Famous People dictionary
Yoko
or Yoko Ono [yoh-koh]
What does Yoko mean?
From the Japanese artist and widow of John Lennon Yoko Ono, a聽Yoko is a disparaging term for a woman seen as controlling, a hanger-on who stifles her mate鈥檚 achievements and stirs up conflict. It’s based on a belief that Yoko Ono caused the breakup of the Beatles.聽
Where does Yoko come from?
Wikipedia
Yoko Ono is a Japanese artist and musician who became Beatles frontman John Lennon鈥檚 wife in 1969. While Lennon was a rock/pop artist, Yoko was part of the avant-garde New York Fluxus group. Her work was difficult, conceptual and, well, weird. Lennon鈥檚 newfound interest in exploring different, more experimental musical styles, along with his insistence that Yoko accompany him everywhere鈥�including Beatles practices, recording sessions, and even the bathroom鈥攊s sometimes said to have聽exacerbated long-simmering tensions amongst the band, which finally broke up in 1970.
Many Beatles fans (and some in the media) blamed Yoko for the demise of the band, although Lennon’s counterpart Paul McCartney later said that Yoko wasn鈥檛 to blame. Since their breakup, though,聽驰辞办辞听has become a nasty thing to call a woman who dares to interrupt the status quo of her significant other鈥檚 male group, especially a band, because of her existence. One notable example targeted Courtney Love, who was characterized in the 1990鈥�2000s as a Yoko despite having her own successful career and is still sometimes blamed for her husband and Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain鈥檚 suicide in 1994.聽
ABC
By the 2000s, public perception of Yoko had shifted聽from that of a band-wrecking harpy to an innovator, iconoclast, and badass elder-Bjork who brought offbeat performance art and screeching banshee vocals to the mainstream.聽In that sense, we should all try to be a little bit more of a Yoko.
Examples of Yoko
Who uses Yoko?
Although Yoko was most famously used to describe Courtney Love, other celebrity girlfriends have been called Yoko in an unflattering light, including Jessica Simpson in 2007. Simpson was dating Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo at the time, and football fans blamed Simpson for his poor performance, dubbing her Yoko Romo.
In 2015, the Daily Mail reported聽One Direction fans called singer Perrie Edwards a Yoko 翱苍辞,听blaming her for then-fiance Zayn Malik鈥檚 departure from the band.聽
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Yoko was the subject of many songs by John Lennon, of course, but other artists have also penned tunes inspired by her. There鈥檚 Public Enemy鈥檚 1987 classic “Bring the Noise,” featuring the line 鈥淏eat is for Sonny Bono / beat is for Yoko Ono,鈥� as well as Barenaked Ladies’ 鈥淏e My Yoko Ono鈥� from 1992 and Dar Williams鈥� 鈥淚 Won鈥檛 be Your Yoko Ono鈥� from 2000.聽The NBC time travel adventure series Timeless聽also threw out a Yoko reference in the 2018 episode “Mrs. Sherlock Holmes.”
We recommend using Yoko to describe someone who is driven, complicated, offbeat, envelope-pushing, and not particularly concerned with being accessible or likable. The other use, the one that scapegoats a woman for the failings of four grown men who can’t get along, feels as dated as lava lamps, leisure suits, and other things that should just be left in the 1970s.
Note
This is not meant to be a formal definition of Yoko like most terms we define on 亚洲网紅露点, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of Yoko that will help our users expand their word mastery.