A Response to Farhad Manjoo's "How Black People Use Twitter"

The recent spate of articles about Blacks on Twitter is a little bit puzzling. Jessica Faye Carter weighs in on what's behind the trend.

As someone who works in the area of culture and social media, I read Farhad Manjoo’s recent article ("How Black People Use Twitter”) with considerable interest. Previous treatment of the subject has left much to be desired, so I was both hopeful and troubled at the prospect of another post on the topic. Hopeful, because the discussion of how culture and social technologies engage with one another is important, though relatively rare; troubled, because analysis in this area is frequently unserious and juvenile. Manjoo’s article is a move in the right direction, but issues remain.

I don’t see Manjoo’s article as racist. I believe he was genuinely intrigued by what he terms “blacktags” (I’ll refer to it as the Black memeplex) and the level of influence they have garnered on Twitter. He followed up on his initial observation with what is evidently a sincere effort to understand the phenomenon. Even if we disagree with his method of analysis or conclusions, casting aspersions on his legitimate work has the effect of forestalling a discussion that many of us are interested in having. His efforts merit a response that is at least equally serious.

Culture and the Social Web

Generally when we talk about culture and the social web, it’s along the lines of social media marketing, access issues, and, more recently, how various demographics—particularly ethnic groups and women—are using social tools. It’s this third discussion that has exposed some very real flaws in our lexicon and behaviors as they relate to culture.

The tendency to focus on ethnic heritage as the definitive aspect of a person’s identity presents a major challenge to discourse on culture and social media, because it ignores the layered existences in which most people reside. Manjoo notes that the Black memeplex he is discussing isn’t entirely Black—it includes people of other ethnicities, and is diverse in terms of national origin, age, and socioeconomic level, and probably in other characteristics, as well. So how did the group he’s studying get reduced to only a Black identity?

In part, Manjoo relied on avatars to determine the representation of Blacks tweeting on a topic. This was presumably because Twitter, along with other popular social media sites, doesn’t collect information on the ethnicity of its users. But the lack of an authentication process with respect avatars on Twitter precludes the images from attesting to the ethnic composition of the users involved. It is possible that their avatars are an accurate representation of their ethnic identity, but it is not certain. The problem is that all of the avatars he observed using the hashtags weren’t ostensibly of Black people. So how is it that the actions of an ethnically diverse group, even one with a high concentration of Black participants, are considered “Black” behaviors? Further, Manjoo plainly states that non-Blacks (including himself) are involved in this memeplex in some capacity, whether as tweeters, observers, or dissenters, with the dissenters perhaps unintentionally helping to propagate the memes. It isn’t only Blacks involved.

One reason why these particular memeplexes are attributed to Blacks is because it is the group that most people associate with the message and tenor of the memes. In other words, no one wants to do the work of understanding these memes as multicultural, particularly when they fit neatly into stereotypes about Blacks; it’s easier just to call them Black. This logic almost mirrors ethnic classifications in the U.S. where if a person appears Black, even if they have a multiethnic heritage, they are considered Black.

Even if the entire group of users in the memeplex was Black, it’s not as if Blacks are the only ethnic group on Twitter that uses hashtags that trend. Justin Bieber fans come to mind, a group that dominated the Trending Topics until Twitter changed its algorithm and effectively edged the “Beliebers” out. Or the Jonas Brother fans. Brazilian users tweeted “Cala Boca Galvão,” (literally, “Shut up Galvão”) sharing their exasperation with Galvão Bueno, a sportscaster on Globo, one of Brazil’s most prominent television networks. Bueno is known for a fairly constant stream of inanities during the matches—he acts as if he is great friends with all the players and such—and viewers finally couldn’t take it anymore. The meme trended for several days during the World Cup, aided by hoaxes claiming Cala Boca Galvão was everything from an endangered Brazilian bird to a Lady Gaga song. Sylvester Stallone mentioned his need for bodyguards Brazil while filming The Expendables and promptly received the “Cala Boca” treatment (“Cala Boca Stallone") which also trended for a couple of days.

Since other cultures are using Twitter similarly, the challenge to Manjoo’s article is that he examined something many diversified ethnic groups are doing on Twitter—with varying degrees of success—and focused on memes that seemingly originated with Black youth. While there is nothing inherently wrong in this kind of inquiry, it does raise a few questions.

Why the Interest?

Why the interest in what Blacks are doing on Twitter? In a way, inquiring about Black youth on Twitter is vaguely reminiscent of the question “Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?” The answer, of course, is that plenty of different ethnic groups are sitting together but groups who are predominantly “Black” or otherwise differentiated are the ones whose behavior gets noticed. Are Blacks are doing something unusual on Twitter? No. But their actions are drawing interest, at least in part, because Blacks are involved.

