The Will to Resist

Snake PSA Dissection: 🐍 An Addendum to the Archives of Snake Oil Salvation (1992) — Part 3

When Fear Fails and the Hood Laughs Back

You can only scare a people for so long before they stop flinching. You can only shove fear down our throats for so many decades before our mouths open wide—not to scream—but to laugh.

Not because we don’t feel it. But because laughing is how we survive it.

The Snake PSA? It was meant to terrify. A slithering, transforming creature whispering poison and promises through the screen, preying on children, delivered with FX horror and theatrical menace. He wasn’t just a drug dealer—he was evil incarnate in latex.

But here’s the thing they didn’t count on: Black kids were already living in fear.

Not of monsters. Of poverty. Of police. Of broken homes, broken systems, broken schools.

Snake was a Saturday cartoon compared to the real-life sirens outside.

So we laughed. Not because it wasn’t disturbing. But because fear becomes familiar—and once it’s familiar, it loses its grip.

We meme’d it. JonTron mocked it. YouTubers laughed. The internet turned it into a relic. But those of us from the hood? We saw past the rubber mask.

We saw the projection. We saw the propaganda. We saw the overacting used to distract from the real question:

Why are drugs in our neighborhoods to begin with?

Let’s talk real. We didn’t invent the pipeline. We didn’t drop the bricks. We didn’t cook the first rock. But we sure as hell were left with the consequences.

And now we’re villainized for trying to survive?

We didn’t put the liquor store on every corner. We didn’t zone out rehab centers and funnel addicts to prison instead. We didn’t create redlines, defund schools, and pad jails with bonuses for inmates.

But when someone from the block hustles to eat, they’re called a criminal. Meanwhile, a suburban trader manipulates the market and gets a bonus.

You really want us to trust your PSAs?

When fear fails, the hood laughs back. Not out of disrespect. But out of resilience.

Because they never taught us truth. Only scare tactics. Only demonization. Only stereotypes wrapped in Saturday morning horror.

And here’s what they still don’t understand:

You can’t scare people out of hunger. You can’t shame someone out of pain. And you damn sure can’t lecture a generation born in fire with a muppet and a mood light.

We joke about Snake now. We meme the “YOU LOOK LIKE A SNAKE!” line. But under all of it is this truth:

We didn’t fear Snake. We recognized him.

Not as a monster. But as another player in a game no one asked to be in.

The game of survival. The hustle. The grind. The system that punishes you either way—whether you try to play it straight or try to make a come up.

So yeah—we laugh. Because if we don’t? We crack.

But don’t get it twisted. The hood laughs back. It doesn't mean it bows. It doesn’t mean it forgets.

It means we’re still here. Eyes open. Smiling.

And building something they can’t kill with fear.