The "Plight" of the Black Woman Influencer - Not Every Critique/Conversation Belongs on Social Media

[00:00:00]Every 6 months like clockwork on social media, someone reheats the conversation about why there is no black Alex Earl.

[00:00:06]And if the way people talk about and treat Jackiea is no indicator as to the reason why we have no quote black Alex Earl, then look no further than the way people have talked about and treated Annayia on this season of Love Island.

[00:00:21]Very transparently, if y'all want to know the reason why we don't have a black Alex Earl, I think we need to look in the mirror because the call is coming from inside the house. Let's talk about it and do some makeup.

[00:00:34][music] Aloha, beautiful humans. Welcome to my channel if you are new here. Welcome back if we've been locked in. My name is Sasha and today we're going to talk about the quote plight of the black female influencer. And I don't even want to say the plight of the black female influencer so much as I want to have a conversation about why we are so hyper critical of one another. And even in having this conversation, I don't want to specifically focus on how hyperritical we are of one another because I don't think that is unique to the black community. What I specifically want to talk about, however, is because our representation is so lacking and not always the best. the ways in which we are hyperritical towards one another on very public platforms, particularly Tik Tok, and how that hyperriticalness, not only does it create opportunities and opens up windows for other people outside of our community to talk negatively about us, and how hypocritical it is to say that we are not a monolith and we don't all want to be treated the same and group the same, but at the same time simultaneously kick down black women and talk about black women poorly who do not perform blackness in a way that is acceptable or stereotypical. Before we get too deep into the video though, don't forget to like the video, subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. What are you waiting for? Also, join the membership if you would like early access to content as well as exclusive access to content, and also hype up the video.

[00:02:00]What it does is it helps smaller creators like me. It helps our videos get pushed out further into the algorithm, which is greatly appreciated.

[00:02:07]So, today we're doing a light beat.

[00:02:08]We're not doing too much. This is my standard go-to phase when I have to run errands sometimes when I record. Not doing too much. The products that I've already used thus far is the Element Brooklyn Mandarin Hand Mist. It's got 63% alcohol. I am one of those people who constantly washes my hands when I'm putting on makeup or constantly hand sanitizing. So, if you're looking for a good hand sanitizer, that is really amazing. I'm also a huge fan of the Danessa Myrix Yummy Skin Water Powder Serum. If you have oily skin or you are someone who sweats from your face like I do, I really like it as a base before I put on my makeup. And then as for my foundation, this is the Luminous Silk Armani Perfect Natural Glow Foundation and I use shade 14. For concealer, I like to go into my inner eye corners with a brighter concealer. And then on my outer corners, I'll go in with a concealer that is more so my shade. And so I'm using the Hourglass the Airbrush concealer. This is in shade maple. I'm going to take these into my inner corners.

[00:03:08]For the concealer that's more my natural shade to cover up any blemishes, I alternate between the Gucci multi-use longwear concealer. This is in shade 55C deep. And then I also like to use the Hourglass and this is in shade clove 11.4. So today I'm kind of feeling more Gucci. Okay, back into the video. So every 6 months like clockwork there is a conversation about why there is no black Alex Earl. Now, if you are unfamiliar with Alex Earl, she is a white influencer. She went to the University of Miami, as is my understanding. She started over the Pandemic Lab. Over the years, she's built her platform as the sorority girl, party girl at the University of Miami. Alex Earl saw a great amount of success in a very short period of time. And she has become the blueprint for women, for let me not say all women, for many women who are entering the influencer content creator space. She has kind of become the blueprint and people will regularly use her as the epitome of an example of what it is to be a successful influencer particularly the type of lifestyle content she does as well as skincare as well as beauty etc. So because people have given her that title, there is always a lot of conversation around the pinnacle of influencing. If somebody is successful at influencing, basically a lot of comparison between Alex Earl and other influencers. And like I said, that conversation resurfaces every 6 to eight business months with people wondering where is the black Alex Earl? Where is the black Alex Earl? Let's talk about it. Alex Earl is the like definitive influencer of these times, right? She has 14 million followers across Instagram and Tik Tok. She has amassed all of this money and she started a brand. She has equity in Poppy, right?

[00:04:44]Like this is a massive star. And yes, while I can agree that like some of Alex's content is delightful, is engaging, it is like really hard for me to look across her content and really quantify what the reason is for this immense success as compared to other women who make content just like her.

[00:04:59]Because truly her videos are like any other thin, white, conventionally attractive white woman on this app, right? It's very much get readies with me and like I'm going to this party or look at this hall. It's all very familiar, very replicable content. I think Alex represents the very best at a template that is like optimized for the algorithm. And because that template does seem fairly replicable because it is a template that one can copy, it begs the question, why isn't there an equivalent? Why isn't there a black Alex Earl? For a non-technical former lawyer, I am super interested weirdly in like algorithms, how they work, and who they help. They are by design discriminatory, right? They reward whiteness. They reward conventional attraction. They reward mediocrity. Virality is much much easier to achieve if you are an attractive average white woman. And that again is by design. Alex Earl represents a very particular subculture of American life that is racially coded and which brands love. It's all Miami life and Greek life and sorority mixers and drinking by the pool. It's massive Manhattan apartments. It's shopping halls. It's I'm hung over at Pilates.

