I'm Not Laughing with You; I'm Laughing at You: Who becomes the punchline when Latino culture goes viral?

By: Mayra Coyoy

Word Count: 1,055

8 minutes 20 seconds

Group of young people forming a circle and looking down at their phones (Raul Ortin, Getty Images)

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Recently, I found myself watching Netflix when I came across a face I had seen countless times while scrolling through social media: Ash Trevino.

Stephanie Soo, the host of the Netflix series The Rotten Files, chose Trevino as the subject of her debut podcast on the platform. The episode followed the influencer's rise to notoriety, her relationship with incarcerated men, and eventually her own encounter with the law. Trevino was arrested in Texas in December 2025 on felony fraud warrants and was arrested again months later after prosecutors alleged she violated the conditions of her bond. In August, she pleaded guilty to the fraud case.

 A realization dawned upon me. She made it on Netflix.

The juxtaposition felt absurd to me at so many levels. Someone I had first encountered through various social media platforms and online controversies was now the subject of a Netflix podcast. What once felt confined to a particular niche of the internet, had now crossed into mainstream entertainment. However, she was not alone

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Santos Salazar with Model Brianna Olsen (SantosPRC/ TikTok)

Names such as Santos, Dkane, and Juju have become familiar within the same corner of the internet. They are reposted, quoted, memed, and discussed across social media, sometimes becoming recognizable; not because of a particular talent or a breathtaking story, but because people find their lives entertaining enough to keep watching.

Do these "influencers," though from Latino heritage, fully represent the diasporas of Latinos?

The easy and most obvious answer is no; they couldn't. One person or a group of people could not fully represent millions of people spanning nationalities, backgrounds, socioeconomic classes, and experiences.

However, the obvious answer didn't seem to quell the discomfort, because intending for someone to represent us doesn't necessarily mean the audience will perceive them that way.

Especially when the most viral Latino personalities often become associated with controversy, dropping out of high school, fighting, alleged "gangster" personas, dysfunctional relationships, or other behaviors that have long permeated the image of Latinos as a whole. 

At what point can we continue dismissing those portrayals as simply entertainment?

Unequivocally, when does something we call "relatable" stop being harmless and begin reinforcing the very stereotypes we do not claim as our own?

Unfortunately, there is no clear definition of relatability. What reminds me of my own family and culture may not apply to the next person. Even the term "Latino" tries to cover many cultures, countries, and experiences under the said umbrella term. A Guatemalan family in Georgia would be different from a Mexican family in Alaska, or a Dominican household in the Bronx. However, certain jokes have become universally recognizable among Latinos with social media.

The strict mother. The chancleta. The mispronunciation of stores such as Home Depot, Walmart, and Costco. The "no sabo" kid. The huge family celebration where everyone alleges they saw you when you were an infant. A child interpreting something for a parent.

These in themselves are stereotypes.

But are they harmful?

Personally, I do not think recognizing yourself in a stereotype automatically makes that stereotype harmless. Relatability may explain why we can laugh at something. But perhaps a more uncomfortable question is why are we so willing to laugh in the first place?

Take Speedy Gonzales. By almost every measure, he is a caricature: the oversized sombrero, exaggerated accent, and an entire Mexican world built around stereotypes. Yet when the character was pulled from television over concerns about ethnic stereotyping, many Mexican and Mexican American viewers did not celebrate; rather, some defended him. 

So where exactly do we draw the line?

Why can one stereotype become something we embrace, while another becomes something we condemn? Is it because we are in on the joke? Because we do not feel insulted? Is there something empowering underneath the caricature? Or have we simply grown accustomed to seeing parts of ourselves turned into entertainment?

Perhaps an even larger question remains: why does there seem to be so little collective outrage when Latino identity itself becomes the punchline?

That is not to say Latinos have never organized against discrimination; we have. But when it comes specifically to entertainment and cultural stereotypes, our responses can feel scattered. Maybe that is partly because there is no single Latino experience to defend. Mexican, Guatemalan, Dominican, Puerto Rican, and countless other identities are grouped beneath one label, even when we may not understand ourselves primarily through that label. 

So, when does a joke become serious enough for us to say: No, you don't get to laugh at this one?

Perhaps the answer lies less in whether a stereotype exists and more in what it leaves behind. A caricature can be familiar, funny, and even embraced by the people it depicts, but that does not make every portrayal harmless. There is a difference between exaggerating something recognizable within a culture and repeatedly attaching that culture to ideas of ignorance, violence, criminality, or failure.

That distinction becomes even harder to ignore on social media, where the joke does not stay within the community that understands it. A creator may see themselves as simply being entertaining. Still, once that content is reposted, memed, and pushed to millions of people, they lose control over how the audience interprets it.

This does not mean every Latino influencer needs to become a model representative of an entire community. That expectation would be unfair. But being an individual does not completely erase accountability either.especially when negative portrayals become the very content that we continue rewarding with attention.

That means the responsibility does not belong to one person. It belongs partly to the creator, partly to the platforms that amplify them, and partly to us–the people who continue watching, reposting, and laughing.

Latinos should be able to laugh at ourselves. We should be able to recognize ourselves in a joke without assuming that every stereotype is an attack. But perhaps we should also become more willing to ask what exactly we are laughing at, and what happens when someone outside the joke begins laughing too.

Once Latino culture becomes entertainment for everyone, the question is no longer simply whether the joke is relatable.

It is whether we are still in on it.

And if we are not, maybe it is finally time to ask:

Are you laughing with us, or have we become the punchline?