after last season critics all be like, "oh please please give us more complexity" since the end felt like i let down when the complex stuff end up being a red herring.
Source: http://www.vox.com/2015/7/27/9045233/true-detective-recap-episode-6/in/8586222
Is the form "all be like" allowable in terms of standard grammar or is this some kind of informal way of written English?
Answer
after last season critics all be like, "oh please please give us more complexity" since the end felt like i let down when the complex stuff end up being a red herring. Now ya’ll get what you ask for and it ends up going over everyone’s heads and ya’ll demand simplicity lol.
There are two different colloquialisms in play here, neither of which should be used in Standard English (whatever that is).
like (I'm quoting an earlier post of mine on Linguistics.SE)
BE like [with capitalized 'BE' indicating any form of the verb] is not an integrated collocation meaning SAY. Rather, like is a “discourse marker” which signals that what follows is worthy of particular emphasis or peculiar interpretation.
John was [like [totally excited about it]].
John was [like [jumping up and down]].
John was [like [“I’ll come”]].In the ‘quotative’ version, like indicates that what follows is an imitation or demonstration of what John ‘was’.
be
The use of be as a finite verb equivalent to am, are, is is a dialect form. I believe it is current in a number of British dialects. In the US it is mostly confined to Afro-American Vernacular English (AAVE); but the currently hip use a lot of AAVE, often ironically.
A paraphrase in Standard English might look like this:
After last season you critics all said, "Oh, please, please give us more complexity" since the end, when the complex stuff ended up being a red herring, felt like it let you down. This year you got what you asked for, and it ended up going over everyone’s head, so now you demand simplicity. I am vastly amused.
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