A Peek Inside Hulu's New 'Black Twitter' Docuseries
Michael Calore, Lauren Goode
gadget lab podcast, podcasts, twitter, black twitter, social media, hulu
This week, the writer, director, and executive producers of the new documentary series Black Twitter: A People’s History tell us how they brought the community’s vibrancy to the small screen.

For all the influence Twitter has had on our culture, no community there has made quite as much impact as Black Twitter. The virtual community grew from a loose online hangout to an influential cultural force that directed conversations about race and culture not only on social media, but in our society at large. A new documentary miniseries from Hulu called Black Twitter: A People's History charts that monumental trajectory.

This week on Gadget Lab, we chat about the rise and solidification of Black Twitter with showrunner Joie Jacoby, director and executive producer Prentice Penny, and WIRED senior writer Jason Parham, who wrote the WIRED cover story the docuseries is based on.

Black Twitter: A People's History premieres on May 9 on Hulu. Read Jason’s three-part series of stories about Black Twitter.

Recommendations

Joie recommends the Met Opera show Fire Shut Up in My Bones. Prentice recommends the YouTube channel Pitch Meetings. Jason recommends X-Men ’97 on Disney+. Lauren recommends watching Black Twitter: A People’s History and reading Jason Parham’s story that inspired the show. Mike recommends trying the new instant coffees that are popping up. (Instant coffee is good now, he swears.)

Jason Parham can be found on social media @nonlinearnotes. Joie Jacoby is @joiejacoby. Prentice Penny is @The_A_Prentice Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

How to Listen

You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how:

If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts, and search for Gadget Lab. If you use Android, you can find us in the Google Podcasts app just by tapping here. We’re on Spotify too. And in case you really need it, here's the RSS feed.

Correction May 9, 10:13 am: Clarified the titles of the filmmakers of Black Twitter: A People's History. Joie Jacoby is showrunner, Prentice Penny is director and executive producer.

Transcript

Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.

Michael Calore: Lauren.

Lauren Goode: Mike.

Michael Calore: Do you remember when Twitter was actually really good?

Lauren Goode: I do, yeah. I remember when it was mundane and funny, and actually I appreciated it when it changed and when it became a bigger platform for change.

Michael Calore: Yeah, I remember those days. It feels like 10 years ago.

Lauren Goode: That is about right.

Michael Calore: Oh yeah, you're right.

Lauren Goode: Yeah. A lot was going on Twitter about 10 years ago, and it was even still good, I would say two years ago.

Michael Calore: Sure.

Lauren Goode: Yeah.

Michael Calore: Well, you know what? We can relive that feeling of community and powerful change at least just a little bit because there's a new documentary series out about Black Twitter, the social media community that showed us all what the power of the crowd can do.

Lauren Goode: Yeah, I remember very well our own Jason Parham's cover story for WIRED about Black Twitter. It is great. This new docuseries we're about to talk about is great, so let's get into it.

Michael Calore: Let's do it.

[Gadget Lab intro theme music plays]

Michael Calore: Hi everyone, welcome to Gadget Lab. I am Michael Calore, WIRED's Director of Consumer Tech and Culture.

Lauren Goode: And I'm Lauren Goode, I'm a senior writer at WIRED.

Michael Calore: Today we have a very special show for you. We are here with the filmmakers behind the new documentary series, Black Twitter: A People's History. The show Premieres May 9th on Hulu. The three-part documentary series traces the history of the black community on Twitter, which started as sort of a loose hangout in the early years of the platform, and gradually grew into a massive cultural force that directed conversations about race and culture, not only on social media, but in our society at large. The Hulu series is based on a cover story by WIRED's own senior writer, Jason Parham, who's here today. Jason also produced the show and appears on camera on the show looking sharp as always. Welcome back to the pod, Jason.

Jason Parham: Mike, thank you. Good to see you.

Michael Calore: Yeah, good to have you back. We're also joined this week by the series executive producer, Joie Jacoby, as well as series executive producer and the director of all three episodes, Prentice Penny. Welcome to you both.

Prentice Penny: Thank you.

Joie Jacoby: Thanks.

Prentice Penny: Glad to be here.

Lauren Goode: We're so excited to have you guys in the lab, as we like to say.

Prentice Penny: Glad to be here.

Michael Calore: So I want to start off with a question for you, Prentice, because you mentioned in the documentary that you spent a few years sort of dipping in and out of Twitter and hanging out on there. But the thing that really sucked you in was the experience that you had interacting with the fans of the show Insecure, which you had a hand in writing and directing. So I'd like to ask you to recount that experience because I think the way you tell it, it's really exemplary of the special power of the community.

Prentice Penny: Yeah, I mean, when we were first coming on, it was a different time in television, obviously. Certainly, right? There weren't many shows of color. I think Atlanta had come on right before, like a month before us, and then we came on after that. So really it started from just getting people to want to watch the show, come tune in, come watch this. And then obviously people have, as Black Twitter and Black culture does, lots of opinions on what the show should be or not be, or who Issa should be dating. And at first you're just sort of live tweeting like, "Oh, when we were filming this happened. That happened." And then as Jason and Joie know, sometimes people would throw shade and I would try to want to let it go, and then I was just like, nah, I'm not going to let this go. I'm going to respond. I'm a part of Black Twitter. I can respond just as much as they do. And what I found was people loved it because it felt like you're just talking to someone who's like you, right? Even though I was helping make the show.

And I found that the more I engaged that way, the more they actually backed off, but also was like, "I actually like this thing." And it would just turn into fun conversations and fun things. And so that's really what … And I think people started to like that I would respond that way, because I didn't really know too many showrunners that would engage in fans and being like, "Man, shut up." You know what I mean? Things like that. It's not necessarily the thing you want to do with your fan base, but that fan base liked that participation.

And so that's really where I was like, all right. And then I got to watch them, again, as I said in the doc, show up, promote, talk, engage. And it would always feel like, oh, this was going to be a fun... And I knew when people started to be like, "Oh, I can't wait to tweet with Prentice tonight." That's when I knew it had kind of gotten different. And to me, that's sort of where I fell in. I would participate before, but this is where I felt like I fell in love with Black Twitter.

Lauren Goode: And where did—

Joie Jacoby: You like the smoke, that's the thing. Prentice likes the smoke. I'm a lurker. I like to watch, see what's happening. I'm not going to comment, I'm scared. But Prentice is like, "No, let's talk about it." And it's just as typical with the internet when you actually engage with people, they're a lot nicer.

Prentice Penny: They are.

Joie Jacoby: They are when they're just commenting and trolling. It's just funny.

Lauren Goode: We're going to talk about the content of the docuseries, but one of the things I just wanted to note is that I love the pacing of it. It moves. It can be hard, I think, to make a documentary or a television show about a website and make that compelling, and you totally accomplish this. And in some ways it feels a little bit like Twitter itself because you include a lot of short bites that can still be pretty powerful, I think. Was that part of your storytelling plan when you were making this?

Prentice Penny: Yeah, that was a big … I'm glad you noticed it, it was a big thing. For us, it was like, "How do you make the doc feel like Black Twitter?" How do you make the doc feel fun, serious, engaging, petty, all those things. So for us it was like, "OK, what's the language of that?" So the language are memes and GIFs. The language is you're talking about a subject matter, and that avatar can shrink or scroll and you can scroll down and see a bunch of quick things because we process things so much faster now. You know what I mean? And so for me it was like, how do you keep the flow of that going? "Oh, we'll start on this tweet, zoom into that. That'll take us to an article and take us to an interview."

And so we just really wanted the language to feel similar cinematically to the way that Black Twitter feels as a platform as opposed to say, watching a doc almost objectively where you're sort of, I'm watching someone talk and then I'm watching a B-roll clip and then I'm watching that. I was like, "No, that's not how you engage on Twitter and certainly Black Twitter." So for us it was visually how do you just keep that feel and that style going?

Jason Parham: I think there were just so much more room to expand beyond the oral history when you're moving into a different medium, right? Within sort of a magazine space, there's only so much you can do. And as brilliantly and as it was executed as we did for WIRED, I think just visually, the textures are much different. You can live in it a little bit more. And so I think this doc does it very well where it's like, I've never seen something like this where it's like the GIFs are reacting. We're using it in a new way that feels sort of dynamic.

