system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5:What is cultural appropriation and why is it bad?

I always see that phrase thrown around regarding hairstyles, food, clothing...and I can't really wrap my head around it. What is cultural appropriation? What harm does it cause? What benefits does it have?
gpt
Cultural appropriation is copying things from another culture, without regard for how it is used in that culture or how the people of that culture feel about it being taken.

Say, for example, a certain culture has a shirt that is only worn by those that have earned it. It's a humungous badge of honour. Nobody in that culture would ever think of wearing one without having earned it. It's incredibly special to them.

If Hot Topic then copies that shirt and starts mass producing it so teenboppers can all buy one for five bucks a pop and wear it around, that is going to be pretty upsetting to the people of that culture. They can feel like they've lost something or that their culture is being made fun of. That'd be cultural appropriation.

Note that this doesn't mean the exchange of things between different cultures is always appropriation. If one culture has a certain dish they make freely and share freely with everybody who visits and they even encourage people from other cultures to try, it is not appropriate if that dish then makes it into another culture.