Using our AI Topic Quantifier tool, YouGov examines exactly what the public think the political catchphrase means
A decade ago, if you heard somebody use the word ‘woke’, they would likely have been describing the start of their day. Since then, it has been an increasingly common political term, frequently seen on social media, but used more and more by commentators and politicians themselves.
But the precise definition of ‘woke’ is somewhat nebulous, and the term is wielded differently by people across the political spectrum. To some it is a term of abuse, to others a point of pride, but what does the word mean to the British public?
To find out, we asked Britons to tell us what they feel ‘woke’ means in their own words, with the results then categorised by YouGov’s AI-powered Topic Quantifier model.
What does ‘woke’ mean?
There is no single agreed upon definition among Britons as to what ‘woke’ means, but there are several common themes in their answers.
The most common individual association is with awareness, with one in seven Britons (15%) tying it to ‘awareness of political and social issues’, while a further 4% take it to mean more general ‘awareness’. Another 6% of the public see woke as similarly describing ‘thoughtfulness and inclusiveness towards others, especially minorities’. One response sums this view up as “being aware of social problems and particularly racism”.
For others, though, there are more negative associations with the term. One in ten Britons (10%) see woke as being a catch-all term for the overly sensitive, linking it with “people who are offended by everything”. Some go further, with 5% using primarily pejorative words to describe the term, including “rubbish”, “insanity” and “brain dead”.
Smaller negative categories include seeing woke as meaning ‘changes to traditional society’ (2%) and ‘views of minorities trying to supersede the majority’ (2%). Meanwhile, 4% of the public explicitly identify it as a derogatory term.
There are some ostensibly more neutral responses, such as the 9% of Britons who see woke as synonymous with ‘political correctness’. But within the category, there is often a degree of negativity attached to this, such as those echoing the old saying “political correctness gone mad” or who say woke means taking political correctness to a “ridiculous” or “extreme” degree. While some do see the link in more positive terms, such as the individual who defines woke as “politically correct and sensitive to showing respect to everyone”, this is rarer.
Regardless of the political connotations, both positive and negative, there are still 6% of Britons who see the word in its more original sense as the past tense of ‘wake’. There are also one in six (17%) who are confused by the term and unsure of its definition, including one person speaking for many saying “I’ve heard of it before but don’t know what it means”.
Does ‘woke’ mean different things to different people?
With such a politically charged and contradictorily defined term, there are of course going to be different interpretations across the political spectrum.
The three common interpretations of the term woke among 2024 Labour voters, for instance, come under the categories of ‘awareness of social issues’ (22%), that it’s a ‘derogatory term’ (9%) and that it means ‘thoughtfulness and inclusiveness towards others’ (9%). By contrast, the most frequent definitions among Reform UK voters are that woke means the ‘overly sensitive’ (17%) or that it is linked to ‘political correctness’ (13%), often in a pejorative manner.
Part of the political divide is explained by differing views between age groups, with younger Britons having a particularly distinct understanding of what woke means.
One in three 18-24 year olds (33%) define woke as being about awareness of social issues or general awareness, compared to only one in eight over 65s (13%). Younger Britons are also more likely to link the term to being progressive (16%), as being about being modern or trendy (9%) or being a derogatory term (8%).
On the other hand, older Britons tend to associate the term with being synonymous with political correctness (12%) and being ‘stupid’ or ‘rubbish’ (7%), as well as being the mostly likely age group to highlight its traditional meaning.
See our 2022 study on the people and views that Britons think are 'woke'
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