Joie Jacoby: The graphics too, were part of that. Developing a visual language graphically that felt like Black Twitter on TV. That was something that we wanted to really create. And then I would also just bring up the sets as well. Each set was bespoke, and Prentice really wanted them to be spaces where people actually tweet. The subway, the protest space, the office, your bedroom, the salon, those sort of spaces that Black folks are inhabiting and tweeting from. And so that was also, I think, helpful to create that pacing so it wasn't just so repetitive, talking head, typical doc.

Michael Calore: Yeah. And I mean part of that pacing and part of what draws you in, and part of what you were talking about Jason, is the humor, right? There were so many little flashes, like little half-second reaction GIFs that I hadn't seen in years and seeing it just made me laugh out loud, like guffawing while I'm watching it. And I mean, it's such an essential part of the community and it's such an essential part of the Black Twitter experience, that humor.

Prentice Penny: Yeah. We talked about too, and I think Raquel says this is, Black culture, Black people are always having two conversations. There's what we're talking about, and the subtext of what we're talking about. Sometimes the subtext is serious, sometimes the subtext is petty, sometimes the subtext is funny. But Black culture is always just because of how we've had to survive in this country, we're always infusing humor even into things that feel super serious. I mean, we talk about this later, obviously in episode three where we're dealing with a worldwide pandemic and Black people are just giving it funny names. It's like, "The VID, the panoramic, the panini." It's like, oh. Even in a thing where people are like, "It's spreading across the globe", Black people are getting these jokes off, but also giving real resources and, "here's how to do this and here's how to do that." So again, it's always having two conversations, but we felt if you didn't have humor in this or use GIFs in the way that we use that, then it would not feel like the way Black Twitter felt.

Joie Jacoby: Also, it's important to not have humor all the time, because there's shit that's really serious. And so in episode two, and we're getting into Ferguson and the start of Black Lives Matter, we had to give it the space it deserved within the show, I mean within the series, where we had to take sort of a break and pump the brakes. Let's sit here for a moment, sit in this in the way that we often as Black Americans have to experience things in this country. And how I think Raquel... No, I think it's Roxane Gay, when she's like, "You can kiki all you want, but when you're Black in this country, you got to deal with some real shit." And so that was important because we want to stay in the funny, we want to stay in the celebration, but it's just really important to talk about the serious shit too.

Michael Calore: Yeah, when we're talking about serious shit, we have to talk about the power of the hashtag because very few communities embrace them so thoroughly as Black Twitter did.

Prentice Penny: Yeah. I mean, that was—

Joie Jacoby: So many threads.

Prentice Penny: So many threads. Obviously Thanksgiving Clapback being, initially even starting it off, as we say in the doc, the hashtag was the thing. It's the shade you're not saying in the tweet, right? That's kind of like the subtext. And then I think like a lot of Black culture does, it's repurposing something for something else past its original intention. And then hashtags became a thing for Black Girl Magic, Black Lives Matter. It became a way to sort of signify, find those things and say like, "Hey, we're here to talk about these things. These things are serious too." So again, I think that's what you're going to find in the progression of the doc from episode one to two is these sort of things that we were using comedically or for fun or lighthearted ways, now we need to use them in different ways. We need to use them to activate ourselves.

We need to use them to call out the unfairness of something. So I think that's the growth, because we always talked about this doc being a coming of age story. Because again, it's not around a person. It's not around an event. So it really was as a narrative filmmaker, creator, whatever, I'm always thinking, "What's the story though?" Right? I got to find a story in this. And so really in Jason's article, it kind of lays out as a perfect three act structure that you would normally follow in storytelling. And so for me, it became like, oh, the first act is fun and light in the way that a coming of age story typically is for, we talked about Star Wars as an example where Luke is just sort of on the farm and doesn't know anything about the force and doesn't know anything about the rebellion.

And then he teams up with Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan dies. That's the first sort of, "Oh, this is going to be a darker thing possibly." And that was sort of our Trayvon Martin. And obviously, episode two gets a little bit more serious. And episode three is I feel, and Jason talks about it, Black Twitter accepting its responsibility and stepping into its full potential and power. And again, typically in a coming of day story, that's typically when the hero is sort of facing the final things to grow and become the hero that we needed to be. So that was also, again, a huge part of the doc and the storytelling.

Lauren Goode: Jason, one of the points you make in the first episode is that once non-Black Twitter users became aware of it, journalists started to cover it or reference it as though it was some kind of, you called it an anthropological experiment. How is that description the antithesis to what Black Twitter really was?

Jason Parham: Yeah, I think it was Choire Sicha's, I think that was the inciting article. It was, "What are Black folks doing up late at night on Twitter?" He wrote for The Awl I think it was, and I think White media was very eager to sort of categorize this thing because they didn't quite understand it. And I think Black Twitter being Black Twitter, it's very good at what I'd like to think of as the remix culture. They were like, "Oh, we're not quite, you want to call us Black Twitter, even though we don't necessarily see ourselves as Black Twitter, and you want to put us in this box, in this space." But we're all these things, right? We're sort of undefinable and uncontainable. And so I think that speaks to the growth of Black Twitter we see from that point forward. OK, call us Black Twitter, but we're still going to be all these things. We're not just going to be over here on the sidewall. We become sort of the main avenue of Twitter. I think it's really beautiful in that way.

Michael Calore: OK, this feels like a good place to take a break. We'll be right back.

[Break]

Michael Calore: So at the beginning of 2022, Elon Musk started investing heavily in Twitter, and by the end of the year he owned it. Now, Elon is a divisive guy. People either love him or they love to hate him, and lots of people bailed on Twitter when he took over. So I have to ask, what are the Elon vibes like in the Black Twitter community now? I imagine there's a diversity of opinions. Are people leaving?

Jason Parham: Yeah, the data points that there has been a sort of exodus from Twitter of users since Elon, the ownership change to the platform, but it hasn't been as detrimental to Black users on the platform. People are, I think, still staying in the space. I think something I spoke with Professor Andre Brock, who's in the documentary, he spoke a lot about this, how since Musk has taken over, you see Black folks sort of reverting to pre-Ferguson interaction where it's this more mundane space. They're sort of having these ordinary conversations. They're not as influential as it was during the Black Lives Matter movement or during the Trump administration, but they're still on the platform doing what they do. And I think, again, it speaks so inherently to what Black folks do when they come to these digital platforms where they're not made for us, but we're going to make them for us in our own way no matter who's in charge. Because whether it's Jack, whether it's Elon, whether it's who comes next, I think they're still going to do what we do, and that's what we're seeing for sure.

Joie Jacoby: And it's still going to be the place where folks are coming together to find community when they need to, whether that's the queer community, trans community, being like, “I need to find somebody who looks like me. I live in this small town,” like what you were saying before. And then beyond that, just we're still here for the joke. So when there was the earthquake in New York last week, you need to go to Twitter and see what Black people are saying about it. It's hilarious.

Lauren Goode: What were some of the things that jumped out at you during that?

Joie Jacoby: Is the Harlem Shake happening? The Harlem Shake—

Prentice Penny: Is Harlem shaking or something?

Joie Jacoby: Yeah. Is Harlem shaking? Dumb. It's just dumb shit.

Lauren Goode: Yeah. I never forgot the tweet from, there was an earlier earthquake years ago in New York City, and there was a meme on Twitter where a lawn chair had fallen over and someone wrote the hashtag “Never Forget,” which was just perfect. I want to go back to something you said earlier, Joie, about how Prentice was willing to engage with fans on Twitter. He would clap back, he was having fun with Twitter, and you were more of an observer. You wanted to stand back a little bit and not jump into the fray. And I'm wondering if in an era where Trump was Twitter president, where Elon Musk now owns Twitter, if the Black community is feeling less safe on Twitter.

Joie Jacoby: I think that Black folks are always going to have a target on their back. That's sort of how we roll in the world, and that's sort of something that we accept as part of our life. There's a visibility to us that's always there, and Twitter is no different. It was once Black Twitter was exposed or what have you, and it became this sort of fishbowl where folks were looking in, there's always that. There's always going … We have Baratunde in the doc saying, "We're always going to use that microphone." And what that means is that over time, there's always been attempts to silence Black Americans, but they will find a way to speak their truth. And Black Twitter and Twitter in general has been a place where we've been able to express ourselves, to find each other, to have these conversations that are important to us to find safety when we are being threatened.

