“Black Twitter: A People’s Story” reveals the highlights and weaknesses of the world’s most influential social media community

I actually miss you Black Twitter. It felt like an actual place. It was an area of community, joy, resistance and information. There were specific Black Twitter stars – in no particular order: Michael Harriot, Questlove, DeRay Mckesson, Jemele Hill, April Reign, Melissa Harris-Perry, dream Hampton, Marc Lamont Hill… I could go on. My sensory memory of Black Twitter is of being in a room or field amongst 1000’s of Black people talking as one large group with 1000’s of voices.

I remember coming home one night and flipping through the channels and not seeing anything on TV that I wanted to observe. Then I noticed a funny tweet about the NAACP Image Awards that had already began. I turned on the Image Awards to completely understand the tweets about it, and as I watched the show, it felt like my front room was overflowing with funny and intelligent Black people joking about the show.

All my Black Twitter memories have come flooding back – including my best Black Twitter tweet ever – because of a brand new documentary on Hulu titledBlack Twitter: A People’s Story” It is predicated on Wired’s famous article on Black Twitter.

The documentary takes us through many of Black Twitter’s highlights, including the thread that led to the creation of the amazing film “Zola”, and poor lighting, especially the way the platform became a source of anxiety and stress for a lot of of us because it became overrun by MAGAs with frogs of their heads. Twitter was ineffective or unwilling to guard us from the hate we fought against. For me, Twitter has turn out to be more of a chore than fun. Like OK, I suppose I actually have to stand up and start a Twitter war with these racists because I actually have to fight for my people. I spent hours writing thoughtful responses to their BS. At the time, I believed I used to be defending ideas that were necessary to black people. Now I’m unsure the fight achieved anything of value.

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But once I talked to my people on Twitter, it was often uplifting and empowering. Not at all times – Black Twitter had somewhat class struggle thread. It was principally those with blue checkmarks and those without, but it surely looked like those that tweeted like they graduated from college and those that didn’t. Each side saw the app otherwise, so that they tweeted otherwise, and sometimes we got into family arguments. It was fascinating to see real-world class battles play out in the online world.

My best Black Twitter moment was about 15 years ago. One night in 2009, a couple of months after Michael Jackson’s death, I used to be at the Standard Hotel in Los Angeles, and regardless that I used to be alone, in my memories it felt like the room was overflowing with Black people because I used to be throughout Black Twitter that night. It was an evening when BET paid tribute to Michael Jackson. In typical BET fashion, it was a large number. People wrote articles talking BET missed the mark.

I worked at BET and while I used to be working there, Black people would come as much as me on the street and discuss what they thought the channel needed to enhance. It was clear that we had many criticisms of BET and were often dissatisfied with it. We want it to be higher and grow up, but we’re unsure it can ever occur. So we have now some opinions about BET.

The sight of Jackson, the ultimate black excellence in performance and entertainment, being memorialized by BET, which will not be synonymous with excellence, was infuriating to many. And then the most amazing black Twitter tweet I’ve ever seen hit my timeline. I do not remember who wrote it; it wasn’t someone I knew, but considering all the things we felt for MJ and all the things we felt for BET, it was unforgettable. The tweet read:

“I wish BET would die and Michael Jackson would pay tribute to them.”

LOL, I wrote it again. I also remember moving into an app discussion with Questlove and Dream Hampton that night. Some people said that if the King of Pop is dead, who’s the King of Pop now? Who holds the throne that Jackson held?

Questlove, Dream and I knew the answer. Beyonce. She continued to enjoy the huge success of her cult hit “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” featuring “Dreamgirls” and subsequently headlined a worldwide tour. She was music, film, fashion, popular culture, black culture – she was all the things.

But this was Twitter and we were having this discussion in front of 1000’s of opinionated people, so after we bounced this concept around, so much of people were giggling “no.” They said Beyoncé wasn’t pretty much as good as MJ at singing, dancing, writing songs or planning a tour. It’s true, we said. Dream, Quest and I said yes, facts, but she doesn’t need to be higher than him. She should be higher than the living. She was the best and biggest multidisciplinary artist/actress/entrepreneur in the industry at the time. Of course, she remained that way for a few years, until today nobody will deny that Beyoncé will not be the queen of pop.

But it was exciting to have this discussion in front of so many Black people and two sensible Black friends. Black Twitter was like HBCU backyard, but with adults. It really was a very important part of my life for a very long time. MAGA made it so much less fun and so much more stressful, but I didn’t hand over. But when Elon bought it and modified it and revealed who he really was, I could not stay. I could not support him and I could not stand what he did to this place. Everything he did was a mistake. They say that even a broken clock shows the right time twice a day, which implies that the broken clock showed the right time more often than Elon on Twitter. Taking the blue checks was a terrible mistake because nobody had ID back then. We could never be immediately sure that the person speaking was who she or he claimed to be. This, greater than the rest, killed Twitter for me.

I left Twitter and I miss it. “Black Twitter” – the doctor jogged my memory how great it was once. It brought all those feelings back. Now I’m sad.