Broke Woke

2016catchphraseclassic

Broke Woke is a Twitter phrasal template that ranks takes from basic to supposedly more enlightened, with 'Broke:' setting up a plain opinion and 'Woke:' delivering a sharper, weirder, or more ironic version. It started on Twitter in 2016 and hit its widest audience in late 2018 through a viral five-tier tweet by comedian Jaboukie Young-White.

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Overview

Broke Woke is a phrasal template that ranks opinions from basic to supposedly more enlightened, with each successive line meant to sound smarter, more radical, or more self-aware than the one above it2. The core format is two labels stacked, 'Broke:' followed by a mainstream take and 'Woke:' followed by something ironic, contrarian, or deliberately absurd. The 'woke' half draws on the slang meaning of being politically aware, generally in a left-leaning sense3.

By 2018, Twitter users had stretched the joke past two tiers, tacking on labels like 'Awakened' or nonsense phonetic spellings until the last line collapsed into surreal punchlines4. A separate slogan, 'Get woke, go broke,' used the same two words to mock companies whose progressive messaging seemed to alienate paying customers1.

How It Spread

On December 11, 2016, Twitter user @tangemess pushed the format past two lines with 'Broke: Tupac has been resurrected as a hologram / Woke: Tupac was always a hologram / Awakened: we are all holograms,' which picked up over 15 retweets and 30 likes across the next two years3. Through 2017 and 2018 the template kept spreading as a Twitter shorthand for comparing takes on the same subject.

The big viral moment came on December 17, 2018, when comedian Jaboukie Young-White (@jaboukie)4 posted a five-tier version running from 'broke: ppl are faking mental illness' up to a garbled 'w œ k e: i go brazy' capper about late capitalism, which pulled more than 4,800 retweets and 32,000 likes within a day. That same day, Redditor p5mall opened a /r/OutOfTheLoop thread asking what the format meant, and commenter Telineye laid out both the escalating-tier joke and the parallel 'Get woke, go broke' usage2.

The two meanings started blurring in casual usage. Urban Dictionary entries from around this period logged 'woke and broke' as a jab at people whose left-wing politics coincided with poor career or financial choices1.

How to Use This Meme

The typical build starts with 'Broke:' plus a plain-vanilla opinion, then 'Woke:' with a hotter or weirder take on the same subject. Longer variants add extra tiers such as 'Awakened' or stylized misspellings of 'woke,' each meant to sound more absurdly enlightened than the last2.

Frequently Asked Questions

Broke Woke

2016catchphraseclassic

Broke Woke is a Twitter phrasal template that ranks takes from basic to supposedly more enlightened, with 'Broke:' setting up a plain opinion and 'Woke:' delivering a sharper, weirder, or more ironic version. It started on Twitter in 2016 and hit its widest audience in late 2018 through a viral five-tier tweet by comedian Jaboukie Young-White.

snowclone memes twitter memes culture war memes ironic memes 2018 memes

Overview

Broke Woke is a phrasal template that ranks opinions from basic to supposedly more enlightened, with each successive line meant to sound smarter, more radical, or more self-aware than the one above it2. The core format is two labels stacked, 'Broke:' followed by a mainstream take and 'Woke:' followed by something ironic, contrarian, or deliberately absurd. The 'woke' half draws on the slang meaning of being politically aware, generally in a left-leaning sense3.

By 2018, Twitter users had stretched the joke past two tiers, tacking on labels like 'Awakened' or nonsense phonetic spellings until the last line collapsed into surreal punchlines4. A separate slogan, 'Get woke, go broke,' used the same two words to mock companies whose progressive messaging seemed to alienate paying customers1.

How It Spread

On December 11, 2016, Twitter user @tangemess pushed the format past two lines with 'Broke: Tupac has been resurrected as a hologram / Woke: Tupac was always a hologram / Awakened: we are all holograms,' which picked up over 15 retweets and 30 likes across the next two years3. Through 2017 and 2018 the template kept spreading as a Twitter shorthand for comparing takes on the same subject.

The big viral moment came on December 17, 2018, when comedian Jaboukie Young-White (@jaboukie)4 posted a five-tier version running from 'broke: ppl are faking mental illness' up to a garbled 'w œ k e: i go brazy' capper about late capitalism, which pulled more than 4,800 retweets and 32,000 likes within a day. That same day, Redditor p5mall opened a /r/OutOfTheLoop thread asking what the format meant, and commenter Telineye laid out both the escalating-tier joke and the parallel 'Get woke, go broke' usage2.

The two meanings started blurring in casual usage. Urban Dictionary entries from around this period logged 'woke and broke' as a jab at people whose left-wing politics coincided with poor career or financial choices1.

How to Use This Meme

The typical build starts with 'Broke:' plus a plain-vanilla opinion, then 'Woke:' with a hotter or weirder take on the same subject. Longer variants add extra tiers such as 'Awakened' or stylized misspellings of 'woke,' each meant to sound more absurdly enlightened than the last2.

Frequently Asked Questions