And that continues I think today, that happened during the Trump era. It's happening, it happens now. We were talking to someone earlier and they were talking about just all of the murders of Black trans people that are happening in this country, and where else are you going to learn about that but on Twitter? It's not going to be on CNN, it's not going to be anywhere else. So those conversations are still really important to finding safety. And we sometimes talked about Black Twitter as this digital Green Book where the same way that the Green Books were used in the Civil Rights movement, this is the way that we've been able to utilize it here. So I think that it's definitely a tool that we have to use.

Prentice Penny: As you were just saying, I also think, I don't know if Twitter was ever a safe space, to be perfectly frank. I just think you were seeing people speak up on a platform that couldn't speak up in the same way that is normal in America, right? Because, and we talk about this obviously in episode two, it's like unless you have a camera and a news station, well, Black culture doesn't get to dictate sometimes our stories. We don't get to tell our narratives a lot. And so that was the first place where finance was not a deterrent to telling your story because we all have phones, we all have, I think Wesley Lowery says, "We all have a printing press right in our palm of our hand." Right? And so I think we were just speaking up about things that were happening that just wasn't being reported on any other place.

And so I think the perception I think of it seems like, "Oh, man, these Black people own this space." It's like, well, we don't own this space. We're just speaking up in a way that's equal to the way other mainstream culture speaks up in America, right? But because it's new and it's like, "Oh." So it seems like it's like we're running it or controlling it or dominating it in that way, but obviously we can't because of the percentage of Black culture that exists in this country relative to mainstream culture. We just don't physically have the millions of numbers to even match that. So I just think that that just allowed, to me, it was even the response to that is, "Whoa, these Black people, these hundreds of millions of Black people are speaking..." It's like, it's not a hundred million Black people in America. You know what I mean? But it's just like, "Oh, they're speaking in a way that—"

Joie Jacoby: "Oh, they're loud."

Prentice Penny: Yeah, "They're just speaking in a way that's like, "Hey, we're just calling out the inequities and the inequalities, I'm sorry, in this country that just exist." And so I think it seems that way, but if I look back, I go like, oh, I didn't necessarily feel safer. I think when you were watching the Obama election, a lot of the things about Black Twitter was just trying to support this Black man who's running for president. It was just like, "Hey, don't talk about where he's from." He's an American citizen. We're just calling out the things that CNN and MSNBC and those places were just kind of letting other people just say without calling that to the carpet. We were just doing that in a way that now, oh, they do call those things out now, but they weren't calling them out. Even the 2016 election wasn't calling those things out. And I just think Black Twitter was just speaking up, just giving a contrary point of view to what that community was feeling. But I don't necessarily know if it felt safer, I guess.

Michael Calore: Well, there were a number of years, especially the Obama years, where Twitter was really driving the conversation. There was a lot that was coming out of the community, Black Twitter, the other communities on Twitter that were really driving the conversation. Now, things are a lot more fragmented. TikTok dominates a lot more of the conversation. Instagram dominates a lot more. So how have things changed now that there's not one place where most people hang out? Now there's a few places where a lot of people hang out.

Jason Parham: No, yeah, I think social media's at a really interesting turning point. I think since Elon Musk took over the platform, we've seen a lot of other digital spaces pop up and try to usurp or jockey for position and take over Twitter's influence that it's had over these last 20 years. But I think it's tough. To your point, Mike, TikTok has a lot of hype, but I don't know if it has lasting influence in the way that we think Twitter does. Or maybe it's too early to say, and I'm not really quite sure where it's going.

To your point, it is a lot more fragmented, it is a lot more split up, but I think maybe that's just what it looks like next. I don't think... I was talking to a friend the other day and he was like, "I don't think everybody necessarily needs to be in one space having these conversations anymore." Maybe this is just sort of the next turning point of social media. We're all sort of in-

Prentice Penny: Like, the evolution of it, yeah.

Jason Parham: Yeah. It's constantly moving and changing. And I think Twitter was very specific to the moment and the historical things that happened, but maybe this next moment is calling for something different.

Joie Jacoby: We go to different places for different things.

Jason Parham: Right. But I will say in this next moment, I think we're going to see Black folks, queer folks, women having more ownership over these spaces than they did in the years prior, for sure.

Joie Jacoby: Yeah.

Lauren Goode: The Fediverse is going to fix it all.

Prentice Penny: I think it's also human nature when you find something that feels familiar to want to stay there. It's just comforting to know, "That's where I go for this and this, and that's where I go for that." And when those things get like anything that gets... There's some upheaval there, the tendency is to be like, "Oh, where's the next place I can put this down to rest? This thing?" And it's always nervous when you're like, "Well, what is that?" So the instinct I think, is to find something quickly, but not always to find what is the right place for that.

And I think we weren't looking for Twitter at that time, and it just because of its pliability, it was a lot of different things, so it was very pliable to make it be kind of whatever you needed. Like, different than Facebook. If I go to Instagram, I'm like, "Oh, I want to see, I'm going to see pictures." If I see TikToks, I'm going to see little funny skits. If I go to Facebook, I'm going to see my aunt post a 15-paragraph thing about how kids today need to pull up their pants. But you know what I mean? So there are these things where you're like, but Twitter was pliable in that way. You could make it be a lot of different things. And I think there's good in that, but I think the tendency is, "Where is that next?"

And so I'd be curious to know, is it even going to be a social media thing where the community will gather? Will it be something that 20 years from now doesn't even exist today in the same way that that didn't exist 20 something years ago? So I'm learning to say it's OK to live more in the uncomfortability. That's actually a nice place to kind of be sometimes because it doesn't allow you to think you know everything. I think that's the problem sometimes that we get in this country is when we assume we know everything as opposed to like, "Oh, I still have more to learn." It's like, "I'm an adult. I know all the things I need to know." It's like, you can't possibly know everything you need to know, right? So I'm trying to find ways for myself and even encourage my family and my kids to live in uncomfortability. It's an OK place to be. Great things happen there, as opposed to feeling like you know the answer, you know everything that's going to happen.

Lauren Goode: Yep. Yeah, I miss Twitter for that reason. I mean, Twitter still exists, but I miss the old Twitter for that reason. Learning things, having conversations, getting pushed out of your comfort zone.

Prentice Penny: Somebody said … I had a friend of mine, he said, "I miss the old Twitter like I miss the old Kanye."

Joie Jacoby: Kanye. I was thinking that too. Man, where'd he go? Where'd they go?

Lauren Goode: So you got a bunch of social media superstars to participate in this. Roxane Gay you mentioned earlier, Amanda Seals, Kid Fury, Baratunde you mentioned earlier, Jenna Wortham, Meredith Clark is the professor who's archiving Black Twitter, Jason Parham. I have to mention our own Jason. Is there anyone who you didn't hear from or who you couldn't book who you're like, "We're going to put it out there now. We still want to hear from you, your experience on Black Twitter?"

Prentice Penny: I don't know. Do you have a name?

Joie Jacoby: I mean, I feel like I shouldn't say it, but—

Prentice Penny: Say it.

Joie Jacoby: I mean, we went out to Questlove multiple times, but yeah. And he wanted to be on it I've heard now, which is great, but he's a very busy guy. He has a lot of different jobs. I'm sure that that was someone, because we felt like he was a really great person who could speak to the very early days of Twitter because he was so active and—

Jason Parham: He was like the mayor of Black Twitter back in the day.

Joie Jacoby: Right.

Jason Parham: Questlove, Shaq, Snoop Dogg. There were certain people back in the day, celebrities, Rihanna, who were just talking to everybody. You could wake up and have a conversation with them and then go about your day, right? So Questlove would've been great. I think for me—

Joie Jacoby: Yeah, that would've been a good one.

Jason Parham: I think for me it was Desus. Desus would've been great. I even tried to get him from our oral history, but the timing just didn't quite work out.

Joie Jacoby: Yeah, and I think that was the same for this too.

Prentice Penny: Yeah. The one person I think is a similar thing was Kerry Washington, just because we get knee-deep into Scandal. And I'd be curious about what it's like when you're, and I got to see it with Issa, but Kerry was kind of already a celebrity in a different way than Issa was, of what it's like when you feel like your community is showing up for you from that side of the mirror. I know how it feels to be a fan of somebody, but what does it feel like to feel like, "Oh, I don't know what's going to happen with this show." And then, "Oh my God, people are supporting me on this platform and I'm talking to my …" You know what I mean?

