Prentice Penny was one of the first to take the spirit of the writers room online. With credits on Girlfriends, Scrubs, and Happy Endings, Penny had already worked his way up the industry ranks when he started trading barbs on Twitter about film, TV, and the BBQ Beckys and Permit Pattys who went viral. His own time on the platform coincided with the phenomenon known as Black Twitter, the loose confederation of African American users whose advanced grasp on the platform helped it consolidate its standing as the place for tastemakers and media types to watch the hours pass.
After Penny’s job as an executive producer on Insecure, Issa Rae’s beloved HBO show, came to an end in 2021, he began looking for another project to sink his teeth into. That’s when he came upon Wired writer Jason Parham’s epic reconstruction of the history of Black users’ hold on the platform. Penny saw Parham’s work identifying the regular people whose posts inspired memes and Urban Dictionary entries, and thought it laid the foundation for a documentary that would be as funny as it was definitive. Penny’s raucous and informative series adaptation, Black Twitter: A People’s History—produced with support from Disney’s Onyx Collective and Wired Studios (which is owned by Condé Nast)—premieres May 9 on Hulu.
“We’re just beginning to see the ways in which it’s impacted the world, and I think there’s so much more that it will continue to do,” Penny said of the Black Twitter community. “But [with the documentary], I hope people can see how dope we were—how dope we still are—and just how creative we could be.”
Now that Twitter’s government name is X and new-ish owner Elon Musk has tried to radically change the site’s mood, it feels a bit like the moment the docuseries catalogs—from the cultural in-jokes of #UKnowUrBlackWhen to the industry-changing humor of #OscarsSoWhite—has passed. But Black Americans are still fueling the site’s trending topics and helping steer internet culture. Besides, as Penny explained to Vanity Fair last month, Black Twitter is more than the platform or a series of tweets—it’s the latest in a long line of collective efforts by the Black community to shift the larger society.
“Black culture in America is going to always reflect America back to itself,” he said. “Black Twitter was just another way that the community activated itself…. It reminded me of the way my mom talks about the Civil Rights Movement of the ’60s.”
Vanity Fair: The series is really a celebration of Black life and Black culture on the internet. At the same time, you end the series with the 2022 sale to Elon Musk, which gives it an elegiac mood. How did you balance those two emotions when putting the series together?
Prentice Penny: I think that’s the line that Black culture is always toeing in America. It’s a line going through our lives—things happening, us needing to be serious, but also then needing to undercut that with humor to deal with it all. One of the things we talked about early on was how Black Twitter is toeing that same line. Black Twitter would highlight what happened, and then people will weigh in on it. Then people will give the historical take. When the Karen stuff was happening, it [would start with], “Hey, here’s this woman calling the cops on Black people having a barbecue.” Then it became, “Oh, historically this is how this always happens, calling the police to monitor us.” Then it was getting jokes off about it. Then putting her in memes and GIFs of historical events—putting her in the March on Washington or putting her in the TLC “Waterfalls” video. Then it’s saying, “Who is this crazy woman?” And saying, “Oh, this is Karen’s name and she works at this place.” Those are all the jobs Black Twitter is doing at the same time.
That’s the line that I felt we also had to have in the doc too, especially when getting to the Elon stuff. It’s like, here’s the way it’s serious, then here’s the comedy around it, and here’s what we’re trying to get to at the heart of it—what we’re really trying to say. That was always the line we were having in the editing room as we were telling it: How do we balance all those things that Black Twitter is always doing?
You couldn’t tell the story of Black Twitter without talking about Barack Obama’s campaign and election. But in the first episode, you made an unexpected connection by playing the footage of Kanye West saying, “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.” That moment—and the shock it inspired—really was a distillation of the type of Black political anger that just wasn’t being addressed by the mainstream media before Twitter. What went into including that clip? Did you think about addressing Kanye’s later internet-documented downfall, or was that out of the scope?
I would say that I didn’t really give Kanye a ton of thought. We were talking about things that were happening at that time and the moments where people were outspoken. I just remember watching that in real time and being with friends, being like, “Oh shit. That’s wild. I can’t believe he said that.” But we were all feeling that. That moment was emblematic of Black Twitter in real life—we’re feeling these things and he’s vocalizing it. That’s the same way that we would do on the platform. That moment in time felt like [it anticipated] the emergence of Black Twitter.
Everything is cause and effect. You can look at any president: George Bush is a reaction to [Bill] Clinton. Obama’s a reaction to Bush. [Donald] Trump is a reaction to Obama, and [Joe] Biden is a reaction to that. Everything is that, right? At that time, it felt like what was emerging out of the Bush-era politics was feeling alone, feeling isolated, and feeling unheard. Certainly a lot of cultures of color were under attack at that time as well. That’s where it came from, but I don’t think that I thought too much about other Kanye stuff.
When you turn to 2013 and 2014, Trayvon Martin emerges as such a turning point. Watching that story in a compressed form was heartbreaking for me. People discover online activism, use it to get George Zimmerman charged, and also mourn when he isn’t convicted. Maybe it’s that looking back on it now, we think, Why did we expect anything different? But that optimism was real, and change has happened because of the movement that ensued. How did you approach telling that story?
It’s always tough looking back at something when you know the outcome. Even when you’re watching it, you’re still wanting the story to change. You’re kind of wishing for a different ending. The trickier part for us—being really candid—we felt like there’s been so much about Black death—him and Eric Garner, and obviously George Floyd, and so many more in between those. We weren’t just trying to just do a different angle of something that we already know. How do we not make people feel like they want to click this off right now? Which is a totally fair feeling! The North Star we always had was: What was Black Twitter’s response to this? Not so much rehashing Trayvon Martin in and of itself, but—how did Black Twitter’s emergence change this?
