Source: Hulu / hulu
A new documentary series on Hulu highlights the impact of Black Twitter on popular culture through the eyes of some of its most notable users.
On Thursday (May 9), the highly anticipated documentary series Black Twitter: A People’s History premiered on Hulu. The series is an in-depth look at the community of Black users and their seismic impact on what is now X, formerly Twitter before its acquisition by tech billionaire Elon Musk from founders Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone. The series’ impetus came from a WIRED oral history article written by Jason Parham, which covered the multitude of videos, memes, and tweets that truly
defined the era.
The three episodes feature various personalities from the Black Twitter community along with cultural critics Roxane Gay and Jamilah Lemieux, writer Ira Madison III, and former Twitter executives such as God-is Rivera, the platform’s former global president of Culture and Community and TJ Adeshola, Twitter’s former chair of Global Content Partnerships. They convey the spirit of what being involved with Black Twitter was like and how those involved helped to inform when it came to topics such as police brutality as well as help spark the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, which is covered in the second and third episodes. “We repurposed Twitter the way we repurposed chitlins,” says writer Baratunde Thurston.
Prentice Penny, who directs the series, manages to intersperse tons of those funny moments (encapsulated in clips and hashtags in between users recounting how Twitter helped them cope and rage during the uprisings in Ferguson, Missouri, and the murder of George Floyd. They also talk about the company’s constant failings of its users as well as Musk’s dogged determination to ultimately own the platform, providing a searing look at how his machinations like allowing white supremacists like Nick Fuentes back on have helped to erode a space that was prized by Black people online and shift its energy to other places, especially TikTok.
Black Twitter: A People’s History is airing now on Hulu.