To see what that side of the looking glass looks like for someone, just because that was the start of watch parties. That was the start of live tweeting. That was the start of so many things now that you just assume as a part of television or a part of movies or a part of those things. Or when studios are saying, "Here's our rollout, you're going to live tweet." It all started there. And so I think in the same way that Jason's saying sort of Quest was sort of the mayor of Black Twitter, it'd be nice to see, "Oh, what was it like to be at the hub of that from the very beginning and seeing how that has, again, just really shaped so many things?"

And even influenced things like Zola on the platform where it was a live watch party to somebody else's life, not just a character that's been written. You know what I mean? She was the genesis of that, or at least that show was. And so I was always wanting to have her be a part, we just couldn't line up the timing.

Lauren Goode: I don't know if Jason happened to mention it to you, but one of our conference rooms here at the WIRED offices is actually named after Questlove, so maybe we should let him know that status is tenuous now. I don't know.

Joie Jacoby: He's still the mayor. We just, you know.

Lauren Goode: He is.

Joie Jacoby: Yeah, very busy.

Jason Parham: You know he's got an Academy Award now. He's very—

Joie Jacoby: Yeah, he's big time.

Prentice Penny: Mayor America.

Joie Jacoby: But we got so many amazing people. And I'm always just, when you're in this space of documentary filmmaking, you have to be so grateful to all the voices and the people that take the time out of their schedules to come and sit down with you. All the people that were in the kickbacks that had regular jobs and had to take time off and come over to hang out with us, and talk about their experiences on the platform and how they moved everything and did so much for the culture. I just always am so grateful to them and really incredible voices. So many people wanted to participate. They really wanted to be a part of this. It wasn't one of those situations where you're trying to convince somebody. They were like, "Oh shit, you guys are doing this? You guys are telling this story? I have some stories to tell." So that was really refreshing and fun.

Jason Parham: If anything, they were just like, "Who else is going to be there?"

Joie Jacoby: That part.

Jason Parham: It was like, "Who else is—"

Joie Jacoby: Just like Black people always do. "Well, yeah. But who's going to be there?" So once we told them, they were cool.

Prentice Penny: And to that point too, it was also for all of us to have, because again, Black Twitter's not just made up of those people. It's made up of everyday people that weren't trying to be doing anything and their lives instantly changed. And so to me, those people, again, Black Twitter is like a Johnetta Elzie or CaShawn Thompson who's just responding to something and just tweets out, "Black girls are magic." And now Black Girl Magic, my kids just know that expression. They don't know, "Oh, it started from this woman who was feeling a way about Black women and she was just trying to show support, and now that thing is just a thing. Right? And so to me it's like, that's who Black Twitter is also made of. It's just people that were like, I'm just responding as a human being to the culture in this moment. And then that is the thing that becomes viral.

You know what I mean? But a lot of times we don't know. If you saw CaShawn Thompson walking down the street, you would not know that's CaShawn Thompson. That's the person that said Black Girl Magic for the first time and put it out there. So that is, to me, the most people that make up Black Twitter. It's just the people that were like, oh, the person that was there filming the George Floyd. Who is that? That person is Black Twitter too. So all of these people are that. The fun, the serious, and so it was important to have those voices also be a part of the doc, because again, you can't tell that story without them being a part of it too.

Michael Calore: Right. OK. Well, thanks for this because this has been a really great conversation, but we have to take a break and we're going to come right back with our recommendations.

[Break]

Michael Calore: OK, now here's our recommendation segment where we all go around the room and ask everyone what cool or weird thing they're into lately. Let's start with you, Joie.

Joie Jacoby: Last week, last Wednesday, I went to the Met Opera in New York City and I saw Fire Shut Up in My Bones. The first, I believe it's the first opera that was ever composed at the Met by a Black composer, Terence Blanchard of Spike Lee fame. And it was incredible. It was just such a spectacular show. Really moving, really sad, but just gorgeously executed. It just ended May 2, so hopefully it will come to a city near you soon.

Michael Calore: OK. Well, we will watch for it. Thank you. Prentice, what is your recommendation?

Prentice Penny: I've gotten super into, it's not as cool as what Joie said, I've really gotten into these really interesting things on YouTube. There are two things. One is called this guy does this really funny thing called Pitch Meetings, and he basically pitches them to himself on YouTube and breaks down all these hilarious movies, and it's just so funny poking all the holes in it. And this other one is this thing I stumbled onto too, which is this guy does these AI versions of movie trailers as if they were made in the 1950s. So he does The Avengers, and so the art feels really cool and stylized. And then he started doing ones that were other filmmakers doing other things. So he did Wes Anderson does The Avengers, and it is the funniest shit of Jason Schwartzman as Iron Man and Bill Murray as Thor, it's so funny. And it's just so funny, and the way he does the trailer, they're like a minute and a half and it is the funniest. But when he does Wes Anderson does The Avengers …

Joie Jacoby: So good.

Prentice Penny: Yeah, and all the narration is like, "And Hawkeye has 20 or more arrows." And it's like all of the, "Oh, and the Infinity stones." And it's just big, big stones just in the middle of a desert, just different colors. And it's just Thanos standing perfectly symmetrical to them. It's brilliant. I was like, "This guy is great. It's great." So that's what I'm into.

Michael Calore: Awesome.

Lauren Goode: Nice.

Michael Calore: Love it. Jason, your turn.

Jason Parham: My recommendation today is the show of the moment. Well, the other show of the moment, because Black Twitter: A People's History is the show of the moment. But I recommend X-Men '97 on Disney+. It's from my childhood watching X-Men. I think it's so hard to see a reboot done really, really well, and maybe even better than the original.

Prentice Penny: It's so good.

Jason Parham: I have no notes. It's a perfect 10 out of 10. I've watched every episode like three times. It's amazing.

Joie Jacoby: Holy shit, OK.

Jason Parham: Yeah, it's really good. It's really good.

Michael Calore: All right, all right. Lauren?

Lauren Goode: My recommendation is the show of the moment. Watch the doc Black Twitter: A People's History, and also read Jason's original cover story on WIRED. We're going to link to that in the show notes so all of you can read it. Just immerse yourself, it's really brilliantly done. And that's my recommendation this week.

Michael Calore: Nice.

Lauren Goode: What's yours?

Michael Calore: I'm going to recommend instant coffee. Now, instant coffee has just been terrible most of our lives, it's just been really bad and has not been worth even considering. But for some reason in the last year or less, there's been this renaissance in instant coffee where you can get really great high quality freeze-dried coffee that no joke tastes exactly like regular brewed coffee. Verve is a good one. I know you can get them all around the country. If you're in the Bay Area, you can get Timeless or Four Barrel and Blue Bottle makes some.

Lauren Goode: Yeah, I have a couple of Blue Bottle packets. I haven't used them yet though.

Michael Calore: You haven't used them yet?

Lauren Goode: No. I'll give them a try.

Michael Calore: Yeah, so it feels weird. Like, you know I'm a coffee person.

Lauren Goode: Yeah, this is kind of like Bluetooth. Bluetooth was really bad for a while. Now it's like, oh, actually, Bluetooth is kind of good. Yeah.

Michael Calore: And when that happened, you had to convince people. There were people who were like, "Oh, I'll never own a pair of Bluetooth headphones."

Lauren Goode: Yeah, totally. It was junk.

Michael Calore: You had to be like, "No, listen, it's actually good now." So yeah, this is instant coffee's Bluetooth moment.

Lauren Goode: Nice. That's great.

Michael Calore: All right.

Lauren Goode: We're going to be all caffeinated. For the next podcast, we're going to be even more caffeinated.

Michael Calore: All right, well that is our show for this week. Thank you so much to our guests, Joie Jacoby, Prentice Penny, and Jason Parham. Thank you so much for being here.

Joie Jacoby: Thank you so much.

Jason Parham: Thank you guys.

Prentice Penny: Thank you guys.

Joie Jacoby: Thank you for having us. So much fun.

Lauren Goode: It was so fun having you all on, and I really mean it when I say everyone should run, not walk, to watch this docuseries. Black Twitter: A People's History comes out today, May 9, on Hulu. So go check it out when you're done listening to this podcast, which is now.

