Ratchet has received a tremendous amount of pop-culture attention within the last decade. Despite folkloric theories as to the origins of the term in the working-class black population of the Southern United States, this work presents evidence that showcases the development of ratchet within the chiefly white trucking community. From there, the word is traced through the ages, arriving and once again departing from the black community supposed to have proliferated the term, stopping by the LGBTQ community, and finally resting with the young, white middle-class. Attention is paid to the sociological implications of the words progression from an underground label to a mass-population phenomenon, including the various gender-specific, racially-charged, and class-based sentiments associated with its use. In summary, ratchet is evaluated for the multi-level appropriation of culture that it so accurately represents with special consideration to the concepts of language variation and both lexical and semantic change.