Jalaiah Harmon created the “Renegade” dance that went viral.
Last week, Harry Styles made history for becoming Vogue’s first male cover star. Sporting a lace dress with a tuxedo, his feature in the magazine sparked conversations about gender and masculinity. Meanwhile, others begged the question: where was this same support and conversation when the model wearing feminine clothes was a Black man, such as Young Thug or Jaden Smith? Can something become “groundbreaking” only once a white celebrity does it?
This question has further shed light on the erasure of Black creatives’ ownership in regards to their fashion, art, music, and culture. Too often, they pour their time and energy into their projects but do not gain proper recognition once their works are recreated. This is increasingly a result of social media’s ability to erase the need to give credit where credit is due. When it comes to the casual theft of Black creative content, many walk a fine line between cultural appropriation and outright plagiarism, as social media encourages many to do without consequence.
Consider, for example, the ‘Renegade’ dance made popular on TikTok earlier this year. While the dance quickly went viral on the social media platforms and imitated by stars like David Dobrik and Lizzo, the creator, a Black girl named Jalaiah Harmon, was originally not credited and largely unknown until an interview with the New York Times.
While it is certainly an amazing accomplishment to create a viral dance, at first the 14-year-old traditionally trained dancer reaped no benefits.
“I was happy when I saw my dance all over,” Jalaiah told the Times. “But I wanted credit for it.”
Similarly this Halloween, makeup artist Dylan Davis (@dylandavii) experienced an incident of plagiarism when he dressed up as Danny Phantom. Days after his Instagram post, Cohl, a white makeup artist famously known as cohlsworld, recreated the look using a nearly identical caption without tagging Dylan as the original creator. Like Jalaiah, Dylan’s frustration stemmed from the fact that Cohl’s post received double the amount of likes. Cohl has well over 300,000 followers on Instagram and providing a simple ‘inspired by’ somewhere in the caption would have increased Dylan’s profile engagement, and potentially brought the Black creator more opportunities. However, eager to pass the opportunity as his own, Cohl did not give proper credit, and thus, the cycle of plagiarism continued.
i’m so tired of black art being replicated, recreated, and STOLEN without any credit from our white counterparts. then, we’re gaslit into thinking that we can’t be upset when it happens. a simple “inspired by” was all it took. @cohlsworld you’re wrong as hell and you know it. pic.twitter.com/6nUHdLRMGr
— READ THE ROOM. (@dylandavii) November 22, 2020
With the accessibility to new looks and trends that social media provides, Black creatives often get overlooked for their part in the production process. Whether it’s a lyrical style, makeup look, dance or fashion, Black creatives rarely get their due praise. While it is easy to get swept up in trends as a result of the pace of social media, it is important to remember each origin story and give credit where credit is due. People work too hard and for too long for their work to be stolen online, when all they ask for in return is to be acknowledged.