Michael Calore: And thank you all for listening. If you have feedback, you can find all of us on Twitter, of course. Just check the show notes. Our producer is the excellent Boone Ashworth, and we'll be back with another episode next week. And until then, goodbye.

[Gadget Lab outro theme music plays]
This week, the writer, director, and executive producers of the new documentary series Black Twitter: A People’s History tell us how they brought the community’s vibrancy to the small screen.
For all the influence Twitter has had on our culture, no community there has made quite as much impact as Black Twitter. The virtual community grew from a loose online hangout to an influential cultural force that directed conversations about race and culture not only on social media, but in our society at large. A new documentary miniseries from Hulu called Black Twitter: A People's History charts that monumental trajectory. This week on Gadget Lab, we chat about the rise and solidification of Black Twitter with showrunner Joie Jacoby, director and executive producer Prentice Penny, and WIRED senior writer Jason Parham, who wrote the WIRED cover story the docuseries is based on. Black Twitter: A People's History premieres on May 9 on Hulu. Read Jason’s three-part series of stories about Black Twitter. Joie recommends the Met Opera show Fire Shut Up in My Bones. Prentice recommends the YouTube channel Pitch Meetings. Jason recommends X-Men ’97 on Disney+. Lauren recommends watching Black Twitter: A People’s History and reading Jason Parham’s story that inspired the show. Mike recommends trying the new instant coffees that are popping up. (Instant coffee is good now, he swears.) Jason Parham can be found on social media @nonlinearnotes. Joie Jacoby is @joiejacoby. Prentice Penny is @The_A_Prentice Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts, and search for Gadget Lab. If you use Android, you can find us in the Google Podcasts app just by tapping here. We’re on Spotify too. And in case you really need it, here's the RSS feed. Correction May 9, 10:13 am: Clarified the titles of the filmmakers of Black Twitter: A People's History. Joie Jacoby is showrunner, Prentice Penny is director and executive producer. Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors. Michael Calore: Lauren. Lauren Goode: Mike. Michael Calore: Do you remember when Twitter was actually really good? Lauren Goode: I do, yeah. I remember when it was mundane and funny, and actually I appreciated it when it changed and when it became a bigger platform for change. Michael Calore: Yeah, I remember those days. It feels like 10 years ago. Lauren Goode: That is about right. Michael Calore: Oh yeah, you're right. Lauren Goode: Yeah. A lot was going on Twitter about 10 years ago, and it was even still good, I would say two years ago. Michael Calore: Sure. Lauren Goode: Yeah. Michael Calore: Well, you know what? We can relive that feeling of community and powerful change at least just a little bit because there's a new documentary series out about Black Twitter, the social media community that showed us all what the power of the crowd can do. Lauren Goode: Yeah, I remember very well our own Jason Parham's cover story for WIRED about Black Twitter. It is great. This new docuseries we're about to talk about is great, so let's get into it. Michael Calore: Let's do it. [Gadget Lab intro theme music plays] Michael Calore: Hi everyone, welcome to Gadget Lab. I am Michael Calore, WIRED's Director of Consumer Tech and Culture. Lauren Goode: And I'm Lauren Goode, I'm a senior writer at WIRED. Michael Calore: Today we have a very special show for you. We are here with the filmmakers behind the new documentary series, Black Twitter: A People's History. The show Premieres May 9th on Hulu. The three-part documentary series traces the history of the black community on Twitter, which started as sort of a loose hangout in the early years of the platform, and gradually grew into a massive cultural force that directed conversations about race and culture, not only on social media, but in our society at large. The Hulu series is based on a cover story by WIRED's own senior writer, Jason Parham, who's here today. Jason also produced the show and appears on camera on the show looking sharp as always. Welcome back to the pod, Jason. Jason Parham: Mike, thank you. Good to see you. Michael Calore: Yeah, good to have you back. We're also joined this week by the series executive producer, Joie Jacoby, as well as series executive producer and the director of all three episodes, Prentice Penny. Welcome to you both. Prentice Penny: Thank you. Joie Jacoby: Thanks. Prentice Penny: Glad to be here. Lauren Goode: We're so excited to have you guys in the lab, as we like to say. Prentice Penny: Glad to be here. Michael Calore: So I want to start off with a question for you, Prentice, because you mentioned in the documentary that you spent a few years sort of dipping in and out of Twitter and hanging out on there. But the thing that really sucked you in was the experience that you had interacting with the fans of the show Insecure, which you had a hand in writing and directing. So I'd like to ask you to recount that experience because I think the way you tell it, it's really exemplary of the special power of the community. Prentice Penny: Yeah, I mean, when we were first coming on, it was a different time in television, obviously. Certainly, right? There weren't many shows of color. I think Atlanta had come on right before, like a month before us, and then we came on after that. So really it started from just getting people to want to watch the show, come tune in, come watch this. And then obviously people have, as Black Twitter and Black culture does, lots of opinions on what the show should be or not be, or who Issa should be dating. And at first you're just sort of live tweeting like, "Oh, when we were filming this happened. That happened." And then as Jason and Joie know, sometimes people would throw shade and I would try to want to let it go, and then I was just like, nah, I'm not going to let this go. I'm going to respond. I'm a part of Black Twitter. I can respond just as much as they do. And what I found was people loved it because it felt like you're just talking to someone who's like you, right? Even though I was helping make the show. And I found that the more I engaged that way, the more they actually backed off, but also was like, "I actually like this thing." And it would just turn into fun conversations and fun things. And so that's really what … And I think people started to like that I would respond that way, because I didn't really know too many showrunners that would engage in fans and being like, "Man, shut up." You know what I mean? Things like that. It's not necessarily the thing you want to do with your fan base, but that fan base liked that participation. And so that's really where I was like, all right. And then I got to watch them, again, as I said in the doc, show up, promote, talk, engage. And it would always feel like, oh, this was going to be a fun... And I knew when people started to be like, "Oh, I can't wait to tweet with Prentice tonight." That's when I knew it had kind of gotten different. And to me, that's sort of where I fell in. I would participate before, but this is where I felt like I fell in love with Black Twitter. Lauren Goode: And where did— Joie Jacoby: You like the smoke, that's the thing. Prentice likes the smoke. I'm a lurker. I like to watch, see what's happening. I'm not going to comment, I'm scared. But Prentice is like, "No, let's talk about it." And it's just as typical with the internet when you actually engage with people, they're a lot nicer. Prentice Penny: They are. Joie Jacoby: They are when they're just commenting and trolling. It's just funny. Lauren Goode: We're going to talk about the content of the docuseries, but one of the things I just wanted to note is that I love the pacing of it. It moves. It can be hard, I think, to make a documentary or a television show about a website and make that compelling, and you totally accomplish this. And in some ways it feels a little bit like Twitter itself because you include a lot of short bites that can still be pretty powerful, I think. Was that part of your storytelling plan when you were making this? Prentice Penny: Yeah, that was a big … I'm glad you noticed it, it was a big thing. For us, it was like, "How do you make the doc feel like Black Twitter?" How do you make the doc feel fun, serious, engaging, petty, all those things. So for us it was like, "OK, what's the language of that?" So the language are memes and GIFs. The language is you're talking about a subject matter, and that avatar can shrink or scroll and you can scroll down and see a bunch of quick things because we process things so much faster now. You know what I mean? And so for me it was like, how do you keep the flow of that going? "Oh, we'll start on this tweet, zoom into that. That'll take us to an article and take us to an interview." And so we just really wanted the language to feel similar cinematically to the way that Black Twitter feels as a platform as opposed to say, watching a doc almost objectively where you're sort of, I'm watching someone talk and then I'm watching a B-roll clip and then I'm watching that. I was like, "No, that's not how you engage on Twitter and certainly Black Twitter." So for us it was visually how do you just keep that feel and that style going? Jason Parham: I think there were just so much more room to expand beyond the oral history when you're moving into a different medium, right? Within sort of a magazine space, there's only so much you can do. And as brilliantly and as it was executed as we did for WIRED, I think just visually, the textures are much different. You can live in it a little bit more. And so I think this doc does it very well where it's like, I've never seen something like this where it's like the GIFs are reacting. We're using it in a new way that feels sort of dynamic. Joie Jacoby: The graphics too, were part of that. Developing a visual language graphically that felt like Black Twitter on TV. That was something that we wanted to really create. And then I would also just