Black Twitter In African American Culture

Black Twitter is an active community of primarily African American twitter users who have been quite successful in bring about awareness about a vast amount of socio-political injustices.

Organically grown and seemingly nocturnal, this virtual cultural community comprising of self selecting members have a high engagement rate on Twitter. This cultural identity was first acknowledged in 2009 when a journalist, Choire Sicha noticed that African American culture was dominating the trending topics list on Twitter. However as the community was studied and analysed it grew to be so much more. Initially through humorous memes that had a massive virality due to the use of hash tags, the power of Black Twitter caught the attention of the media. They

It can be traced back to the transatlantic slave trade, whereby African slaves brought this tradition from West and Central Africa. Signifyin’ indicates to the users and those outside that a collective public sphere has been created where the members can communicate as a group. Black Twitter uses this cultural practice to create conversations, but adapting it’s fundamentals to fit within Twitter’s feature set i.e. the use of hash tags. Signifyin’ is a well established black oral tradition with the principle function of creating racial solidarity amongst African Americans. In exploring this concept, a revelation is made that blackness is a cultural performance; not something you are but rather something you do. According to Communications professor, Sarah Florini, ‘signifyin’ uses “figurative language, indirectness, doubleness and wordplay as a means of conveying multiple layers of meaning” and in such becomes a powerful resource when creatively utilised within the constraints of

Using humour and wit boosted the popularity of these tweets resulting in capturing the attention of the mainstream media and other black users across the globe. Through Twitter’s architecture the function of audience is elevated to more than them being just consumers, they are also participants. Via ‘signifyin’, a user with a significant audience of followers can reach a vast number of people as tweets are available for public consumption. If a follower finds a tweet particularly funny and retweets it or a hashtag becomes popular the audience and reach is expanded significantly. Black Twitter has a speedy conversational rate, giving the allusion that the cultural community is always