Okay, hi.
Now that I’m cooled off, I’d like to give a more detailed picture of what is happening with #BlackoutDay. So on our IG and @theblckout, we acknowledged the July 7th #BlackoutDay2020 was happening because we essentially had no choice. Our site was crashing with q’s.
Now that I’m cooled off, I’d like to give a more detailed picture of what is happening with #BlackoutDay. So on our IG and @theblckout, we acknowledged the July 7th #BlackoutDay2020 was happening because we essentially had no choice. Our site was crashing with q’s.
It was being organized by someone else who modified and began uniting people under a tag branded like ours without getting in touch. That happens to us *often* (there are Blackout tags for TikTok, K-Pop, Eid, etc). We typically try to go with the flow and support spinoffs.
But the diff. is that #BlackOutDay2020 is word for word #BlackoutDay, a tag that did not exist (esp. not for the purpose of collective Black action) before us. When you search, you were finding us first. But a guy organized without us, celebrities picked it up, we‘re shut out.
The media, without doing its due diligence, is actually reporting that T.I is organizing #BlackoutDay2020 which is wrong because 1) T.I just saw the post floating around like other people did and reposted it 2) no one is openly acknowledging that #BlackoutDay exists already.
This is frustrating because 1) We are now expected to have answers about something someone else decided to do using our name 2) we (@nukirk and I) have literally been trying for five years to organize wide scale action beyond the original “selfie-day” and have been shut down.
3) We are now essentially being offered a consolation prize in a space we built the groundwork for. There would be no TikTok Blackout, no K-Pop Blackouts without our influence. And for years, we’ve sort of let that go for the greater good but this new, active erasure *hurts*.
Speaking only for myself now, I literally hung up the dream two weeks ago because I felt it was dying. Only to be surprised when a random twitter user went viral for the exact idea with eerily similar wording to what we had 5 years ago. I took it as a sign not to give up.
We try again and are drowned out by the news that someone is doing what we’ve been trying to do for years and is actually using our name to do it AND T.I is being centered. So yeah, it blows. I hope a TON of people participate in the general boycott/black business support tho.
I don’t like that we’re the bones this new wave of action is built on. Especially when we tried so hard to make @theblckout a space for Black art, music, businesses, and positivity 365 days a year for 5 years. I named #BlackoutDay in my dorm room. I am now 26.
We haven’t been totally without support though and again, I’m so grateful for people who see us, especially on Tumblr. Twitter has yet to truly get hip to who we are and what our goals are but maybe this new wave of confusion and misattribution might actually help.
So, TL;DR: my reflex was to put on a happy face, type a PR friendly IG post and just be grateful that some sort of collective action is happening. But truth is, I’m tired of not even being a footnote in the collective remembrance of #BlackoutDay.
I’m not looking to be famous, just acknowledged. And also for help/guidance for @theblckout. I also have no questions to answer about #BlackoutDay2020 beyond what I’ve said here. I’ve said all I personally know about it in this thread!
Thank you so much 💖🖤
Thank you so much 💖🖤
P.S: we know we don’t own the term blackout because that is a word that is used in a myriad of circumstances. That is not the same. Haha
