F.O.B
I was first introduced to the F.O.B culture a few years ago, when I was in 8th grade. Being as naive as I was then, there is no WAY I could have foreseen the INCREDIBLE impact that F.O.B culture was to have on my highschool experience, and numerous other aspects of my life.
Literally, F.O.B translates to Fresh Off (the) Boat, and I assume it was initially meant as some sort of racial insult to add to the arsenal that included such slurs as Gook and Chink. (In addition to putting people down, it can also conviently be used in place of any of your favorite curse words: (Shut the FOB UP).)
As my familiarity with the F.O.B phenomenon grew, I noticed others began using it more often as well, but in place of the cumbersome EFF-OH-BEE pronunciation to which I had grown accustomed, it evolved into the wonderfully pithy FOB.
In highschool, I took every oppurtunity to bestow the title of FOB unto every one of my wonderfully gracious asian friends. But as time passed, clearer distinctions became evident, and this one umbrella term was no longer sufficient to describe them. It was then, in my later years in highschool, that I developed the FOB classification system. There were the church fobs - those who wore their church t-shirt everyday and went to church and youthgroup several times aweek; the gangsta fobs - the scary ones who get many intimidating tattoos and would as soon stab you as look at you (at least they want you to think that); the nerd fobs - these guys aren't necesarily BOOK SMART like the typical asian stereotype, but they aren't as trendy as their fob brethren; and OF COURSE the FOB FOBS! The fobs fobs are my favorite because they are usually the most comical. They all wear trendy Asian clothes, with trendy Asian hairstyles, and they converse loudly and freely in their native toungue.
As most good ethnic slurs do, FOB has developed into a sort of empowerment movement as well. Fabulous Oriental Beings, and FOBULOUS people are popping up all over the place. While this may be seen has too much of a deviation from the original, I say MORE POWER TO THEM!
Fob is more than just one acronym, more than just one curse word,more than just one idea: fob is a REVOLUTION!
can you feel it?
its coming. . .