So, you might have heard that Taco Bell’s marketing strategy is “on cleek.” (If you get what’s funny about this, read right on; if not: their marketing genius is appropriating and obviously butchering the expression on fleek, derived from African American English and recently popularized on social media.) It’s easy...
The Problem with Appropriation
In a recent blog post, I talked about the opportunities Twitter offers for tracing processes by which the cultural mainstream appropriates African American English linguistic practices, often for gains in material as well as cultural capital. In that post, I focused on the how of the critique without going into...
Activist Twitter and Race: Mid-Semester Update
As we approach the mid-semester mark, the Activist Twitter and Race research group is giving you a little behind-the-scenes view of what each group member has been working on. We think about, use, and relate to Twitter in a number of ways: as a pedagogical tool (Rhiannon, JB), as an...
Aggregation as Activism
Digital spaces have fashioned new identities or, more accurately, given new life to extant ones. Take, for instance, the troll. In “real life,” we might call this individual a bully, but clearly the perceived anonymity of the internet allows for criticism to become a perverse art form. Artists (broadly understood) online...
The Case for Retweets
It’s a common complaint: stupid status updaters and incessant retweeters, filling our feeds (and by extension, our minds) with useless prattle, hoping beyond hope to get attention for themselves. I speak of people who unabashedly beg retweets for the seemingly silliest messages, claiming they’ll get some sort of reward from...
Teaching Twitter
Last week, #BlackLivesMatter launched its new website here. “Not a Moment, but a Movement,” the main page declares, underscoring the ongoing efforts to criticize racial injustice, especially in regards to police brutality and mass incarceration. Though the Black Lives Matter movement began as a hashtag on Twitter, it has blossomed into...
How Do YOU Use Twitter?
How do you use Twitter? I’ll bet lots of ways. Maybe you’re creative. People use Twitter to show off what they can say in 140 characters. Or maybe you make your own news feed, without any stigma attached to what you like. You really can. People follow NPR, Taylor Swift,...
What Color is the Twitter Bird?
Do a Google image search for terms like 'tweeting' or 'people using Twitter' and look through the results. Notice anything? Unless Google personalizes your search way differently from mine (and anyone I've asked), you'll see a lot of images of the following type: a phone or tablet displaying some form...
Cultural + Digital Literacies
Over the course of this semester, I’m working with DWRL instructors to develop a series of lesson plans to help students explore the intersection of race and activism on Twitter. As these lesson plans take shape, I began to think of ways learning about Twitter could help our students develop their communication...
#AllLivesMatter: The Lives of a Hashtag
Two features appear to characterize Tweets: the 140-character composition and the use of hashtags. Hashtags allow users a range of possibilities: expressing tone and emotion, connecting to like-minded individuals, participating in larger conversations. Their popularity has transcended Twitter, and we now see them employed on other social media platforms, in advertisements,...