Fresa

All you want to know about Fresa

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Fresa (which is Spanish for strawberry) is a slang term often used in Mexico for a cultural stereotype of superficiality in youngsters.

The term fresa (then often likened to the "preppy" stereotype), was born in the 60's to define teenagers with a conservative mentality, who didn't drink and enjoyed being from traditional families. During the 80's the meaning changed and became a term to describe the lifestyles of the young and rich.

Contents

Sociolinguistic use

Ever since it started being used, the term has referred to a specific lifestyle, behavior, habits, and other characteristics that have no specific relation to economic position or ethnicity, but that somehow ended up being factors of the phenomenon when these lifestyles and habits require certain aspects that only can be found in an upper class circle, although not being critically necessary because belonging to a fresa group is a matter of the way one thinks and act mainly. Some that call themselves fresas, are usually not part of it but a false attempt to belong in that group, authentic fresas doesn't consider themselves so, they naturally think, behave, and act into the stereotype without noticing it, and finding it totally normal. The term has been made popular in other Latin American countries due to international popularity of TV shows with fresa characters. In Venezuela there is another word for the same people, which is "cotufa", which literally means popcorn. It is believed this term came from "Brain as small as a popcorn", but this term has its differences from the word "fresa". The term "cotufa" is actually more like the "dumb blonde" stereotype, but in Venezuela they don't associate it directly to the hair color because it's seen on people with other hair colors.

Fresa is sometimes considered the stereotypical opposite of naco, however it is not always a derogatory word. Traditionally, teens who attend expensive schools or have wealthy parents (and are more likely to be fresas) are called "niños bien" (fine kids) or "gente bien" (fine people). The fresa accent is also different from the typical Mexican accent, with a different tone and vocabulary.

Kids, teenagers or even young adults are known to use stereotypically "fresa" behavior as a way of giving a false impression of their social status.

Fresa as a Subculture

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Fresas have become something of a subculture in contemporary Mexico. Like Emos, Metalheads and Punks they dress in a certain way, speak in a certain way and live in a certain way. They are an abundant and very influential subculture with little or no knowledge of what happens outside their circles.

Fresas are mostly stereotyped as frivolous, self-centered and pretty much unintelligent; mostly as zombies who swirl through life solely thinking about "frivolous matters." Of course not everyone fits into this stereotype and not all fresas are like this, but the few that are overpower the image of those that are not.

The word fresa is somewhat pejorative outside the fresa circles. Being called a fresa, for example, in a punk subculture could be considered an insult, as many of the people in other subcultures absolutely abhor fresas, and use the term as an insult.

The term fresa however, is scarcely used within the fresa circles, as people who live and belong to these circles don't view themselves as fresas and simply see the word as a term to describe their lifestyle; they view themselves simply as "normal" people and refuse to label themselves as something, even though people outside could see them as such. Rarely, if ever, will you hear someone who lives in this circle call another one a fresa.

Fictional fresas

  • A well-known "fresa" is the fictional persona El Pirrurris, created by comedian Luis de Alba, a parody of the so called juniors, the young and presumptuous children of Mexican politicians and entrepreneurs. Although this character is overacted and does't exactly matches the real life fresa standards, he is often mentioned as a reference. [1]
  • Santiago, in Daniel Krauze's best selling novel Cuervos. Santiago is a typical Mexican fresa with quite the arrogant personality. He is often referred to as being the "textbook fresa".
  • Jose Emilio Pacheco, in his novel "Las Batallas en el Cielo" written in 1981, exposes a series of characters that accurately represent diverse social Mexican subcultures from which we can have a more precise understanding of some social aspects in real-life interaction to comprehend how really several groups are.
  • Other attempts with fictional "fresa" characters have resulted a failure, specially in TV, such as Mia Colucci from the telenovela Rebelde, examples such as these cannot represent the fresa social group at all, since the phenomenon is presented from a very external point of view, without really understanding the anthropologycal and social structure of it; and exhibiting a very coarse and dissinformed perspective from which nor the actors or the writers belong to a real life fresa social group.

References

  1. ^ "Bailo tango, masco chicle" (in Spanish). Estereotipos Mexicano Cine Ochenta.

See also

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresa"

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