WHO RUNS THE WORLD (WIDE WEB)?

Two authors share the online spaces that inspire them

AS A TEEN, I REMEMBER typing ‘black girls are…’ into Google and being told what the internet (and essentially, the world) thought of us. ‘Black girls are… ugly, angry, stupid’ the search bar’s auto-fill shouted at me. But black girls shouted back. Since the internet’s inception, we have found corners of the online world where we could define ourselves. And over the past ten years, the internet has become a place where the underrepresented have thrived, with black women creating movements too big for the mainstream to ignore. And the moment has hit a new high in 2018, with hashtags, campaigns and revolutions that have impacted the world, from #MeToo and #OscarsSoWhite to natural-hair forums.

Black women have never been so visible outside our own community, which is changing the conversation for everyone. And for my co-author Elizabeth Uviebinené and me, the internet, and in particular the following spaces, have been key in finding ourselves. Some even helped us write our book Slay In Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible. Most likely, the fruits of these spaces have had an impact on you, too – even if you don’t know it yet. Yomi Adegoke

THE MOVEMENT

If there’s a movement that has allowed a marginalised group to tell their story, it’s #BlackLivesMatter. Started in 2013 by three black women – Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi – after the shooting of unarmed African-American teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida, it has since evolved beyond a hashtag into a political force. Before BLM, incidents like these were more likely to be seen as isolated, but the internet empowered three black women to say enough is enough and coordinate a global protest

that transcends geographical boundaries. At the last official count in 2016, #BlackLivesMatter had been used 12 million times, making it the third-most-used social-issue hashtag in Twitter’s history*. What struck me about BLM was how previously unseen events became very visual, distributed virally via social media and thus keeping protests on the ground alive. The internet has given rise to a new generation of activists who have been able to use this hashtag to link incidents and seek greater accountability. There is immense power in this type of storytelling, albeit a story we don’t want to keep telling. Elizabeth Uviebinené

THE CAREER-DEFINING HASHTAG

The hashtag #BlackWomenAtWork went viral in 2017 after two prominent black women were publicly ridiculed at work. First, Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly said he couldn’t listen to Congresswoman Maxine Waters speak because he was looking at her ‘James Brown wig’. The same day, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer reprimanded journalist April Ryan by cutting her off mid-question and asking her to ‘stop shaking your head’. Both incidents involved white men criticising black women in a way that seemed designed to mock at work. Sound like a coincidence? Activist Brittany Packnett didn’t think so: ‘Today, we were told a black woman’s hair matters more than her voice,’ she tweeted before asking her followers to ‘Share your Maxine and April moments, so people don’t think this is rare.’ It was a rallying cry, and sparked a dialogue among women of all races about equal treatment at work. For women of colour, it showed the power of our collective voices. EU

THE NATURAL-HAIR FORCE

Black Hair Media, also known as BHM, claims to be ‘the oldest black hair-care site on the net’ and has been a hugely important hub for hair care and beauty information for women who were deciding to opt out of chemical relaxers and ‘go natural’. Started in the US by Nicolle Epps, it now has more than 79,000 registered members and over 1.5 million visitors per month. It’s helped to propel the Natural Hair Movement, which began in the Sixties, to the mainstream, and in 2018 natural curls and kinks are more the Hollywood norm than the exception, thanks to actresses such as Yara Shahidi and Tracee Ellis Ross, and films like Black Panther, where all the women in the cast wore natural hair. Pre-internet, my hair was something I put up with, but BHM gave me a (free) crash course in coarse hair: I learnt about hair types and was inspired by new styles. What made it even better was the sense of community. We set goals together, discussed what was working for us, and shared horror stories and recommendations. YA

THE FASHION BLOG

When Neil Alvin, a Bajan fashion lover, read an article on the top 50 fashion bloggers in 2010 and noticed there wasn’t a single black person listed, he launched Black Girls Killing It (also known as BGKI). It was pioneering in terms of black female visibility in fashion and has since attracted a loyal fan base, with nearly 70,000 followers on Instagram. For me, BGKI was the first time I’d seen so many images of black women (dark-skinned women especially) on a fashion blog. But style blogging and streetstyle are unrepresentative terms still of photography skin notoriously colour in and size. Today, the debate is taken up by people such as Tamu McPherson, founder of street-style website All the Pretty Birds, who is championing for greater diversity – not just in style blogging but also fashion advertising. YA

THE TRANSFORMATIVE TWEET

Shaping global conversations and helping to shift perceptions about sexual violence is no mean feat, but the #MeToo hashtag has been able to achieve this in spectacular form. It may have sparked a worldwide movement in 2017 (used more than six million times between October and December alone**) after it was Tweeted by actress Alyssa Milano to show how widespread sexual harassment is in Hollywood, following accusations against film tycoon Harvey Weinstein. But it was created by lifelong activist Tarana Burke back in 2006. A survivor of sexual violence herself, Burke, who was one of the Silence Breakers named by Time Magazine as Person of the Year, is slowly getting recognition for her tireless campaigning. She now hopes the #MeToo movement can shift from centering on the perpetrators of sexual violence to the survivors and their needs. EU