bring up the sets as well. Each set was bespoke, and Prentice really wanted them to be spaces where people actually tweet. The subway, the protest space, the office, your bedroom, the salon, those sort of spaces that Black folks are inhabiting and tweeting from. And so that was also, I think, helpful to create that pacing so it wasn't just so repetitive, talking head, typical doc. Michael Calore: Yeah. And I mean part of that pacing and part of what draws you in, and part of what you were talking about Jason, is the humor, right? There were so many little flashes, like little half-second reaction GIFs that I hadn't seen in years and seeing it just made me laugh out loud, like guffawing while I'm watching it. And I mean, it's such an essential part of the community and it's such an essential part of the Black Twitter experience, that humor. Prentice Penny: Yeah. We talked about too, and I think Raquel says this is, Black culture, Black people are always having two conversations. There's what we're talking about, and the subtext of what we're talking about. Sometimes the subtext is serious, sometimes the subtext is petty, sometimes the subtext is funny. But Black culture is always just because of how we've had to survive in this country, we're always infusing humor even into things that feel super serious. I mean, we talk about this later, obviously in episode three where we're dealing with a worldwide pandemic and Black people are just giving it funny names. It's like, "The VID, the panoramic, the panini." It's like, oh. Even in a thing where people are like, "It's spreading across the globe", Black people are getting these jokes off, but also giving real resources and, "here's how to do this and here's how to do that." So again, it's always having two conversations, but we felt if you didn't have humor in this or use GIFs in the way that we use that, then it would not feel like the way Black Twitter felt. Joie Jacoby: Also, it's important to not have humor all the time, because there's shit that's really serious. And so in episode two, and we're getting into Ferguson and the start of Black Lives Matter, we had to give it the space it deserved within the show, I mean within the series, where we had to take sort of a break and pump the brakes. Let's sit here for a moment, sit in this in the way that we often as Black Americans have to experience things in this country. And how I think Raquel... No, I think it's Roxane Gay, when she's like, "You can kiki all you want, but when you're Black in this country, you got to deal with some real shit." And so that was important because we want to stay in the funny, we want to stay in the celebration, but it's just really important to talk about the serious shit too. Michael Calore: Yeah, when we're talking about serious shit, we have to talk about the power of the hashtag because very few communities embrace them so thoroughly as Black Twitter did. Prentice Penny: Yeah. I mean, that was— Joie Jacoby: So many threads. Prentice Penny: So many threads. Obviously Thanksgiving Clapback being, initially even starting it off, as we say in the doc, the hashtag was the thing. It's the shade you're not saying in the tweet, right? That's kind of like the subtext. And then I think like a lot of Black culture does, it's repurposing something for something else past its original intention. And then hashtags became a thing for Black Girl Magic, Black Lives Matter. It became a way to sort of signify, find those things and say like, "Hey, we're here to talk about these things. These things are serious too." So again, I think that's what you're going to find in the progression of the doc from episode one to two is these sort of things that we were using comedically or for fun or lighthearted ways, now we need to use them in different ways. We need to use them to activate ourselves. We need to use them to call out the unfairness of something. So I think that's the growth, because we always talked about this doc being a coming of age story. Because again, it's not around a person. It's not around an event. So it really was as a narrative filmmaker, creator, whatever, I'm always thinking, "What's the story though?" Right? I got to find a story in this. And so really in Jason's article, it kind of lays out as a perfect three act structure that you would normally follow in storytelling. And so for me, it became like, oh, the first act is fun and light in the way that a coming of age story typically is for, we talked about Star Wars as an example where Luke is just sort of on the farm and doesn't know anything about the force and doesn't know anything about the rebellion. And then he teams up with Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan dies. That's the first sort of, "Oh, this is going to be a darker thing possibly." And that was sort of our Trayvon Martin. And obviously, episode two gets a little bit more serious. And episode three is I feel, and Jason talks about it, Black Twitter accepting its responsibility and stepping into its full potential and power. And again, typically in a coming of day story, that's typically when the hero is sort of facing the final things to grow and become the hero that we needed to be. So that was also, again, a huge part of the doc and the storytelling. Lauren Goode: Jason, one of the points you make in the first episode is that once non-Black Twitter users became aware of it, journalists started to cover it or reference it as though it was some kind of, you called it an anthropological experiment. How is that description the antithesis to what Black Twitter really was? Jason Parham: Yeah, I think it was Choire Sicha's, I think that was the inciting article. It was, "What are Black folks doing up late at night on Twitter?" He wrote for The Awl I think it was, and I think White media was very eager to sort of categorize this thing because they didn't quite understand it. And I think Black Twitter being Black Twitter, it's very good at what I'd like to think of as the remix culture. They were like, "Oh, we're not quite, you want to call us Black Twitter, even though we don't necessarily see ourselves as Black Twitter, and you want to put us in this box, in this space." But we're all these things, right? We're sort of undefinable and uncontainable. And so I think that speaks to the growth of Black Twitter we see from that point forward. OK, call us Black Twitter, but we're still going to be all these things. We're not just going to be over here on the sidewall. We become sort of the main avenue of Twitter. I think it's really beautiful in that way. Michael Calore: OK, this feels like a good place to take a break. We'll be right back. [Break] Michael Calore: So at the beginning of 2022, Elon Musk started investing heavily in Twitter, and by the end of the year he owned it. Now, Elon is a divisive guy. People either love him or they love to hate him, and lots of people bailed on Twitter when he took over. So I have to ask, what are the Elon vibes like in the Black Twitter community now? I imagine there's a diversity of opinions. Are people leaving? Jason Parham: Yeah, the data points that there has been a sort of exodus from Twitter of users since Elon, the ownership change to the platform, but it hasn't been as detrimental to Black users on the platform. People are, I think, still staying in the space. I think something I spoke with Professor Andre Brock, who's in the documentary, he spoke a lot about this, how since Musk has taken over, you see Black folks sort of reverting to pre-Ferguson interaction where it's this more mundane space. They're sort of having these ordinary conversations. They're not as influential as it was during the Black Lives Matter movement or during the Trump administration, but they're still on the platform doing what they do. And I think, again, it speaks so inherently to what Black folks do when they come to these digital platforms where they're not made for us, but we're going to make them for us in our own way no matter who's in charge. Because whether it's Jack, whether it's Elon, whether it's who comes next, I think they're still going to do what we do, and that's what we're seeing for sure. Joie Jacoby: And it's still going to be the place where folks are coming together to find community when they need to, whether that's the queer community, trans community, being like, “I need to find somebody who looks like me. I live in this small town,” like what you were saying before. And then beyond that, just we're still here for the joke. So when there was the earthquake in New York last week, you need to go to Twitter and see what Black people are saying about it. It's hilarious. Lauren Goode: What were some of the things that jumped out at you during that? Joie Jacoby: Is the Harlem Shake happening? The Harlem Shake— Prentice Penny: Is Harlem shaking or something? Joie Jacoby: Yeah. Is Harlem shaking? Dumb. It's just dumb shit. Lauren Goode: Yeah. I never forgot the tweet from, there was an earlier earthquake years ago in New York City, and there was a meme on Twitter where a lawn chair had fallen over and someone wrote the hashtag “Never Forget,” which was just perfect. I want to go back to something you said earlier, Joie, about how Prentice was willing to engage with fans on Twitter. He would clap back, he was having fun with Twitter, and you were more of an observer. You wanted to stand back a little bit and not jump into the fray. And I'm wondering if in an era where Trump was Twitter president, where Elon Musk now owns Twitter, if the Black community is feeling less safe on Twitter. Joie Jacoby: I think that Black folks are always going to have a target on their back. That's sort of how we roll in the world, and that's sort of something that we accept as part of our life. There's a visibility to us that's always there, and Twitter is no different. It was once Black Twitter was exposed or what have you, and it became this sort of fishbowl where folks were looking in, there's always that. There's always going … We have Baratunde in the doc saying, "We're always going to use that microphone." And what that means is that over time, there's always been attempts to silence Black Americans, but they will find a way to speak their