What’s the origin of this phrase, which has been popping up here and there lately? Sometimes in the form “Go <name>, it’s your birthday, not for real-real, just for play-play”.
A line from a song, perhaps?
That’d be Foxy Love, from Drawn Together.
Unless it appears there as a reference to something else that I’m too out-of-touch to get. These kids with their hip’n and their hop’n and their pudding pops and all.
I saw that episode. I love “Drawn together”.
Is Foxxy really the source of the quote, though? I had the impression she was quoting from somewhere.
No cite, but it’s definitely older than that. I remember it from middle or elementary school (1990-ish).
What I always heard was:
go 'head
go 'head
it’s your birthday
not for real though
just for play play
I believe the phrase originated before it was picked up by any media source. The development, I’m guessing, goes something like this.
– Go, <name> – a standard shout of encouragement, perhaps at a school athletic event
– It’s your birthday – I don’t know quite how this became part of the shout, but it just adds to the sense of encouragement – “It’s your day!”
– Not for real-real; just for play-play – added on for rhyme and meter – reflects the reality that the person being encouraged is not really celebrating a birthday.
I don’t know about “real real”, but “play-play” is long-standing slang meaning for “pretend” or “not for real”.
As in, “That girl over there is my play-play cousin.”
This phrase is older than most of your parents. I was born in 77, and kids in the projects were saying it since I could first remember, around age 7. When we were making something up to be funny and somebody was asking if we were serious, it would go like this:
Person 1: For REAL??
Person 2: Nah, for play-play, man.
It just started out as early 80’s or pre-80’s black kid lingo.
Not the same, but in Phantom of the Paradise, the character Beef says about seeing the Phantom “I know real real from drug real…”
Welcome to the SDMB!
Just FYI, most of our members here have been active on the board for 20+ years, and are in their 50s to 70s (and some even older). A lot of them are the age of your parents. 
Huh…then I would think they would have a better clue as to just how old this phrase is. Of course, maybe the people who were active in this topic didn’t grow up in the same areas as the people who originated this phrase? That would explain it.
Very likely so. “It was common where I grew up” does not, of course, mean “it was common everywhere,” especially in the pre-Internet era.
I am almost 70 years old, and I don’t recall ever hearing or reading “real- real” or “play-play” until reading this thread, just now.