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"O-M-G what do she have on (she ratchet)?
Her lace front is all wrong (cause she ratchet)
Gimme the phone, I'm finna take this heffa picture ('cause she ratchet)
Got it! I'm 'bout put this girl on Twitter (you know you ratchet)"
The term "ratchet" has been widely circulating in urban environments and adopted by Millenials in both mainstream and countercultural circles. The first use of the word in popular culture is attributed to a 1999 song recorded by Anthony Mandigo of Shreveport, Louisiana, titled "Do the Ratchet." The track is included on his album Ratchet Fight in the Ghetto but was popularized by a 2004 remake of the song that featured the well-known Baton Rouge rapper, Lil Boosie (Ortved 2013). The producer of the song, Phunk Dawg, penned the definition of ratchet in the liner notes on the CD. According to Dawg, ratchet is "n., pron., v, adv, 1. To be ghetto, real, gutter, nasty. 2. It's whatever, bout it, etc." (Ortved 2013, 1). The particularities of the term stem from the experiences, lifestyles, and realities of working class Blacks in the American south. Others have demonstrated a connection to the word "wretched" (to appear miserable, mean or dejected), pronounced as "ratchet" by those with a heavy Southern drawl (Corsetti 2013; Lindsey 2012).
The mere mention of the word "ratchet" seems to evoke myriad visual imageries and cues. While context matters deeply, the use of the term has been primarily used to describe the conduct of a person or group of people. Later popularized in the mainstream by the then-teenage Louisiana rap artist Hurricane Chris in 2007, ratchet has become a choice word for describing the indecent actions of a particular caliber of African Americans. Sesali Bowen offers up a definition in her article, "Let's Get Ratchet! Check Your Privilege at the Door," stating that ratchet "has become the umbrella term for all things associated with the linguistic, stylistic, and cultural practices, witnessed or otherwise, of poor people; specifically poor people of color, and more specifically poor women of color." While it is often easy to see the ways in which ratchet is a racialized term, Bowen makes it clear that it is also very gendered in its uses as well. The term is...