Bye Felicia

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About

"Bye Felicia" is a memorable quote from the 1995 comedy film Friday^[19] which is often used online as a dismissive farewell.^[18]

Origin

On April 26th, 1995, the comedy film Friday was released, starring the characters Craig Jones (played by Ice Cube) and Smokey (played by Chris Tucker) as a pair of unemployed stoners who must find a way to pay a drug dealer $200 within 24 hours. In the film, a character named Felicia attempts to borrow a car and a marijuana cigarette from Smokey and Jones, causing Jones to say "Bye Felicia." On March 11th, 2007, YouTuber HyFlyer988 uploaded a clip of the scene, gathering over 870,000 views and 290 comments in the first eight years.

Felicia: Let me borrow a joint.
Smokey:You need to borrow a job with your broke ass. Always trying to smoke up somebody's shit. Get the hell on Felicia.
Felicia: I'm gonna remember that.
Smokey: Remember it. Write it down. Take a picture. I don't give a f--k!
Felicia:Craig?
Craig Jones: 'Bye, Felisha.
Felicia: Damn. Y'all stingy.

Spread

On December 7th, 2008, Urban Dictionary^[1] user pimpin'817 submitted an entry for "bye felicia," describing the phrase as a way to bid farewell to someone who is deemed unimportant. On October 27th, 2011, YouTuber Mamclol uploaded a video titled "Bye Felicia," featuring the clip from Friday with an accompanying hip hop track about the character.

On January 14th, 2014, Redditor ArsenalZT asked why "bye Felicia" became popular in a post on the /r/OutOfTheLoop^[2] subreddit. On August 4th, the phrase was discussed by guest Nicole Richie and host Ryan Seacrest during the radio talk show "On Air with Ryan Seacrest" (shown below).

In April 2014, American makeup artist and model Jeffree Star posted dismissive tweets accompanied by the hashtag "#byefelicia" (shown below).^[4]^[5] On June 18th, BuzzFeed^[3] published a listicle titled "22 Alternative Names to say 'Bye' to Instead of Felicia." According to the Twitter analytics site Topsy,^[6] the hashtag #ByeFelicia was tweeted over 35,000 times during the month of August.

Reality TV Show

On December 9th, 2014, VH1 premiered a new makeover reality TV show^[7] named after the quote in verbatim, which stars two fortysomething best friends from Atlanta, Deborah Hawkes and Missy Young, seeking to inspire women towards self-improvement through blunt and honest life coaching. The pilot season ran for eight hour-long episodes and concluded on January 27th, 2015.

Straight Outta Compton

In August 2015, online discussions about "Bye Felicia" saw another notable resurgence after its inclusion in a scene from Straight Outta Compton, an American biopic film about the 90s hip hop group N.W.A directed by F. Gary Gray, the same filmmaker behind the 1995 urban comedy movie and origin of the quote, Friday. In the film, a minor female character named "Felicia" makes an appearance at a raunchy post-performance party with the rappers at their hotel suite, which suddenly gets interrupted by two armed men knocking on the door and looking for their friend by the same name. After a brief moment of confrontation, members of the group find Felicia giving oral sex to Eazy-E, who eventually proceeds to push her out of the hotel room by the head. As the door slams behind, Ice Cube (O'Shea Jackson, Jr.) drops the line "Bye Felicia" in a direct nod to the now-famous quote from Friday. While the film was generally met with critical acclaims upon its release, both the scene and the line were brought up by several film critics and hip hop bloggers for its abashedly misogynistic, slut-shaming undertone.

Among the critics of the scene was New York Magazine writer Allison Davis, who reached out to the director for comments on the crude portrayal of black women in the film for her essay titled "#ByeFelicia Gets an Uncomfortable New Origin Story."^[8] In response, Gray defended the line by calling it "one of the funniest moments in the movie" and explained that it was completely made-up and improvised into the script by O’Shea Jackson Jr., the actor who portrays his real-life father and N.W.A member Ice Cube, on-the-spot during a late-night shoot. Upon being further pressed by Davis on whether he thought it was appropriate to include the pop-culture reference in such degrading context, Gray was quoted as saying:^[9]^[10]

“I wouldn’t try to reconcile it at all,” he said. “If you’re looking to be politically correct in entertainment, especially as it relates to comedy, that’s the end of entertainment. If people want us to make entertainment in a certain way, you tell me how we should have shot the scene.”

Omarosa's Resignation

Following the resignation of Director of Communications for the Office of Public Liaison Omarosa Manigault from the White House, Omarosa appeared on the morning talkshow Good Morning America^[11] to clarify that her exit was not due to a rumored feud with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly on December 14th, 2017. In the interview, Omarosa denied allegations that she had been escorted off the premises. At the conclusion of the interview, Good Morning America cut back to co-anchor Robin Roberts, who said, "She said she has a story to tell, and I'm sure she'll telling that story. Bye, Felicia."^[11]

The clip of Roberts saying "Bye, Felicia" spread quickly across Twitter. New York magazine reporter Yashar Ali tweeted^[12] the clip with the caption "Robin Roberts said 'Bye Felicia'to Omarosa. Wow." The post (shown below) received more than 6,100 retweets and 22,000 likes in 24 hours.

Several news outlets covered the comment, including Newsweek,^[13] New York Daily News,^[14] People,^[15] EW^[16] and more.

Later that day, Omarosa told Inside Edition^[17] that the comment "was petty." She continued, "It's a black woman civil war."

Various Examples

Bye Felipe

Bye Felipe is a single topic blog highlighting screenshots of abusive or hostile responses to rejection sent by men from online dating sites like OKCupid and Tinder. The Instagram feed was launched by Los Angeles resident Alexandra Tweten on October 14th, 2014, with the first post featuring an aggressive message from a man asking to chat on an online dating service. The phrase is the female counterpart to "Bye Felicia."