One of the most interesting interactions that recent media has had with our society in the last half decade has been, undoubtedly, with race and ethnicity. As a hispanic man from right here in Los Angeles, one ethnicity related TikTok trend which keeps surfacing time and time again is the Edgar. The Edgar describes a specific style which has been adopted by many young latino boys. The style is an amalgam of different looks, often including a sharp bowl cut, an eyebrow slit, sharp, generously applied cologne, a thick chain and square diamond earrings.
According to Srijita Saha, a writer for media magazine Otakukart, the haircut is one of the defining factors of this look. She goes on to explain this now iconic look when she writes, “the Edgar meme is also related to a specific haircut. To be more precise, it’s a high bald tapered hairstyle. This was started back in November 2017. Originally, it is called the Takuache hairstyle, which goes by the style of a bowl cut. This Edgar haircut is enjoyed more by Latino teenagers” (Saha).
While this Edgar meme has allowed myself and my family to share a good laugh while we identify our different relatives who share this infamously bad look, it also provides us a unique look at the way that media can form niches based on race, ethnicity, culture or some combination of the three. For the most part, most people who get these memes or videos on the Edgar topic on their feeds are hispanic or latinx users who can really share a laugh on the topic as it creates a satire that is both made and by and designed for hispanic users of media.
As social media continues to grow and perpetuate within our society, I expect that other ethnicities might have similar niches of media to look forward to as well.
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