CNN
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Twitter could not be Twitter, however the presence of Black Twitter continues to be being felt.
If you happen to doubt that, simply jump over to X (the platform formally often known as Twitter) and seek for the recent hip-hop beef involving Drake and Kendrick Lamar. That drama is simply the kind of factor that Black Twitter has sunk its enamel into with memes and pithy quotes.
However there’s additionally a historical past of significant cultural commentary that has spotlighted inequality and injustice, just like the tragic deaths of teenagers Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin. All of that’s documented by producer and director Prentice Penny within the new Hulu restricted docuseries, “Black Twitter: A Folks’s Historical past.”
Penny, who each admires and participates in Black Twitter, instructed CNN the venture got here alongside at a time when he was wanting “to chase that feeling of being scared once more.”
“I additionally needed a venture that wasn’t gonna be in contrast instantly to what I had simply achieved,” Penny, whose latest credit embody serving because the showrunner for the HBO comedy “Insecure,” mentioned. “They introduced me this text within the fall of 2021, and I used to be like ‘I like Black Twitter. I’d like to do one thing on this area.’”
That article was a retrospective of Black Twitter, written for Wired by journalist Jason Parham, which serves as the inspiration for the three-episode docuseries.
Penny sees a connective thread from the civil rights period to Black Twitter.
“I believe that’s what Black Twitter turned, a spot to seek out group, which we at all times do, however discover it digitally,” he mentioned. “We’re refining it in actual life and doing the identical issues that had been taking place on Black Twitter, holding establishments accountable, holding the nation accountable. We had been simply doing that in a unique area.”
For all of the seriousness, there’s additionally comedian reduction. An ideal instance is the “Meet Me in Temecula” saga.
It began on Christmas Day in 2014, when a Twitter consumer going by @SnottieDrippen tweeted a critique of Los Angeles Laker Kobe Bryant’s efficiency in a recreation in opposition to the Phoenix Suns. One other consumer, @MyTweetsRealAF, took offense and earlier than lengthy the 2 had been engaged in a debate on social media.
@SnottieDrippen prompt they meet up in Temecula to settle the disagreement, launching a “Meet Me in Temecula” meme that turned shorthand for on-line disagreements that spin uncontrolled.
The truth that one of many potential combatants truly tweeted that he had pushed to Temecula proved to be the cherry on high and the entire thing was a rollicking good time, because of Black Twitter.
“We’ve all been in barbershops, we’ve all been at cookouts and there’s at all times the brother, the uncle, whoever who takes the ring argument just a little too far,” TJ Adeshola, Twitter’s former head of International Content material Partnerships, mentioned within the docuseries. “You don’t play for the Lakers, bro.”
Penny acknowledged he’s seen some apprehension in regards to the docuseries come up, on X, naturally, and understands the priority.
“I really feel like as a result of a lot of Black tradition has been not instructed by us, we’re at all times very skeptical of issues that must do with us,” Penny mentioned. “I completely perceive that.”
He’s assured the docuseries, just like the voices who embody Black Twitter, will join.
“I really feel like Black Twitter is larger than the platform now,” he mentioned. “It’s simply the power of the way in which Black folks simply transfer on this planet with extra energy and with extra emboldeness.”
“Black Twitter: A Folks’s Historical past” debuts Thursday on Hulu.