Hi Chac,

“Woke” is a term from Black American English, also known as African American Vernacular English, a social dialect of US English that has its own rules about grammar and word formation. It’s sort of slang, but not with the literal sense of “to stop sleeping (in a bed)”. It’s not replacing that literal meaning, but expressing something else: deeper realization of how society <em>actually </em>works, the political and social structures of power.

It comes from an idea that mainstream (white) US society (from this perspective) promotes a comforting myth that makes people complacent about power and social realities like the causes of poverty and the domestic and international actions of the US government. To break out of that complacent and often naive mindset and become critical of how society is set up is to <em>become woke</em>, and not abandoning that critical attitude by falling for myths or becoming complacent is to <em>stay woke</em>.

It’s good advanced English to notice!

@Irene has given an excellent explanation.

As a side note, terms and grammar usages from AAVE (African American Vernacular English) are becoming increasingly popular on the internet, but if you're not part of the African American community, you should be careful how you use them. The advice to "stay woke" is generally addressed to everyone (regardless of race), but if a white person claims to personally <em>be </em>"woke," it can sound rather presumptuous.

Chaac Mool:

It seems they’re using the past participle of “wake” as an adjective. (In theory, “wake is the simple past, and the past participle should be “woken” in standard English, but dropping the N in such words is common. For example, in UK English, the past participle of “get” is “got”, rather than “gotten”.) As the others have said, this specific usage of “woke” is modern, slangy, and jargon limited to a rather small group of people, but the use of past participles as adjectives has a long history.

One more point: We don’t “use” Snickers — we eat them (it’s a candy bar with peanuts, Mars brand, if I remember correctly). You’re probably thinking of “sneakers”. As with most clothing and accessories, we usually talk about "wearing" sneakers, not “using” them.

That one is non standard and exists purely in the US. It's a bit like this:

<em>adjective </em>INFORMAL•US

adjective: woke; comparative adjective: woker; superlative adjective: wokest

It may a little different in American usage, I do not know for sure.

But

Awake = to not be sleeping. your eyes are seeing and you are now aware or no longer sleeping but you are not yet able to fully operate.

Woke = in some dictionaries; to be past the stage of waking and to now to be fully alert, no longer drowsy or waking and going back to sleep for five more minutes, the stage when you have finally said to yourself. I can't stay here all day and you finally get up from sleeping.

It is usually considered in daily speaking to mean the same woke and awake wake, it might have American slang meanings?

Finally to have the actual texts and adverts would help to answer fully.