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The Corny Brother Hall of Fame
Life lessons I learned from looking at our culture’s entertainers
Images such as the one above invoke fond memories of television series’ dedicated to showcasing the full range of black personalities. In the culture, names like Braxton and Carlton bring to mind a picture of guys who seemed aloof and who struggled with getting the attention of women. We coined a term for it: Corny.
Corny. While it is hard to trace its origins, it is a term I remember hearing a lot in the 90s as a kid. A colloquial term in our community, it was used to refer to someone whose mannerisms appear inauthentic or uninspiring. In the 90s this was one of the top insults you could leverage at a person, that is until the infamous and legendary song Scrubs by TLC was released.
While I didn’t know much, I knew that being corny was as bad as being soft. A corny dude was the bane of a woman’s world and as a kid growing up, I soon realized that I suffered from this illness.
I could not for the life of me understand why I was corny. I always regarded myself as someone who stayed true to who I was. I soon found out that the prevailing ideologies only dictated for boys to be one of two things: You could either be hard or a ladies' man.
