Jokes are wealthy notions. The Black comedic and satirical traditions have for many years fascinated students and comedians, lots of whom have converged on the concept trauma is a defining function of Black comedy. W. E. B Du Bois wrote in The Humor of Negroes that humor is partly “a defense mechanism; reaction from tragedy; oppositions set out in the face of hurt and insult.”
Much of at present’s Black humor is pushed by Black Twitter, a neighborhood that’s nebulous in building however centered in execution. Humor is one in every of its chief weapons, and it lives even in unhappy moments.
Elon Musk’s current buy of Twitter has fostered anxiousness amongst some customers about the way forward for Black Twitter. Rumored adjustments to the platform—touted because the promotion of free speech—have led many to take a position that bigoted habits will flourish with fewer penalties, threatening the consolation of marginalized teams on Twitter. This, coupled with the firing of Twitter employees engaged on moral AI, which centered on creating extra clear algorithms, have left some questioning whether or not Black Twitter’s days are numbered.
I’m not a comic, and even that good at Twitter. I’m a computational scientist. But I’m serious about how epidemics work together with society and tradition, and COVID-19 gave me a brand new and highly effective appreciation for Black Twitter—its attain, resonance, and skill to supply therapeutic humor throughout our darkest hours. And whereas I might cease wanting arguing that Black Twitter was a drive for selling public well being, its salutary results on the communities most affected by the pandemic are simple.
Days after the Omicron variant turned nationwide information, Black Twitter rebranded the variant Omarion, after the previous lead singer from the favored 2000s boy band B2K. Once the nickname gained a powerful social-media footprint, the real-life Omarion acquired in on the motion, sharing a satirical public-service announcement clarifying that he’s not a variant of SARS-CoV-2.
“This is Omarion. I am an artist. Not a variant,” he stated in a TikTok video, which he then shared together with his 1.3 million Twitter followers. “If you just so happen to run into me on the street, you don’t have to isolate for five days, nor do you have to have a negative test result to dance to my music.”
The joke was solely doable as a result of in December of final yr, society understood what a variant was, and knew what isolating for 5 days meant. This is reflective of a public that now capabilities with a working data of fundamental epidemiology. What made the nickname humorous? Maybe it’s that Omarion was a well-known title that served to spotlight how peculiar a label Omicron was, particularly after the extra standard Greek-letter names given to the opposite variants. The new time period felt calming, and clarifying: We might not know rather a lot about what is going on with COVID-19, however we positive know who Omarion is.
Long earlier than “Omarion,” the primary Black Twitter nickname for the virus was “the Rona,” which turned common simply because the pandemic was hitting American soil. The logic of Black humor appeared to suggest that the coronavirus was going to be round for some time, so we’d as nicely give it a friendlier title.
More revealing than the nicknaming of the variants have been the memes related to the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. A trio of names common on Black Twitter, for instance, dubbed a vaccinated particular person a Pfizer Princess, a Moderna Mami, or a Johnson & Johnson Jawn. Jokes about vaccines have been a extra tolerable approach to take the ordeal severely and construct neighborhood round it.
The vaccine nicknames are informative as a result of vaccine hesitancy was one of the vital contentious problems with the COVID period. Saturday Night Live did a parody concerning the causes Black folks have been much less prone to be vaccinated. The sketch was primarily based on actuality: Early on, Black adults have been among the many most vaccine-hesitant of all teams; solely 42 p.c meant to get the vaccine, in contrast with 63 p.c of Hispanic and 61 p.c of white adults. Explanations for the hesitation included lack of entry; mistrust resulting from historic and modern racial discrimination, particularly from the medical institution; and discomfort with how shortly the vaccine was produced in addition to the usual fallout from the COVID-19 misinformation-verse.
And but vaccine hesitancy dropped significantly quicker within the Black neighborhood than amongst white folks in 2021, and by the tip of that yr Black Americans have been now not the nation’s most vaccine-hesitant demographic. The change had a number of causes, together with focused outreach efforts. It can be irresponsible to argue that Twitter nicknames persuaded folks to get vaccinated, however I can’t assist seeing a connection: Vaccine adoption elevated on the similar time that Black folks began to really feel snug sufficient to joke about it.
What would a Black Twitter–much less pandemic—or another type of social upheaval—have appeared like? Black Twitter has served because the racial conscience of social media. It praises us for our deserves, drags us for our sins, and by some means offers us reprieve from the cesspool of mendacity, trolling, and abuse that may occur within the digital world. So the query isn’t provided out of paranoia, however to discover how forces like Black Twitter form our lives in panic settings: They educate, entertain, and make clear in instances of collective bemusement.
The memes that lived inside and emerged from Black Twitter helped reveal the racial disparities that outlined a lot of the pandemic. Without this refrain, Black folks might by no means have identified simply how completely different our experiences are from different folks. The laughter behind nicknames like Omarion reminds us that—from influenza in 1918 to HIV/AIDS to COVID-19—probably the most dependable projection in American historical past is that each neighborhood received’t “catch the same cold,” even when everybody resides with the identical pandemic.
This actuality is absurd, miserable, and good materials for Black Twitter, or no matter its future substitute will likely be.