #tealizard, #CryingJordan and #smockin/the mask? Tweet us! More than half of that, and it`s pretty good. A Clinton more personal than what we`ve seen – open and ready to spill all the tea. t.co/TP9kC6GOGQ Heterosexual life must be so boring. Because everyone adapts. These gay children continue. They give you dancing and good tea [gossip].
— “Nate” quoted in One of the Children: An Ethnography of Identity and Gay Black Men, William G. Hawkeswood, 1991 Can ask simple questions and understand simple answers. The tea spill is usually done by talkative women who want to gossip about others, especially other women. But people who do not want to gossip, may think that they are above the original behavior, but still want to be entertained by gossip, drink tea instead. Has difficulty understanding even short answers in this language. Like the shadow before it, tea comes from drag culture and black drag culture in particular. When it was first popularized in general impression, it could be written T or tea and it did not refer to the drink. One of our first printed uses of T comes from John Berendt`s bestseller, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
In it, he interviews The Lady Chablis, a prominent drag artist in Savannah, about her love life, and she notes that she avoids some men because they are prone to violence when they “get their T”: And, of course, tea has appeared on social media in a plethora of reaction memes, GIFs, hashtags, BuzzFeed lists. and even a meta-version of the 2015 show “Scream Queens.” (Whether the latter is positive or negative depends on the individual reader.) For now, we are giving up. Show your appreciation in a way that tastes and timbres cannot. An Instagram account @thatsnoneofmybusinesstho just four days after the launch on the 20th. It gained over 130,000 followers, and a few days later, a Tumblr account called Kermit the Snitch started sharing memes. If you post a question after sending someone a gift, your question will appear in a special section of that person`s feed. Whichever way you prefer your tea – hot, icy, black or with sugar – we can probably all agree that tea is best served with salacious AF. Of course, Kermit is far from the only meme to play the term, as other GIFs like Morticia Addams, rapper Dreezy, and Wendy Williams, who state that “tea is exceptionally good today,” have all become popular examples. Today, not only Gen Z uses this word, but also older generations.
Sip tea is a popular word on the internet and is also used as a meme. Within months, the still image of Kermit drinking a cup of tea quickly spread like wildfire as a subtle form of internet calling culture – usually associated with a snarling caption, followed by “. But that`s none of my business. The tea meme finally got into meta-history in April 2017, when even Kermit the frog himself tweeted it. (He`s probably not referring to the fact that it`s called a “tea lizard.”) .