Spread

Prior to June 2020, a video taken from Snapchat in which a Black man with an English accent raps badly over a text label reading “We are not making it out the hood” began spreading around the web. On June 26th, 2020, YouTuber nine o two one o uploaded the video, garnering over 14,000 views in 10 months. On August 9th, Twitter user @VideoReacts then shared a version of the video showing the user’s name, garnering over 106,000 views and 200 likes in eight months (shown below).

We’re not making it out the hood pic.twitter.com/IgaVFHZBbu

— click here for reaction videos (@VideoReacts) August 9, 2020

TikTok Success

On October 23rd, 2020, TikToker @cireyt uploaded a video with on-screen text reading, “We not making it out the hood pt.1,” with the caption, “Told me pull up to cook some heat and they made this,” showing off a bad beat his friends allegedly made, which garnered over 2.1 million views in six months (shown below). On October 26th, TikToker @almighttykem used the original sound for a similar video, garnering over 1.9 million views in a comparable span of time (shown below, right).

In November 2020, the now-deleted TikToker @neoreoo0 posted a video of a bad rap song made on BandLab allegedly by his cousin. On November 4th, YouTuber Lyric uploaded the video to YouTube, titled “We ain’t makin it out the hood 😭,” garnering over 30,000 views in five months (shown below).

On November 6th, TikToker @henofamous posted a purposely bad BandLab beat with the ironic on-screen text, “I’m fasho making it out wit dis,” garnering over 1 million views in five months (shown below, left). The original sound was used over 30,000 times in that span of time, mostly in skits about supporting someone in something they’re bad at (example shown below, right).

Continued Spread Outside TikTok

On January 17th, 2021, Redditor u/lilshawnyy420 posted a video of someone badly rapping to /r/playboicarti titled, “we not making it out the hood 😞,” garnering over 1,100 upvotes in three months (shown below).

we not making it out the hood 😞 from r/playboicarti

On January 23rd, Instagram user @bigwinnn posted a video of a bad rap song with the caption, “Verified
JAZ FIRST SONG 😂😖WE NOT MAKING IT OUT THE HOOD BUT WE DEFINITELY MAKING IT TO THE CORNER STORE 😳😳😳,” garnering over 718,000 views and 131,000 likes in three months (shown below).

We Making It Out The Hood

The opposite of the phrase, “we making it out the hood,” often used alongside videos of beats or raps that show actual talent (although also used ironically), is also significantly prominent online (examples shown below, left and right).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVjxgGbP4qw