Is this it for 'X' (the app formerly known as Twitter)?
- Thread starter awhyley
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awhyley
Well-Known Member
Black Twitter is the ONLY thing I'll really miss when (if) this thing shuts down. I know that we'll find another space, but still, there were some golden moments for sure. (eta: Wired agrees).
There Is No Replacement for Black Twitter
A series of missteps by Elon Musk has called the fate of the platform’s cultural engine into question.FUNERAL ARRANGEMENTS FOR Black Twitter began in earnest on November 10 when Mikki Boom, a graphic designer who has been a member of the social media platform since 2009, posted a “Celebration of life” flyer to her Twitter page. The response was nuclear. What did people plan to wear to the service? Their most dripped-out church attire, of course. What songs would be played? Imaginary gospel classics—“Take My Handle, Precious Lord” and “Goin’ Over Tumblr”—were encouraged. And what of the repast? Whatever was to be served, it was agreed that “no brown bags or foil” should be used for to-go plates—the food was meant for the family.
The discussion, like most discussions on Black Twitter, contained the insular charm of a group chat. It was loose and humorous but so intentionally specific that an outsider might have trouble keeping pace. It was also emblematic of what has made Black Twitter an unparalleled force throughout its 13 years: the ability to seamlessly remix Black customs, ways of speech, and issues onto our shared digital terrain in a manner that feels somehow familiar but new.
Black Twitter has endured as the premiere cultural marketplace of our time because it accomplished what no other digital body could. It “provided coherence—through culture, discourse, collective identity, and joy—to a digital platform that nobody really understood” until it was too late, says André Brock, a professor of Black digital studies at Georgia Tech.
From the jump, the influence was inherent in its consumer base: Black folks used Twitter to circumvent mainstream channels and get their voices heard, creating hashtags like #OscarsSoWhite and powering generation-defining protest movements around racial justice, gender, and sexual equality. Black Twitter became the epicenter of discussion on the social internet, the prism through which all conversation flowed. Under the ownership of Elon Musk, however, all of that could fade away in an instant.
It’s difficult to predict exactly how that dissolution might play out, but the accumulating gaffes suggest that the platform won’t survive much longer under Musk’s iron fist, a tenure already stained by reckless self-indulgence. Since acquiring Twitter for $44 billion, he has made a series of damaging missteps that have called the fate of the platform into question, including large-scale layoffs, an impulsive management style, and abrupt feature changes followed by even more abrupt reversals.
Where members of Black Twitter stand in all of this remains unclear, although the general consensus among my sources and across my timeline seems to be one of: We aren’t leaving until we’re kicked off. What is clear is that significant alterations are coming. It raises an urgent question: Just who will be included in this next era of Twitter?
Not everyone is holding out hope. Musk paints himself a free-speech evangelist, but inclusion has never been a strong point in matters of business. One former Twitter employee I spoke with described this next phase in grim terms: It’s “the end of Black Twitter and Black people at Twitter.”
Of course, that kind of loss would be immeasurable. “Black Twitter has reflected a fuller scope of Blackness, and a rejection of respectability,” says Sarah J. Jackson, a professor of communications at the University of Pennsylvania and coauthor of #HashtagActivism. “It has modeled what a healthy public sphere might look like, from the call-ins and callouts to the community debates about identity, from the parts that make you uncomfortable to the parts that inspire you.”
This article is quite long. The rest can be found here.
Link: https://www.wired.com/story/black-twitter-elon-musk/
Keen
Well-Known Member
This is why I’m not counting Musk out. He haven’t invented anything
TrulyBlessed
Well-Known Member
The last thing I saw on Twitter, before I deactivated. Perfect
The last thing I saw on Twitter, before I deactivated. Perfect
mpost.tribel.com
PatDM'T
Well-Known Member
This is how
the news was
broken to me
in a text
first thing when
I woke up:
I just wanted
to go back to
sleep where things
made more sense.
But I expected
nothing else from
Elon. He needs
another weirdo in
his corner.
PatDM'T
Well-Known Member
Black Ambrosia
Well-Known Member
Black Ambrosia
Well-Known Member
Not related to Twitter but definitely related to Musk and his businesses.
Black Ambrosia
Well-Known Member
I haven’t verified this but it seems plausible given what’s already happened.
Black Ambrosia
Well-Known Member
PatDM'T
Well-Known Member
Musky brat is
just like Trump.
Thin-skinned and
a total loser.
He reminds me
of the rich kid
no one can
stand so he
flashes expensive things
or gives expensive
gifts so he
can be accepted
and included in
the cool kids fold
#Pathetic
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