This past Sunday, Chris Rock hosted the highly anticipated Academy Awards, also known as the Oscars. With events like these, word of mouth is truly put into action whether it’s in person or via social media. This was greatly shown by the massive amounts of tweets and articles that emerged after Rock’s opening monologue.
Variety.com
With the #OscarsSoWhite controversy at its peak, Rock used the drama as a huge talking point for his monologue and continued the theme throughout the night. Mixed in with his jokes about the lack of diversity of the Oscar nominations and Hollywood overall, he compared Hollywood to a sorority.
Is Hollywood racist? You’re damn right Hollywood’s racist. But it isn’t the racist you’ve grown accustomed to. Hollywood is sorority racist. It’s like — “We like you, Rhonda, but you’re not a Kappa.” That’s how Hollywood is.
And sorority girls around the country went wild. Word spread quickly of Rock’s sorority comment and women in sororities quickly responded on social media.
Some found the remark to be funny and appreciated the joke:
watching the oscars at my sorority house and chris rock just mentioned “sorority racism” and my whole house gasped n im LAFFING -@kristi_carra
Some found the remark to be uncalled for due to stereotyping:
us Kappas appreciate the shoutout, Chris Rock. We also appreciate the stereotype. Wait…Isn’t that what you’re trying to end? -@erinoverman
And others came to the defense of their sorority:
“I’m a #kappa and my chapter was extremely diverse. Don’t believe Chris Rock. #Oscars -@jayme0509
college.usatoday.com
However you choose to take Rock’s comment, you cannot deny that it received the attention he aimed for.
With word of mouth being able to spread within seconds now due to the internet and social media, something as simple as a comment can gain attention, both negative and positive, almost as quickly as it came out of the person’s mouth.
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