"Don't judge me" catchphrase

October 29, 2014 9:59 PM

My teenage niece is using a phrase frequently and I wonder about its origin. She appends "Don't judge me" after she finds a shirt she likes when we go thrift-store shopping or after expressing an seemingly innocuous opinion such as a preference for fries over rings. She says it so often she elides the consonants, so I figure it's a verbal tic amongst her circle of friends. Where did the catchphrase come from?

I appreciate the sentiment behind the phrase and asked her what it meant to her, but got a deserved and predictable teenage eye-roll. Niece is not quite fourteen and lives in California. Google doesn't tell me much beyond Brett Butler using it in a tv show which had its heyday some years ago, which I don't remember her parents ever watching. Any ideas?

posted by goofyfoot to Media & Arts (21 answers total)

I don't know its origin, but I can tell you it's not just her or her group of friends. I (female, 30, most of my last 10 years in Boston or abroad) definitely use it, as do a number of my friends.
posted by olinerd at 10:10 PM on October 29, 2014 [5 favorites]

tumblr
posted by betweenthebars at 10:24 PM on October 29, 2014 [5 favorites]

I have no idea where it started, but I'm ready for it to be gone!
Another data point - my 12yo daughter caught it from my 13yo niece, and I have no idea where the niece got it.
One really annoying thing - they tend to use it AS they're judging someone else. Since I've started pointing out how ridiculous / hypocritical it ends up being, the usage has decreased.
posted by stormyteal at 10:42 PM on October 29, 2014 [2 favorites]

"Don't judge me" is short hand for "I'm showing you/telling you about this thing that you might think is stupid, so I'm acknowledging before-hand that I am aware of its potential for being uncool to signal to you that I do indeed have good taste and am therefore cool".

I don't think it 'came' from anywhere. It's just a thing. And similarly, this 30-something uses it on occasion as described above.
posted by greta simone at 10:54 PM on October 29, 2014 [26 favorites]

I first heard it on My Name Is Earl, for what that's worth (i.e. nothing). Brett Butler's character kept saying it when she got up to shit.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:10 PM on October 29, 2014 [4 favorites]

I remember Meshach Taylor's character using it in an episode of Dave's World--a 90s sitcom vaguely based on Dave Barry's humor column. The context was that his character--an unhappy, divorced plastic surgeon--was delivering a VHS tape of something to Dave (Harry Anderson.) When he hands Dave the tape he says, "I want you to know that I taped over 'Pom-Pom Vacation Girls' [fictional porn] for you. [pause] I'm divorced--don't judge me." This show would have been more or less contemporary with the Brett Butler sitcom you saw--which was probably a crappy Roseanne clone called Grace Under Fire.

(Why in god's name do I remember this?)

Anyway, I don't remember a time when it was ever a "hip" catch phrase, exactly; and it's probably too innocuous for anyone to be able to trace it to one specific origin. (Would "hath not a Jew eyes" be its spiritual ancestor?) But maybe it's one of those things that was in the air a lot among tv writers in the 90s, and just stuck around as a lesser-known meme after that?
posted by urufu at 11:18 PM on October 29, 2014 [2 favorites]

goofyfoot: "I appreciate the sentiment behind the phrase and asked her what it meant to her, but got a deserved and predictable teenage eye-roll."

It's a verbal tic among her group of friends. It will evolve into something else or be replaced by something else which will similarly mystify The Olds and make them wonder about The Origin Of The Catchphrase. But really, wearing a phrase out until it's a limp dishrag of it's actual meaning is kind of hilarious, period.

/former teenage girl, current aunt to a teenager
posted by desuetude at 11:22 PM on October 29, 2014 [3 favorites]

Twentysomething, I've said it and so do people I know, either pre-emptively or in response to a glance or questioning. I wouldn't say it implies that 'contrary to appearances I have good taste and am cool.' It just means don't judge me for doing/enjoying this so-called uncool/stupid/ill-advised/immature thing.
posted by wrabbit at 11:23 PM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

But I have no idea where it came from. Tumblr seems like a good guess.
posted by wrabbit at 11:24 PM on October 29, 2014

My 11 year old says it too, as do all his friends. No idea on origin though.
posted by dejah420 at 2:40 AM on October 30, 2014

I think it is a bit of a mild defensive jab at the teen's parents and other adults: "I know you want to say something. Don't."
posted by megatherium at 4:05 AM on October 30, 2014

I heard this a good bit when I was younger, which makes me think it didn't come from anywhere. I associate it with trashy daytime talk shows, but I can't confirm that's its origin.

I remember high school as a time of transition from conformity to individuality: I stopped trying to imitate the popular kids and started establishing my own identity. But I still wanted my identity to be "cool," and so whenever I liked something that seemed potentially uncool, I'd often be preemptively defensive about it or make a big show of how I already knew it was uncool and didn't care. So I can see it being a thing among kids that age, because older people just like what they like.
posted by Metroid Baby at 4:17 AM on October 30, 2014

Oh, yeah, the trashy daytime talk shows -- in the 90s-early 2000s the remark that would be added to or said in place of "don't judge me" was, a la Springer, or surely a SNL skit or something, "you don't know me!" So yes, not new and will never truly die.
posted by automatic cabinet at 4:38 AM on October 30, 2014 [4 favorites]

Yes! That's it! "You don't knooow me! You can't juuudge me! You can't tell me how to raise my children!" That was a catchphrase among my friends around that time, and I don't remember if it was officially from something or just a Jerry Springer cliché.

There is also apparently a Chris Brown single from 2012 called "Don't Judge Me." I don't know how much airplay it got, though. (And, shut up Chris Brown, because your abusive ass deserves to be judged.)
posted by Metroid Baby at 4:55 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

Matthew 7:1-2
posted by Bruce H. at 5:16 AM on October 30, 2014 [3 favorites]

Pretty sure we got this in the UK from US sitcoms in the 90s, where it was used in a playful way, if not strictly ironic, in reference to the Springer shows and so on. Tumblr seems way too recent of a phenomenon to be the origin.
posted by ominous_paws at 5:52 AM on October 30, 2014

I don't think it's from Tumblr either. I remember kids saying it when I was in high school and that was over 15 years ago.
posted by ohmy at 9:29 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Been around for decades in one form.or another. "no judging!" was something we said all the time in college in the 90s.
posted by fshgrl at 11:37 AM on October 30, 2014

It's probably been around longer, but it burrowed its way into my consciousness and became a thing I sometimes say in at least one early-ish episode of The Dawn and Drew Show, probably 2005 or so.
posted by usonian at 2:44 PM on October 30, 2014

I always thought the whole phrase was "Don't judge me, you ain't Judy" - referring to Judge Judy. I hear it in my head as if someone was saying it on a daytime talk show from the 90s
posted by sidewinder at 5:13 PM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's just a phrase in general use, I don't think something that has any one "true origin". Something you might say when admitting to something a bit embarrassing. Sounds like your niece has taken to overusing it and applying it to pretty much any choice or opinion she expresses, no matter how mundane or innocuous. Probably in part because her friends use it, and teens are very self-conscious about their likes and descisions and what others might think of them, so she's appending it to pretty much everything, almost like so if someone does question her, she can play it off as a joke.
posted by catatethebird at 5:44 PM on October 30, 2014