The same thing with Ferguson—we wanted to talk about what emerged out of Ferguson. What was the positive takeaway from this? What was the way Black Twitter was stepping into its strength post-Trayvon with Black Lives Matter? Ferguson was citizen journalism, and us deciding what the narratives were going to be for the news, not the news dictating the narrative back to us. As long as we knew we were steering the boat to that point, then let’s make sure we’re going there. If things get in the story that are uncomfortable, that’s cool, but they can’t start to dictate the story.
The series spends quite a bit of time talking about that funny moment when Rihanna was super accessible on Twitter and even got into a public beef with Ciara because of it. You point out that Rihanna probably wouldn’t be the untouchable deity that she is considered now if she hadn’t had that period where she was getting a little messy on the timeline. How did it feel to revisit that period of celebrity brand-building now that the really famous people try to stay away from unfiltered social media communications?
I think people, in essence, will just always gravitate, at their core, to what feels authentic. André [Brock] says this in the doc—it’s like you’re getting to see the people you look up to act just like you, right? Be flawed, be petty, be thirsty, be whatever. Now everything is so specifically crafted, and I really think authenticity has come back around because everything feels so presented. In those days it felt like just being you was enough, and that’s what people gravitated to because it was a space where people were just being super honest about whatever. This was coming up at the same time as Twitter After Dark, where people are being mad thirsty and mad, mad nasty in public! It’s online, but it’s still in public. The filters of, Should we do this? You just weren’t asking yourself those questions, for better or for worse.
So you got to see Rihanna be who she really is, which is savage. Obviously, there were so many gatekeepers for a celebrity. It was usually in a magazine or a very crafted TV piece. But this was just like, Wait, the celebrity can just talk to me? They could just respond and they could just get in the mix too. Man, if I was a kid at that time, and I’m tweeting at Snoop or whomever and he responds, I would be like, Yo, telling my friends at school. I would be bugging out. There’s nothing better than someone you look up to seeing you and hearing you. Because they are wherever they are, I am wherever I am, but there’s this moment where we’re connected, and I think there’s nothing more than being able to touch the people you either look up to or who you have a fondness for. I just think that’s a special thing.
Speaking of authenticity, in the documentary you mention that Black Twitter inspired digital marketing so much, but marketing just took the tone on without getting the culture.
I remember when the chicken sandwich wars were going on, you could just see that it was not really Black people, but they’re using Black phrases. I told a friend of mine that it’s like when the Mickey Mouse Club used to try to do their rap versions of stuff back in the ’90s. You’re like, They have the clothes, they’re doing the thing, but it just is off. It feels like that because it’s taking the culture, but not having the culture participate. Anytime you do that, you lose the sauce. It’s almost like ChatGPT, right? You’re saying the words, but something about the order of them is slightly off.
Black culture is, in a lot of ways, just American culture, or at least American culture is Black culture. But taking the thing and doing that to it—it all comes back to that. It’s no secret that if Black people do something cool, it gets cool in this country and even across the world. [Black Twitter] changed marketing because the way we were engaging online is just how we engage in the world, right? Historically, if Black people like something, they will spread it around and support it. You saw that with Scandal or Black Panther—the way we talk about things just became live tweeting. It was organic. It wasn’t a thing that was like, now when you get something, you get a marketing plan and we’re going to live tweet. But you know what I mean? So it’s those things that just came out of the way Black people organically just engage with stuff that they like, and so I think you were just seeing that happen.
As much as companies loved when Black Twitter was supporting them, it also really scared them. Revisiting April Reign’s #OscarsSoWhite hashtag, which started as a joke and became a full-on campaign, I realized that institutions sometimes take the criticism—the judgment and shame—without picking up on the humor. Did making the doc help you understand how Black Twitter became the nightmare of the white marketer?
I’d say you have to ask a white marketer, I’d be curious what they would be saying about this! The truth is, very few people want to be held responsible for things in America. Institutions are made up of people, and people fundamentally want things to feel the same, or it makes you feel comfortable. Change is uncomfortable. Things become complicated, they’re not easily solvable, and they require introspection. If you’re the beneficiary of no introspection, why would you want to start doing that? Right? I don’t know any person who feels they have a good relationship who wants to ask, “Could I be better?” You’re like, If it’s working, it’s working. It doesn’t mean it’s working for everybody. You know what I mean? If you magnify it over more serious issues, people get defensive.
Thinking back to 2020, you’re seeing a lot of the fallout of that time, with so many colleges and institutions canceling their DEI programs, right? Inevitably, people will do what they want to do, what they feel comfortable with, instead of what they don’t feel comfortable with, unless they’re pushed. Societal pressure is making them have a conversation they wouldn’t necessarily have had in the past.
I’ve always said the doc is a love letter from me to my culture—and to Black Twitter, honoring everything that it’s done, which is infinite. There are very few pockets in the world where Black people drive conversation, outside of a place you might expect us to be. If we’re in a Black barbershop, of course we’re driving the conversation there. If we’re at an HBCU, we’re driving the conversation there. But in the C-suites, are we dominating the conversation? Black Twitter was forcing those in the C-suites who are multimillionaires and billionaires to listen to someone who they’ll never see. Their education may not be on the same level, and they may not ever be on the same financial level, but it was equalized for a moment. And I think there is so much power in that.
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