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By Ryan Smith
Senior Pop Culture & Entertainment Reporter
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Ariana Grande has become a talking point on TikTok, after a viral video shared on the platform showed her using different accents in a variety of settings.
The "Thank U, Next" singer, who is of Italian descent, has been accused of using a "blaccent" in some of the footage, which was spliced with video of the Florida native speaking without it.
According to Wiktionary, a blaccent is an "accent characteristic of African-Americans (Black Americans). This would include the use of African-American Vernacular English.
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The video in question started with Grande, 29, holding a baby picture as she said: "I'm like, "B***h, that's my cookie. It's my juice, okay? Thank you, next.' That's what this baby picture says."
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The clip then cut to her sounding notably different as she spoke about one of her music videos, as she explained that the "dancing scene in this video was actually inspired by [Bob Fosse film] Sweet Charity—and the wardrobe."
In an apparent effort to drive the point home, the video cut between clips of Grande informally joking with friends compared to how she sounded in her interview.
Over the video sat a comment that accused Grande of having a "tan, blaccent when mixed [people] were trending and now she drops the tan and the blaccent."
The video, which has been viewed more than 1 million times, sparked a flood of comments from people who also discussed her skin tone.
"[People] say her tan photos are edited but you can see the difference clearly from videos," one wrote, adding, "watch her fans say it's the video filter or something like that."
Also discussing Grande, another TikTok user commented that they "literally used to think she wasn't white when [I] was younger."
Another said that they "love her music and everything but like.... why do her fans keep turning a blind eye to these things she clearly does."
Newsweek has contacted a representative of Grande for comment.
In the past, Grande has been accused of blackfishing and Asianfishing by detractors, due to her use of makeup and styling.
Similar to the term "blackfishing," Asianfishing involves non-Asian people altering their appearance to appear as a different race or as racially ambiguous.
As with blackfishing, individuals often use makeup, Photoshop and cosmetic surgery to change their natural appearance.
In a July 2021 interview with CNN, Wanna Thompson, the journalist who is credited in part with coining the term "blackfishing," explained: "Blackfishing is when white public figures, influencers and the like do everything in their power to appear Black."
Thompson said that the practice is harmful because figures "participate in it without wanting the full experience of Blackness and the systemic discrimination that comes with it."
Meanwhile, Leslie Bow, a professor of Asian American studies at the University of Wisconsin, described blackfishing as "a racial masquerade that operates as a form of racial fetishism" to CNN that same month.
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