what color is your Bugatti

English

Alternative forms

• what colour is your Bugatti (Commonwealth, Ireland)

Etymology

Coined by Andrew Tate in March 2022 during a video with YouTuber Mike Thurston, and was popularized not long after. In the video, Tate flaunts his newest Bugatti Chiron to Thurston, and explains to him how he handles the people who say they dislike its color: he deridingly asks them, “what color is your Bugatti?” knowing that the vast majority of them are unlikely to own one.

Pronunciation

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Phrase

what color is your Bugatti?

1. (often humorous, rhetorical question, sarcastic, slang) Expression intended to flaunt one’s own material possessions and simultaneously deride another person for not having them.
   • 2023 February 2, Sally Weale, “‘We see misogyny every day’: how Andrew Tate’s twisted ideology infiltrated British schools”, in The Guardian‎^[2], archived from the original on 2024-05-08:

     Many secondary school teachers feel they were slow to pick up on Tate’s influence. Last year, they began to notice pupils using phrases they didn’t recognise: “What colour is your Bugatti?” (a way of bragging about status); “Make me a sandwich” (to belittle women and girls).

   • 2023 February 10, Madeline Will, “5 Ways Teachers Can Confront Students’ Exposure to Andrew Tate and Other Online Extremists”, in Education Week‎^[3], archived from the original on 2024-04-11:

     Here’s a more innocuous example: If students are making repeated references to Bugatti, the luxury sports car, they might be watching Andrew Tate videos. The influencer’s infamous retort, “What color is your Bugatti?,” has been popularized as a way of bragging about one’s possessions.

   • 2023 February 19, Emma Bubola, Isabella Kwai, “‘Brainwashing a Generation’: British Schools Combat Andrew Tate’s Views”, in The New York Times‎^[4], archived from the original on 2024-07-28:

     At a school in Belfast, Northern Ireland, a line popularized by Mr. Tate to deride people who do not own luxury cars — “What color is your Bugatti?” — became widespread, said Charlotte Carson, a history and civics teacher.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:what color is your Bugatti.