Two words: Black Twitter. You might not have ever been on twitter. You might not really even know how it actually works, but chances are good that you have heard of the phenomenon called Black Twitter. Our goal in this module is to think carefully about what this means, not simply from the context of “Man”-made* computer tools but from the spirit of centuries of Black communications and connections. We Tried to Tell Yall: Black Twitter and the Rise of Digital Counternarrative by Meredith Clark will be our main text.
"Authenticity on Black Twitter: Reading Racial Performance and Social Networking" by Raven S.Maragh
"#BBQBecky & #PermitPatty: African-American Humor & Resistive Discourse on Twitter" by Eric Dunning
"Bearing Witness While Black Theorizing African American Mobile Journalism after Ferguson" by Allissa V. Richardson
"Before BBQ Becky: Racial Reverberations at Oakland’s Lake Merritt" by Alex Werth
"Beyond Rights as Recognition: Black Twitter and Posthuman Coalitional Possibilities" by Pritha Prasad
“Black Digital Outer Spaces: Constellations of Relation and Care on Twitter” by Victoria Ogoegbunam Okoye
"Black Lives, Green Books, and Blue Checks: Comparing the Content of the Negro Motorist Green Book to the Content on Black Twitter" by Shamika Klassen et al
"#BlackLivesMatter: Tweeting a Movement in Chronos and Kairos" by Miriam F. Williams
"Black Memes Matter: #LivingWhileBlack With Becky and Karen" Apryl Williams
"Black Spaces/White Spaces- Black Lives, Leisure, and Life Politics" by Harrison P. Pinckney, et al
“'The Black Purposes of Space Travel': Black Twitter as Black Technoculture" by Andre Brock (chapter from Distributed Blackness)
"Black Twitter Asks Rachel: Racial Identity Theft in 'Post-Racial'” by America Leslie Stevens and Nicole Maurantonio
"Black Twitter: A Response to Bias in Mainstream Media" by Latoya A. Lee
"Cooking Up Hashtag Activism: #PaulasBestDishes and Counternarratives of Southern Food" by Anjali Vats
"The Content of Our #Characters: Black Twitter as Counterpublic" by Roderick Graham and Shawn Smith
"Creating a Space to #SayHerName: Rhetorical Stratification in the Networked Sphere" by Jennifer L. Borda & Bailey Marshall
"DRAG THEM: A Brief Etymology of So-called 'Cancel Culture'” by MeredithD. Clark
"From the Blackhand Side: Twitter as a Cultural Conversation" by André Brock
"Home Is Where the Ok Is? Early Okayplayer Message Boards & an Ethos of Acknowledgment" by Antoine Hardy
"I Got All My Sisters with Me (on Black Twitter): Second Screening of How to Get Away with Murder as a Discourse on Black Womanhood" by Apryl Williams & Vanessa Gonlin
“(It) Shouldn’t Be Funny But You Can’t Help But Laugh”: Black Twitter, #TweetLikeThe1600s, and Black Humor Online" by Zari Taylor
"Laughing While Black: Resistance, Coping and the Use of Humor as a Pandemic Pastime among Blacks" by Corliss Outley, Shamaya Bowen, and Harrison Pinckney
"More than a Modern Day Green Book: Exploring the Online Community of Black Twitter" by Shamika Klassen et al
"The Negro Tweets His Presence: Black Twitter as Social and Political Watchdog" by Makeba Lavan
"Squid Game and the Imagining of Afro-Asian connections through Black Twitter Memescapes" by Ta’Les Love and Youngrim Kim
"#StayMadAbby: Reframing Affirmative Action Discourse and White Entitlement on Black Twitter" by Laurie A. Walker
“Thank You, Black Twitter”: State Violence, Digital Counterpublics, and Pedagogies of Resistance" by Marc LamontHill
“This Isn’t Your Data, Friend”: Black Twitter as a Case Study on Research Ethics for Public Data" by Shamika Klassen and Casey Fiesler
"Tweeting Racial Representation: How the Congressional Black Caucus Used Twitter in the 113th Congress" by Alvin B. Tillery
“We Play by House Rules: UNO, Social Media, and the Power of the Petty" by Zhane Lloyd
“You Don't Mess With Black Twitter!': An Ubuntu Approach to Understanding 'Militant' Twitter Discourse" by Motsamai Molefe and Mthobeli Ngcongo
Click below to read Josulyn's Response to “(It) Shouldn’t Be Funny But You Can’t Help But Laugh”: Black Twitter, #TweetLikeThe1600s, and Black Humor Online" by Zari Taylor
“(It) Shouldn’t Be Funny But You Can’t Help But Laugh”: Black Twitter, #TweetLikeThe1600s, and Black Humor Online" by Zari Taylor
Scroll Below to Read Rachel's Fictional Twitter Thread in Response to "DRAG THEM: A Brief Etymology of So-called 'Cancel Culture'” by Meredith D. Clark