‘Black Twitter: A People’s History’ Offers a Hasty Archive of a Bygone Era: TV Review
variety.comAramide Tinubu Black Twitter was something you were either aware of, or you weren’t. However, the influence of Black culture on the social media platform can’t be understated.
Hulu‘s “Black Twitter: A People’s History,” based on Jason Parham’s 2021 Wired cover story and directed by Prentice Penny, is a three-part docuseries revolving around the voices, movements, GIFs and memes that defined an era.
The show chronicles how the Black community influenced American society and politics during the Obama years and beyond. Swiftly paced and boasting commentary from figures who include writer Jamilah Lemieux, cultural critic Roxanne Gay, writer Ira Madison III and several former Twitter executives, “Black Twitter” unfurls a timeline that begins amid the rise of the network and ends with its current iteration, X.
The first hour opens with “It Was All a Dream,” an overview of what made Twitter unique. It draws a through-line between early 2000s networking services like MySpace and Black Planet, which were predecessors to this melanin-fueled segment of the app and website.
Read more on variety.com