Who taught: Kim

Dude-bro (source: http://bag-of-games.blogspot.com/)

Today’s expression must be a fairly new expression. Why? I do not know why but I just feel like it. My guess is that most people who are comparatively old may not know what this expression means.

Last Saturday, while I was checking Facebook, one status updated by Kim caught my eyes. It was a very short sentence.

She said, “DC is full of dude-bros.” Reading this short sentence, we should not have a problem to find out that she was in Washington, D.C. and she was talking about the people there, right? Now, what kind of people do dude-bros mean? Can you guess?

Let’s try a little bit of anatomy here.

1. Dude : It simply means a man and, as a matter of fact, this word has a very positive connotation. Based on my research, the origin of this word is from 1870s and people started to use this word to mean well-dressed city folk.

2. Bro : Come on! We all know this. This is a shortened version of brother. These days, people in almost every country love to shorten words and this is the best example of that practice. It is pretty safe that this word also does not have any bad connotation. People use this a lot to call their best friends. I call Andrew bro from another mother (BFAM). Very good, right?

But then, there comes a very interesting result. When these two words are combined to be dude-bro, it does not have a positive meaning. It sure applies to men.

Here is the definition I found.

White suburban males, usually 16-25 years of age, hailing from anywhere, USA. Characterized by their love of College football, pickup trucks/SUVs, beer, cut off khaki cargo shorts, light pink polo brand shirts (with collar “popped”), abercrombie & fitch, hollister gear, and trucker hats.

I am sure you can imagine how they should look like. When I first found this definition, I was shocked. Do you know why? Here is the deal. So, when I first got to the U.S., I saw those people in many places like New York and DC. And, I strongly believed that I should follow those fashion styles. I actually did it.

Basically, I used to be one of dude-bros.

Today’s lesson: Do not try to mimic other people’s fashions. Try to create your own! Being dude or bro is fine but you do not want to be dude and bro together. 🙂