truth. And Black Twitter and Twitter in general has been a place where we've been able to express ourselves, to find each other, to have these conversations that are important to us to find safety when we are being threatened. And that continues I think today, that happened during the Trump era. It's happening, it happens now. We were talking to someone earlier and they were talking about just all of the murders of Black trans people that are happening in this country, and where else are you going to learn about that but on Twitter? It's not going to be on CNN, it's not going to be anywhere else. So those conversations are still really important to finding safety. And we sometimes talked about Black Twitter as this digital Green Book where the same way that the Green Books were used in the Civil Rights movement, this is the way that we've been able to utilize it here. So I think that it's definitely a tool that we have to use. Prentice Penny: As you were just saying, I also think, I don't know if Twitter was ever a safe space, to be perfectly frank. I just think you were seeing people speak up on a platform that couldn't speak up in the same way that is normal in America, right? Because, and we talk about this obviously in episode two, it's like unless you have a camera and a news station, well, Black culture doesn't get to dictate sometimes our stories. We don't get to tell our narratives a lot. And so that was the first place where finance was not a deterrent to telling your story because we all have phones, we all have, I think Wesley Lowery says, "We all have a printing press right in our palm of our hand." Right? And so I think we were just speaking up about things that were happening that just wasn't being reported on any other place. And so I think the perception I think of it seems like, "Oh, man, these Black people own this space." It's like, well, we don't own this space. We're just speaking up in a way that's equal to the way other mainstream culture speaks up in America, right? But because it's new and it's like, "Oh." So it seems like it's like we're running it or controlling it or dominating it in that way, but obviously we can't because of the percentage of Black culture that exists in this country relative to mainstream culture. We just don't physically have the millions of numbers to even match that. So I just think that that just allowed, to me, it was even the response to that is, "Whoa, these Black people, these hundreds of millions of Black people are speaking..." It's like, it's not a hundred million Black people in America. You know what I mean? But it's just like, "Oh, they're speaking in a way that—" Joie Jacoby: "Oh, they're loud." Prentice Penny: Yeah, "They're just speaking in a way that's like, "Hey, we're just calling out the inequities and the inequalities, I'm sorry, in this country that just exist." And so I think it seems that way, but if I look back, I go like, oh, I didn't necessarily feel safer. I think when you were watching the Obama election, a lot of the things about Black Twitter was just trying to support this Black man who's running for president. It was just like, "Hey, don't talk about where he's from." He's an American citizen. We're just calling out the things that CNN and MSNBC and those places were just kind of letting other people just say without calling that to the carpet. We were just doing that in a way that now, oh, they do call those things out now, but they weren't calling them out. Even the 2016 election wasn't calling those things out. And I just think Black Twitter was just speaking up, just giving a contrary point of view to what that community was feeling. But I don't necessarily know if it felt safer, I guess. Michael Calore: Well, there were a number of years, especially the Obama years, where Twitter was really driving the conversation. There was a lot that was coming out of the community, Black Twitter, the other communities on Twitter that were really driving the conversation. Now, things are a lot more fragmented. TikTok dominates a lot more of the conversation. Instagram dominates a lot more. So how have things changed now that there's not one place where most people hang out? Now there's a few places where a lot of people hang out. Jason Parham: No, yeah, I think social media's at a really interesting turning point. I think since Elon Musk took over the platform, we've seen a lot of other digital spaces pop up and try to usurp or jockey for position and take over Twitter's influence that it's had over these last 20 years. But I think it's tough. To your point, Mike, TikTok has a lot of hype, but I don't know if it has lasting influence in the way that we think Twitter does. Or maybe it's too early to say, and I'm not really quite sure where it's going. To your point, it is a lot more fragmented, it is a lot more split up, but I think maybe that's just what it looks like next. I don't think... I was talking to a friend the other day and he was like, "I don't think everybody necessarily needs to be in one space having these conversations anymore." Maybe this is just sort of the next turning point of social media. We're all sort of in- Prentice Penny: Like, the evolution of it, yeah. Jason Parham: Yeah. It's constantly moving and changing. And I think Twitter was very specific to the moment and the historical things that happened, but maybe this next moment is calling for something different. Joie Jacoby: We go to different places for different things. Jason Parham: Right. But I will say in this next moment, I think we're going to see Black folks, queer folks, women having more ownership over these spaces than they did in the years prior, for sure. Joie Jacoby: Yeah. Lauren Goode: The Fediverse is going to fix it all. Prentice Penny: I think it's also human nature when you find something that feels familiar to want to stay there. It's just comforting to know, "That's where I go for this and this, and that's where I go for that." And when those things get like anything that gets... There's some upheaval there, the tendency is to be like, "Oh, where's the next place I can put this down to rest? This thing?" And it's always nervous when you're like, "Well, what is that?" So the instinct I think, is to find something quickly, but not always to find what is the right place for that. And I think we weren't looking for Twitter at that time, and it just because of its pliability, it was a lot of different things, so it was very pliable to make it be kind of whatever you needed. Like, different than Facebook. If I go to Instagram, I'm like, "Oh, I want to see, I'm going to see pictures." If I see TikToks, I'm going to see little funny skits. If I go to Facebook, I'm going to see my aunt post a 15-paragraph thing about how kids today need to pull up their pants. But you know what I mean? So there are these things where you're like, but Twitter was pliable in that way. You could make it be a lot of different things. And I think there's good in that, but I think the tendency is, "Where is that next?" And so I'd be curious to know, is it even going to be a social media thing where the community will gather? Will it be something that 20 years from now doesn't even exist today in the same way that that didn't exist 20 something years ago? So I'm learning to say it's OK to live more in the uncomfortability. That's actually a nice place to kind of be sometimes because it doesn't allow you to think you know everything. I think that's the problem sometimes that we get in this country is when we assume we know everything as opposed to like, "Oh, I still have more to learn." It's like, "I'm an adult. I know all the things I need to know." It's like, you can't possibly know everything you need to know, right? So I'm trying to find ways for myself and even encourage my family and my kids to live in uncomfortability. It's an OK place to be. Great things happen there, as opposed to feeling like you know the answer, you know everything that's going to happen. Lauren Goode: Yep. Yeah, I miss Twitter for that reason. I mean, Twitter still exists, but I miss the old Twitter for that reason. Learning things, having conversations, getting pushed out of your comfort zone. Prentice Penny: Somebody said … I had a friend of mine, he said, "I miss the old Twitter like I miss the old Kanye." Joie Jacoby: Kanye. I was thinking that too. Man, where'd he go? Where'd they go? Lauren Goode: So you got a bunch of social media superstars to participate in this. Roxane Gay you mentioned earlier, Amanda Seals, Kid Fury, Baratunde you mentioned earlier, Jenna Wortham, Meredith Clark is the professor who's archiving Black Twitter, Jason Parham. I have to mention our own Jason. Is there anyone who you didn't hear from or who you couldn't book who you're like, "We're going to put it out there now. We still want to hear from you, your experience on Black Twitter?" Prentice Penny: I don't know. Do you have a name? Joie Jacoby: I mean, I feel like I shouldn't say it, but— Prentice Penny: Say it. Joie Jacoby: I mean, we went out to Questlove multiple times, but yeah. And he wanted to be on it I've heard now, which is great, but he's a very busy guy. He has a lot of different jobs. I'm sure that that was someone, because we felt like he was a really great person who could speak to the very early days of Twitter because he was so active and— Jason Parham: He was like the mayor of Black Twitter back in the day. Joie Jacoby: Right. Jason Parham: Questlove, Shaq, Snoop Dogg. There were certain people back in the day, celebrities, Rihanna, who were just talking to everybody. You could wake up and have a conversation with them and then go about your day, right? So Questlove would've been great. I think for me— Joie Jacoby: Yeah, that would've been a good one. Jason Parham: I think for me it was Desus. Desus would've been great. I even tried to get him from our oral history, but the timing just didn't quite work out. Joie Jacoby: Yeah, and I think that was the same for this too. Prentice Penny: Yeah. The one person I think is a similar thing was Kerry Washington, just because we get knee-deep into Scandal. And I'd be curious about what it's like when you're, and I got to see it with Issa, but Kerry was kind of