Part of this interest from non-Blacks stems from sincere curiosity, but left unchecked it can quickly morph into something more insidious. The tenor of some articles about Blacks on Twitter is similar to someone experiencing an illicit voyeuristic enjoyment of sorts. Or of someone who is secretly watching nocturnal creatures in their natural habitat with barely-contained delight. One could almost forget that the writers are talking about people! Manjoo’s article is better than most in this regard, nonetheless it still has the feel of a disengaged observer, which while natural in writing seems alien in the context of social media, where engagement is king.

Moreover, curiosity about Blacks is often focused on elements of Black activity that are congruent with pre-existing stereotypes of Black behavior. There’s little to no interest in how Black professionals and entrepreneurs are using Twitter, or in their activism, political discourse, and Gov 2.0 efforts. But there is significant interest in the trending topics in part because they discuss previously unknown, interesting, or titillating subjects. People are noticing because they want to get in on the fun. Memes of a distinctly cultural origin on trending topics also function semiotically—as a sign to users that other communities are in proximity and an opportunity exists to engage.

Black people on Twitter are not nocturnal creatures to be observed in their natural habitat.

All of this is to say that the title of Manjoo’s article was incongruent with its subject matter. His post didn’t really seem to be about how Blacks use Twitter, rather it was an inquiry into why hashtags that originate with Black youth consistently reach the level of trending topics on Twitter. This is a completely different kettle of fish. There has always been considerable interest in the question of how something becomes a trending topic on Twitter, and the consistency and ease with which the Black memeplex seems to land on the leader board points to something different—either their networks are in constant activity, really dense, or perhaps they are gaming the system? That’s part of the curiosity, as well.

This brings us to the veiled question in Manjoo’s article—about the replication of memes in social technology. To answer this inquiry, we turn to the concept of memetics.

Memetics is the study of memes; a meme is anything that can be replicated by others. The term meme was originally coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene, and comes from the Greek mimema, meaning “something imitated.” Techno-memes, or temes, are units of information that are replicated through the use of technology. A hashtag on Twitter that becomes a trending topic is a good example of a teme.

According to Susan Blackmore, author of The Meme Machine, people replicate memes (or temes) for different reasons. They might be useful, in the sense that they provide some information of value (#iranelection, #help4Haiti), or they may be fulfilling because they actualize some element of human desire or expression (#love, #ihatemyjob). Others are malicious, like computer viruses, and rely on subterfuge to replicate (“Get more Twitter followers!”). Of course, the easier it is to replicate a teme, the more likely others will share it, and hashtags certainly fit the bill.

So why do some memes/temes rise to the level of Trending Topics while others languish away? Several factors are at work. Manjoo notes (and I agree) that densely populated networks, where many of the members are connected to each other, is an important consideration. Twitter’s algorithm for trending topics is not widely publicized, but it appears that the frequency of tweets on a topic, the number of users involved, and the timeframe in which the tweets occur are all part of this calculus.

Another is the mutability of hashtags, which invites participation and variation of temes. The manner in which temes mutate, from the incremental (#fivewordstories becomes #sixwordstories) to the polar (#itshellowhen followed by #itsgoodbyewhen) allow people to make the hashtags their own, either by responding or even by making adjustments like adding a second tag. Participative entertainment is another driver of temes on Twitter. Users watching a sporting event or popular reality show (and those at work asking for updates) frequently cause various sports stars, teams, and other celebrities to trend.

Underlying all of these is the culture of Twitter. Much like the Bazaar model of open source software development, in which users and developers are included in the process, using hashtags is like walking around an open-air market. If you see a tag in your timeline or on the trending topics, it’s as if you walked by a conversation in a marketplace and just decided to join in. Twitter lends itself toward exploration of new ideas and new people. That’s why Manjoo’s article was a necessary step in the discussion of culture and social media.

Some Final Thoughts

The experts cited in Manjoo’s article were all men, most of them of African descent. But Pew Internet found that the majority of Black Twitter users are women; it’s problematic that Manjoo connected with social media luminaries and two PhD students (to be fair, Wasow is both and a former technology executive) to the exclusion of women. The perspectives of scholars like Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Ph.D, a professor of African-American Studies at Princeton and a frequent tweeter, or other women experts from academia or technology would be a welcome addition to future discussions. I am also compelled to remark on the absurd brown Twitter bird illustration that accompanied the article. It seemed stereotypical and rather unnecessary. Does brown skin and a baseball cap really represent Blacks? Not even close. Besides, I rather like the blue Twitter bird.

Ultimately, the question of how Blacks use Twitter is best answered this way: #justlikeeveryonelse.

I wonder if that will trend?