A Cuban content creator sparked a debate on social media by openly expressing her rejection of "cubaneo," which she interprets as behaviors associated with vulgarity, loudness, and envy that, according to her, dominate the image of the Cuban community online.
Karen Hernández, known on Instagram as @elixir_karen, posted a video last Thursday where she was direct from the very first second: "I don't like 'cubaneo', and by 'cubaneo' I mean anything related to vulgarity. I don't like the phrase 'I'll unload on you', I don't like 'my brother, what's up', I don't like the shouting, and I don't like what is being normalized today in the Cuban community."
For Karen, the issue goes beyond language: it also points to the dynamic of mutual disqualification that she perceives among Cubans on social media. "We all attack each other because we don't want anyone to see the light," she asserted, highlighting envy as another trait she outright rejects.
The creator was careful to distinguish between the image that circulates on digital platforms and what she considers the real Cuban community. "Not all Cubans are the same, and there are also Cubans who know how to express ourselves, there are Cubans who are educated, and there are also Cubans who know how to integrate into every type of society," she asserted.
Her message included a direct warning to those who might feel addressed: "If you feel offended by my video, reflect on yourself because I think you are doing something wrong."
The video concluded with a reflection on what it means to be Cuban, in his view. Hernández emphasized that Cuban identity goes far beyond certain expressions or behaviors, and he rejected the association with speaking poorly, being ungrateful, yelling, or engaging in fights on social media.
This is not the first time that Karen Hernández has spoken out on the subject. In March of this year, she had already urged the Cuban community to “cleanse itself” of the prevailing vulgarity on social media, linking this degradation to the impact of the 1959 Revolution on the values of the Cuban people.
The debate is not exclusive to her either. At the end of August, Cuban psychologist Gise Ponce popularized the phrase “I love Cuban identity, I hate the Cuban way of being”, drawing a line between the positive cultural identity of Cubans—joy, dance, and humor—and “Cubanismo” as a deterioration of values attributed to decades of communism.
Also at the end of August, Cuban actor Edy Suárez denounced on Instagram the "division, finger-pointing, and vulgarity" he perceives in the Cuban community on social media and called for building something to unite it.
The discussion about what defines Cuban identity and what degrades it has been growing for months on TikTok and Instagram, with voices ranging from creators questioning whether Cubans are vulgar to recurring controversies surrounding explicit language in Cuban urban music.
The debate revolves around a single question: what image does the Cuban diaspora project to the world, and does that image accurately reflect what the Cuban people truly are?
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