Listening to conversations and having conversations of my own, I noticed that many people use the phrase “you do you.”
I was curious to find out what people thought it meant and implied. In my opinion and through my experiences, I had always heard the phrase right after someone gave me their opinion. To me it implied that others wanted to share their opinion, but ultimately the decisions that I made were my own. So, I asked other Lake Forest College students to find out what the phrase meant to them.
Anissa James ’18 said, “[‘You do you’] means take care and think about yourself first and don’t put [anyone] else’s needs before yours.”
Charles Jones ’17 agreed with Anissa, saying that the phrase means, “that you are in control of your own life,” but “it also has a connotation that [the person who is saying it will] also take care of [his or her] own life.” This means that the person who is giving you their opinion isn’t really concerned with what you do.
Both students agreed that the phrase depends on the context and the person, because sometimes it can be a way of avoiding giving an actual opinion, or a way to end a conversation. Gabriela Reid ’19 also agreed by saying that it is used to push someone away when you really don’t care what the person has to say.
Clarissa Jimenez ’18 said that it means “you do whatever you want because you aren’t going to listen to what I am saying and then when you [mess] up, don’t come running back to me [for advice].”
I received a few different answers, but overall what I got from my conversations with my fellow Foresters was that, in college the term “you do you” implies that we each are living our own lives, and even though we live together, the decisions we make are up to us.
So next time someone is telling you to do you, make the decisions you believe are best for you and don’t let anyone else be in control of your life because, ultimately, it is your own!
A version of this article appears in print on November 24, 2015, on page 7 of the Stentor with the headline: You do you…is it true?
