No Sabo Girls: Transnational Latinidad via Social Media

Abstract

TikTok is a video-only social media platform with an estimated one billion global users. This study focuses on TikTok videos produced by and for Latine girls who employ the meme “no sabo,” a malapropism of “no sé” or “I don’t know.” More than a phrase to describe Latines with awkward Spanish fluency, the term indexes Latines struggling with the fluid and contingent standards of Latinidad. Latine girls occupy specific intersections of positionalities that offer both limitations and possibilities concerning Latinidad’s dominant constructs. Through inductive critical analysis, this study examines Latine girls’ no sabo TikTok videos as a form of transnational discourse. We identify three transnational mimetic suggestions across three transgressive themes: translating, transmuting, and transgenerating. These themes present agentic capacities of and for Latine girls in the twenty-first century. Our findings underscore the innovative and transformative strategies that can be located in these Latine girls’ videos for reimagining cultural belonging.