Twitter may no longer be Twitter, but the presence of Black Twitter is still being felt.
If you doubt that, just hop over to X (the platform formally known as Twitter) and search for the recent hip-hop beef involving Drake and Kendrick Lamar. That drama is just the type of thing that Black Twitter has sunk its teeth into with memes and pithy quotes.
But there is also a history of serious cultural commentary that has spotlighted inequality and injustice, like the tragic deaths of teens Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin. All of that is documented by producer and director Prentice Penny in the new Hulu limited docuseries, “Black Twitter: A People’s History.”
Penny, who both admires and participates in Black Twitter, told CNN the project came along at a time when he was looking “to chase that feeling of being scared again.”
“I also wanted a project that wasn’t gonna be compared immediately to what I had just done,” Penny, whose recent credits include serving as the showrunner for the HBO comedy “Insecure,” said. “They brought me this article in the fall of 2021, and I was like ‘I love Black Twitter. I would love to do something in this space.’”
That article was a retrospective of Black Twitter, written for Wired by journalist Jason Parham, which serves as the foundation for the three-episode docuseries. Penny sees a connective thread from the civil rights era to Black Twitter.
“I think that’s what Black Twitter became, a place to find community, which we always do, but find it digitally,” he said. “We’re refining it in real life and doing the same things that were happening on Black Twitter, holding institutions accountable, holding the country accountable. We were just doing that in a different space.”
For all the seriousness, there is also comic relief. A perfect example is the “Meet Me in Temecula” saga.
It all started on Christmas Day in 2014, when a Twitter user going by @SnottieDrippen tweeted a critique of Los Angeles Laker Kobe Bryant’s performance in a game against the Phoenix Suns. Another user, @MyTweetsRealAF, took offense and before long the two were engaged in a debate on social media.
@SnottieDrippen suggested they meet up in Temecula to settle the disagreement, launching a “Meet Me in Temecula” meme that became shorthand for online disagreements that spin out of control. The fact that one of the potential combatants actually tweeted that he had driven to Temecula proved to be the cherry on top and the whole thing was a rollicking good time, thanks to Black Twitter.
“We’ve all been in barbershops, we’ve all been at cookouts and there’s always the brother, the uncle, whoever who takes the hoop argument a little too far,” TJ Adeshola, Twitter’s former head of Global Content Partnerships, said in the docuseries. “You don’t play for the Lakers, bro.”
Penny acknowledged he’s seen some apprehension about the docuseries arise, on X, naturally, and understands the concern.
“I feel like because so much of Black culture has been not told by us, we’re always very skeptical of things that have to do with us,” Penny said. “I totally understand that.” He’s confident the docuseries, like the voices who embody Black Twitter, will connect.
“I feel like Black Twitter is bigger than the platform now,” he said. “It’s just the energy of the way Black people just move in the world with more power and with more emboldeness.”
“Black Twitter: A People’s History” debuts Thursday on Hulu.
