Black Twitter: A People’s History was terrific and I really enjoyed it.
I’m not Black, but I was on Twitter, and I bumped into Black Twitter frequently, especially 5-10 years ago.
Seeing the documentary and the different people – Baratunde, Luvvie Ajayi Jones, April Reign – talking about their own experiences and their analysis has the feeling of meeting someone you knew only on Twitter.
It works in reverse, too: my husband was half-listening and said, “This guy is really smart, and I like his analysis…” and when his name was placed on screen, “OH! I follow him on Twitter!”
I also thought it was very smart to not put people’s names on the screen until after they’d spoken for a bit so you would listen to what they had to say before connecting who they were.
I haven’t spoken to anyone else who watched it, so when Shana mentioned she was interested in watching it, I could not wait to hear what she thought. Our overlap of television is often very fun to talk about – see our joint discussion of Nigellissima, the horniest cooking show ever produced.
Sarah: What did you think?
Shana: I left Twitter after it was bought by Elon Musk, but Black Twitter: A People’s History brought back so many memories of pop culture moments, memes, and political organizing that I observed on Twitter and had forgotten about.
I laughed so hard while watching this movie that I actually had to pause the film to catch my breath. That shit was seriously funny. For example, I’d forgotten that before #OscarsSoWhite was earnestly used to track the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ diversity attempts…
…it was a series of snarky tweets about how ludicrous the awards ceremony had become.
Watching this documentary precisely mimicked the feeling of being a Black person on Twitter. It captured that mix of discovery, outrage, joy, and kickass memes. There’s a moment in Black Twitter where various interviewees are describing how global attention to George Floyd’s death was rapidly fed by Twitter when the movie briefly detours into a Rachel Dolezal joke that made me fall over laughing. That biting humor in face of newsworthy events is exactly what I loved about being on Twitter and I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it.
The movie was also filled with excellent gossip for history nerds like myself. I was thrilled to learn about the origin of popular phrases like Black Girl Magic from the person who started the hashtag. The movie made a case for why Black people were so important to the growth and power of Twitter as the world’s town square, articulating insights about creativity and social media that I’d never considered.
Even with all this great analysis, I feel like the series was 90% Black joy. Watching it made me happy.
Sarah: YES. It was joyful and thoughtful, my favorite combination. I also really liked the structure. There are three parts, each looking at one part of Black Twitter’s history, with a feeling of urgency that grows in later episodes because Twitter under new and shitful ownership has seemed in danger of being shut down, lost, or abandoned.
Part one is very much “What is, or was, Black Twitter,” while part two is a look at what Black Twitter has done, and ends with questions about will happen in the future. It’s both creating a historical record of a social media-driven social and political movement and period of time, while celebrating what makes it essential.
Watching different people try to explain what Black Twitter was beyond the very superficial, “It’s Black people talking on Twitter,” was one of my favorite parts. There were conversations about finding commonality and community over that “I thought I was the only one” feeling. Twitter, especially in its strongest years, enabled people to find a “we” out of a lot of individual “I” statements.
And it was SO FUNNY. Some parts made my entire household crack up, even the teens who were only half-watching. The mix of activism, organization, and top tier comedy was incredible.
The other aspect I found fascinating was the examination of how Twitter enabled individual people to speak directly to politicians, celebrities, candidates, business owners. “Speaking truth to power” is a very used phrase but very apt: Twitter leveled access and, well, the reason we have Elon now is emblematic of the reverse swing of that pendulum.
We had protests and accountability, or the beginnings thereof, but the powerful don’t tolerate being challenged or being uncomfortable, so now those platforms of accountability (small media outlets, newspapers, independent publications, blogs, online news and culture coverage, Twitter) are threatened or shut down entirely.
Shana: The democratization of social media is something I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve never thought about before this documentary. It made a clear case for how Twitter blurred the lines of power differently than social media companies before or since. This made me reflect on how as a romance reader, I discovered so many new-to-me books on Twitter because of the direct access to authors and publishing industry staff who were passionate about Black romance.
Something else I enjoyed about the structure was the mix of more and less famous internet celebrities together with former Twitter employees who offered juicy behind the scenes dirt on #WorkingWhileBlack at Twitter.
I also think the documentary was very fast paced, which kept my attention.
Sarah: What do you think was missing, or could have been explored more deeply?
Shana: I almost wanted this to be longer which pretty much never happens with documentaries!
The Karen montage was especially fantastic–they rapidly highlighted a bunch of White women who became famous for racist behavior. But the series just quickly mentions women like Justine Sacco and Amy Cooper as an aside, when I really would have loved to revel in the collective Karen takedown. The quick pace means the series never drags, however.
This series had such clear storytelling that I was surprised it didn’t delve more deeply into harassment on Twitter, especially for women of color. There’s a section in the third episode where some women talk about their experiences with misogynoir, but I would have liked more depth and an explanation of exactly how Twitter tried (and failed) to address harassment.
Sarah: I’m extremely thankful this was made. First, it’s a recorded history of a community and a movement from a platform that may not exist in the future. Black Twitter was, and is, important, no matter what fragile bozo buys it next.
Second, it allowed me to realize looking back how much I learned from Black Twitter. A lot of the conversations that happened that I got to read probably wouldn’t have happened in front of me anywhere else. I learned so freaking much about so many massive and tiny things from Black Twitter, and seeing this documentary as part celebration, part requiem, makes me deeply sad and incredibly grateful.
Shana: Watching this I realized how healing Black Twitter was for me as an antidote to white supremacy. It gave me a daily hit of collective Black joy that I keep chasing on newer platforms like TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky. I’m grateful any documentary on Black Twitter exists, but particularly one as fun and thoughtful as this one.
You can find Black Twitter: A People’s History on Hulu.
Here’s the trailer:
Here’s the first five minutes:
