doing you
Doing you means being yourself and making your own choices instead of changing to please other people. "You do you" tells someone else to make their own call.
By Cal Hewitt, Gen X · Researched from public sources · ·
What it means
If a friend texts "you do you", they are telling you to go with your own judgment, whatever that turns out to be. "I'm doing me" is the same idea pointed at the speaker: I am sticking with my own choices, my own style, my own pace. Yale's Grammatical Diversity Project describes the phrase as sitting between "do what you want" and "be yourself", and Dictionary.com defines it as doing what is right for you, whatever that may be. The tone is the part to read carefully. Most of the time it is supportive: a warm "you do you!" after someone shares a new haircut or an unusual hobby is encouragement. Dropped flat at the end of a disagreement, the same three words mean something closer to "suit yourself": I think you are wrong, and I am done arguing. Yale notes it can land as a passive-aggressive insult in the right context, and Dictionary.com records both the celebratory use and an ironic, disapproving one. "Keep doing you" leans warmer, because "keep" tells the person the speaker already likes what they are doing. The grammar is what makes it work. The object repeats the subject (you do you, I do me, they do them), so nobody is doing anything to anybody else. Said about a third person, as in "she's doing her", it usually just describes someone living by their own style. It is informal, so at work or in writing, where tone is harder to hear, a plain "use your judgment" is safer.
See the quick definition in the doing you dictionary entry.
How to use it
“dyed my hair green lol”
A reply of "you do you!! love it" is sincere support for the choice.
“ok well you do you”
Sent flat after an argument. This is the "suit yourself" version: the speaker disagrees and is ending the discussion.
“not going out tonight, i'm doing me”
The speaker is putting their own plans first. No one is being criticized.
“keep doing you fr”
"Keep" signals approval of what the person is already doing, so this reads as encouragement.
Where it came from
The phrase grew out of the older "do your thing". Dictionary.com traces "do your thing" back to at least 1841, in Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance", with wider use in the 1960s counterculture, and says "do you" entered the mainstream through Black slang in the early 2000s. Yale's Grammatical Diversity Project connects the construction to Black vernacular and lists the 2000 Funkmaster Flex track "Do You", featuring DMX, among its earliest attestations. Dictionary.com quotes its line "Do you and I'll do me".
No single coiner is documented. The 2000 track is an early recorded use, which shows the phrase was already in circulation, and Yale notes there has been practically no formal corpus work on the construction, so a first use is hard to pin down.
Later moments show it spreading. Childish Gambino's "Sweatpants" (2013) has the line "I'm doin' me better than you doin' you". In 2015 the novelist Colson Whitehead criticized the phrase in a New York Times op-ed; Yale notes that he credited it to Black vernacular while arguing that it "perfectly captures our narcissistic culture". Yale now describes it as common among younger speakers with no clear link to race or region.
No single person is credited, the origin is commonly reported.
Where it's popular
Informal American English, in conversation, social media comments and advice about personal choices. Cambridge labels "you do you" mainly US.
Yale finds no geographic effect on where the construction is used.
How it caught on
- 1841Dictionary.com traces the older phrase "do your thing" to Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance".
- 2000Funkmaster Flex releases "Do You", featuring DMX, which Yale lists among the earliest attestations of the construction.
- 2013Childish Gambino's "Sweatpants" includes "I'm doin' me better than you doin' you".
- 2015Colson Whitehead criticizes "you do you" in The New York Times as a phrase that "perfectly captures our narcissistic culture".
- July 8, 2020The Yale Grammatical Diversity Project publishes its entry on the construction.
- 2020BBC Learning English teaches "you do you" in an episode of The English We Speak.
Test yourself
Support or brush-off?
0/21. After a long argument about a job offer, your friend texts "ok, you do you." What is the most likely reading?
2. Which phrase is "you do you" built on?
Related slang
Questions people ask
What does "doing me" mean in slang?
It means sticking with your own priorities, style or choices instead of changing them for someone else. It is the first-person version of "you do you", so it describes the speaker's own independence.
What does the slang term "do you" mean?
"Do you" means do what is right for you, whatever that is. Dictionary.com defines it that way and treats it as a shortened form of "you do you and I'll do me".
What does "doing you" mean from a guy?
The same thing it means from anyone: be yourself and make your own choice. The speaker's gender does not change the phrase. Tone does, so a warm "you do you" is support and a flat one after a disagreement means "suit yourself".
What is the meaning of "doing someone"?
"Do someone" is separate slang that can mean having sex with that person, per Collins and Urban Dictionary. It uses a different person as the object, as in "I'd do him". "You do you" repeats the same pronoun and means be yourself.
What does "doing you dirty" mean?
To do someone dirty is to treat them unfairly or harm them on purpose, as Wiktionary defines it. It is a separate idiom from "you do you".
Is "you do you" rude or passive-aggressive?
It is usually supportive or permissive. Said flatly right after a disagreement, it turns into something closer to "suit yourself", which is where the passive-aggressive reading comes from. In work writing, where tone is hard to read, a clearer answer is safer.
The idea behind "you do you" goes back to at least 1841, when Ralph Waldo Emerson used "do your thing" in his essay "Self-Reliance", according to Dictionary.com.
- https://www.dictionary.com/culture/slang/do-you
- https://ygdp.yale.edu/phenomena/you-do-you
- https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/you-do-you
- https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/features/tews/201221_tews_you_do_you.pdf
- https://music.apple.com/us/album/volume-iv/1308736617
- https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/do
- https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=do+someone
- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/do_someone_dirty
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