already a celebrity in a different way than Issa was, of what it's like when you feel like your community is showing up for you from that side of the mirror. I know how it feels to be a fan of somebody, but what does it feel like to feel like, "Oh, I don't know what's going to happen with this show." And then, "Oh my God, people are supporting me on this platform and I'm talking to my …" You know what I mean? To see what that side of the looking glass looks like for someone, just because that was the start of watch parties. That was the start of live tweeting. That was the start of so many things now that you just assume as a part of television or a part of movies or a part of those things. Or when studios are saying, "Here's our rollout, you're going to live tweet." It all started there. And so I think in the same way that Jason's saying sort of Quest was sort of the mayor of Black Twitter, it'd be nice to see, "Oh, what was it like to be at the hub of that from the very beginning and seeing how that has, again, just really shaped so many things?" And even influenced things like Zola on the platform where it was a live watch party to somebody else's life, not just a character that's been written. You know what I mean? She was the genesis of that, or at least that show was. And so I was always wanting to have her be a part, we just couldn't line up the timing. Lauren Goode: I don't know if Jason happened to mention it to you, but one of our conference rooms here at the WIRED offices is actually named after Questlove, so maybe we should let him know that status is tenuous now. I don't know. Joie Jacoby: He's still the mayor. We just, you know. Lauren Goode: He is. Joie Jacoby: Yeah, very busy. Jason Parham: You know he's got an Academy Award now. He's very— Joie Jacoby: Yeah, he's big time. Prentice Penny: Mayor America. Joie Jacoby: But we got so many amazing people. And I'm always just, when you're in this space of documentary filmmaking, you have to be so grateful to all the voices and the people that take the time out of their schedules to come and sit down with you. All the people that were in the kickbacks that had regular jobs and had to take time off and come over to hang out with us, and talk about their experiences on the platform and how they moved everything and did so much for the culture. I just always am so grateful to them and really incredible voices. So many people wanted to participate. They really wanted to be a part of this. It wasn't one of those situations where you're trying to convince somebody. They were like, "Oh shit, you guys are doing this? You guys are telling this story? I have some stories to tell." So that was really refreshing and fun. Jason Parham: If anything, they were just like, "Who else is going to be there?" Joie Jacoby: That part. Jason Parham: It was like, "Who else is—" Joie Jacoby: Just like Black people always do. "Well, yeah. But who's going to be there?" So once we told them, they were cool. Prentice Penny: And to that point too, it was also for all of us to have, because again, Black Twitter's not just made up of those people. It's made up of everyday people that weren't trying to be doing anything and their lives instantly changed. And so to me, those people, again, Black Twitter is like a Johnetta Elzie or CaShawn Thompson who's just responding to something and just tweets out, "Black girls are magic." And now Black Girl Magic, my kids just know that expression. They don't know, "Oh, it started from this woman who was feeling a way about Black women and she was just trying to show support, and now that thing is just a thing. Right? And so to me it's like, that's who Black Twitter is also made of. It's just people that were like, I'm just responding as a human being to the culture in this moment. And then that is the thing that becomes viral. You know what I mean? But a lot of times we don't know. If you saw CaShawn Thompson walking down the street, you would not know that's CaShawn Thompson. That's the person that said Black Girl Magic for the first time and put it out there. So that is, to me, the most people that make up Black Twitter. It's just the people that were like, oh, the person that was there filming the George Floyd. Who is that? That person is Black Twitter too. So all of these people are that. The fun, the serious, and so it was important to have those voices also be a part of the doc, because again, you can't tell that story without them being a part of it too. Michael Calore: Right. OK. Well, thanks for this because this has been a really great conversation, but we have to take a break and we're going to come right back with our recommendations. [Break] Michael Calore: OK, now here's our recommendation segment where we all go around the room and ask everyone what cool or weird thing they're into lately. Let's start with you, Joie. Joie Jacoby: Last week, last Wednesday, I went to the Met Opera in New York City and I saw Fire Shut Up in My Bones. The first, I believe it's the first opera that was ever composed at the Met by a Black composer, Terence Blanchard of Spike Lee fame. And it was incredible. It was just such a spectacular show. Really moving, really sad, but just gorgeously executed. It just ended May 2, so hopefully it will come to a city near you soon. Michael Calore: OK. Well, we will watch for it. Thank you. Prentice, what is your recommendation? Prentice Penny: I've gotten super into, it's not as cool as what Joie said, I've really gotten into these really interesting things on YouTube. There are two things. One is called this guy does this really funny thing called Pitch Meetings, and he basically pitches them to himself on YouTube and breaks down all these hilarious movies, and it's just so funny poking all the holes in it. And this other one is this thing I stumbled onto too, which is this guy does these AI versions of movie trailers as if they were made in the 1950s. So he does The Avengers, and so the art feels really cool and stylized. And then he started doing ones that were other filmmakers doing other things. So he did Wes Anderson does The Avengers, and it is the funniest shit of Jason Schwartzman as Iron Man and Bill Murray as Thor, it's so funny. And it's just so funny, and the way he does the trailer, they're like a minute and a half and it is the funniest. But when he does Wes Anderson does The Avengers … Joie Jacoby: So good. Prentice Penny: Yeah, and all the narration is like, "And Hawkeye has 20 or more arrows." And it's like all of the, "Oh, and the Infinity stones." And it's just big, big stones just in the middle of a desert, just different colors. And it's just Thanos standing perfectly symmetrical to them. It's brilliant. I was like, "This guy is great. It's great." So that's what I'm into. Michael Calore: Awesome. Lauren Goode: Nice. Michael Calore: Love it. Jason, your turn. Jason Parham: My recommendation today is the show of the moment. Well, the other show of the moment, because Black Twitter: A People's History is the show of the moment. But I recommend X-Men '97 on Disney+. It's from my childhood watching X-Men. I think it's so hard to see a reboot done really, really well, and maybe even better than the original. Prentice Penny: It's so good. Jason Parham: I have no notes. It's a perfect 10 out of 10. I've watched every episode like three times. It's amazing. Joie Jacoby: Holy shit, OK. Jason Parham: Yeah, it's really good. It's really good. Michael Calore: All right, all right. Lauren? Lauren Goode: My recommendation is the show of the moment. Watch the doc Black Twitter: A People's History, and also read Jason's original cover story on WIRED. We're going to link to that in the show notes so all of you can read it. Just immerse yourself, it's really brilliantly done. And that's my recommendation this week. Michael Calore: Nice. Lauren Goode: What's yours? Michael Calore: I'm going to recommend instant coffee. Now, instant coffee has just been terrible most of our lives, it's just been really bad and has not been worth even considering. But for some reason in the last year or less, there's been this renaissance in instant coffee where you can get really great high quality freeze-dried coffee that no joke tastes exactly like regular brewed coffee. Verve is a good one. I know you can get them all around the country. If you're in the Bay Area, you can get Timeless or Four Barrel and Blue Bottle makes some. Lauren Goode: Yeah, I have a couple of Blue Bottle packets. I haven't used them yet though. Michael Calore: You haven't used them yet? Lauren Goode: No. I'll give them a try. Michael Calore: Yeah, so it feels weird. Like, you know I'm a coffee person. Lauren Goode: Yeah, this is kind of like Bluetooth. Bluetooth was really bad for a while. Now it's like, oh, actually, Bluetooth is kind of good. Yeah. Michael Calore: And when that happened, you had to convince people. There were people who were like, "Oh, I'll never own a pair of Bluetooth headphones." Lauren Goode: Yeah, totally. It was junk. Michael Calore: You had to be like, "No, listen, it's actually good now." So yeah, this is instant coffee's Bluetooth moment. Lauren Goode: Nice. That's great. Michael Calore: All right. Lauren Goode: We're going to be all caffeinated. For the next podcast, we're going to be even more caffeinated. Michael Calore: All right, well that is our show for this week. Thank you so much to our guests, Joie Jacoby, Prentice Penny, and Jason Parham. Thank you so much for being here. Joie Jacoby: Thank you so much. Jason Parham: Thank you guys. Prentice Penny: Thank you guys. Joie Jacoby: Thank you for having us. So much fun. Lauren Goode: It was so fun having you all on, and I really mean it when I say everyone should run, not walk, to watch this docuseries. Black Twitter: A People's History comes out today, May 9, on Hulu. So go check it out when you're done listening to this podcast, which is now. Michael Calore: And thank you all for listening. If you have feedback, you can find all of us on Twitter, of course. Just check the show notes. Our producer is the excellent Boone Ashworth, and we'll be back with another episode next week. And until then, goodbye. [Gadget Lab outro theme music plays]
 Recommendations How to Listen Transcript