Leaping Culture Gaps

One night I was falling asleep with the TV on and I heard a commercial for "Elmo's Tickle Hands"...which is a strange product in and of itself, but what really sparked my half-asleep mind was the very end of the commercial, when Elmo shouted "Yeaaahhhh, boooooooiii". I wasn't sure I had heard it right, so I looked up the commercial on Youtube the next day, and sure enough, there was Elmo quoting Flavor Flav.

Once I noticed this first instance of hip-hop culture in children's advertising, I started seeing the same cultural leap in other places. I actually found out that Chris Brown was a guest on Sesame Street, although the episode is no longer showing on cable because of Brown's arrest.




Around the time that I first noticed the Elmo commercial, a video started spreading across the internet of a baby dancing to Beyonce. I also come across this video of two young children dancing to T-Pain's song Low.

I find it truly entertaining that Elmo says things like "Yeah Boi" and his audience of toddlers doesn't think anything of it. I love the fact that in today's society it is easy to cross even the most opposite of cultures in modern media!