Black Twitter: A People's History is based on a 2021 series in Wired exploring the influential virtual community that has been instrumental in a number of major social movements, including #BlackLivesMatter and the national conversation that followed the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Brock is widely cited for his research into Black Twitter and other online communities. He is featured in the three-part documentary’s first and third episodes, all of which debut May 9.
“It was a great experience to be involved in the Wired articles, and this has been a good experience, too,” said Brock.
In the first episode, Brock discusses how Twitter became a popular online gathering spot for Black internet users. In the third episode, he discusses what’s next for the service, which is now called X.
While much has changed since the 2021 Wired cover story — Donald Trump is no longer president, Elon Musk is the social media platform’s new owner, and it’s no longer called Twitter — Brock said the community has held strong and remains a powerful online force.
“In some ways, it’s similar to the water cooler and in other ways, like the street corner, places where people can gather and that provide a substantial amount of spiritual, emotional, and informational resources,” he told Ivan Allen College communicationssaid Brock.
In addition to Brock, the documentary features numerous others who participated in the Wired series, including . W. Kamau Bell, Kid Fury, Roxane Gay and others.
Brock is the author of Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures, which won the Harry Shaw and Katrina Hazzard-Donald Award for Outstanding Work in African-American Popular Culture Studies and the Nancy Baym Annual Book Award in 2021.
He has been widely cited in media discussions of Black Twitter, including appearances in articles published by CNN, The Guardian, Mother Jones, and more. He also wrote an op-ed for MSNBC on what he thought might happen to the community in the wake of Elon Musk’s purchase of the service in 2022.
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