[00:05:55]Come with me. I mean, Alex is the very best of a creator pipeline that starts in New Jersey or on the East Coast and gets you through college and puts you out on TikTok and creates like the Eli Rallows and the Alex Earles and the Acquired Styles of the world. Brands sit at every part of that pipeline desperate to gobble them up. It's like this perfect system supply chain. Then, of course, there's the relatability of it all, which really means whiteness, but in like a brand safe form. Brands want to sell to as many people in one fell swoop as possible. And to them, the biggest, easiest billboard is a white woman with like some type of following on Tik Tok and Instagram. Generally speaking, white women want to watch on TikTok other white women who are kind of like them but more, right? Like they have more money and bigger apartments and better boyfriends and more but they look like them, they act like them, they're them, but even more aspirational, right? Like if your favorite creator is someone who looks like you, but is like more aspirational, but bland enough for you to project yourself onto them, well then that's the perfect billboard. And definitionally speaking, to these brands, the best, the biggest, the most bang for your buck billboard is a white woman who looks like Alex Earl. But I also want to know your thoughts. Who is the black Alex Earl? Or do we even have one? Now, I get why people have this conversation and why people ask this question. However, I take issue with it for several reasons.

[00:07:04]More specifically, and probably the biggest reason is that I think that success is going to look different for each and every single one of us. We need to define success on our own terms. And I also take issue with the fact that when we think about success, many of us attribute a white person as the standard of success, as the pinnacle of success, as an example of success. And when we say things like the black x, y, and z, it kind of minimizes people who are already in that space who are black, who are of color, who are successful. But because whiteness is the standard for many people, they look to somebody being white exclusively, having excelled in that field and that space as the standard. And I do not believe we need a black Alex Earl. I believe we have many black content creators, influencers, lifestyle influencers who occupy that space of excellence, who occupy that space of success and can be used as kind of barometers and measures of the pinnacle of success when it comes to content creation. I know people use her because she is easy. She is a great example also of the fact that black people, we have to work twice as hard to be seen as just as good. She posts a lot of very loweffort content. And when you think about black content creators and influencers, we have to show up already excellent. We are not given a lot of grace. We are not given a lot of room for mistake. We are not given a lot of room for error. We have to be already in a space of achievement, already in a space of excellent. We cannot go through a hot mess journey and come out better on the other side. And I think that what has made Alex Earl so successful is her relatability, but she is allowed to be relatable in the ways black women aren't. She's allowed to be a hot mess in the way black women aren't always allowed to be a hot mess. She's allowed to be aspirational while also being relatable. Whereas black women to occupy a certain space in influencing in lifestyle content, you are have to be aspirational. There is no room for relatable. And when you no longer become relatable, a lot of people will eat you alive. One of my mutuals on TikTok kind of spoke to that and she was the one who actually this time got the conversation started around why there is no black Alex Earl. The plight of the black female influencer. Let's talk about it.

[00:09:15]It is impossible to be a successful black influencer who's a woman on this app. Or at least it's nearly impossible.

[00:09:21]Unlike white female influencers, many of whom espouse like this basicness, this fundamental mediocrity, black female influencers have to tread a very fine line between exceptionalism and relatability. We can't be messy and chaotic. Think Alex Earl or Haley Bachelder. Otherwise, here come the accusations of being ghetto and ratchet.

[00:09:37]And that's really unfortunate given how much success is attributed to that type of vulnerability and like realism, right? Like think about the white women who get on this app and talk about having bad skin or going out at night and like looking terrible the next morning, right? Like people eat that up.

[00:09:50]or the girls who like drink on camera and then talk about going to Pilates hung over. You know the ones who have like crusted vomit on their sheets.

[00:09:55]Those videos when made by like a conventionally attractive white influencer garner immediately like thousands of followers, thousands of likes, but don't catch a black woman doing that. And so for many aspiring black female content creators, like the only option or avenue or way to get your foot in the door is exceptionalism.

[00:10:10]Think Annie and Clark, two women who have literally a bevy of Ivy League degrees between them and all of that camera equipment and knowhow. Or Justine's camera roll whose editing is truly Emmy worthy. Right? This is why those posts about getting into X, Y, or Z law school or a black person going to this business school go so viral on social media or why black luxury is such a popular niche. It's because we as black people and then the wider audiences expect our black influencers to be exceptional. But there in lies the paradox because there is only so much black exceptionalism that audiences will tolerate before turning on you. Sure, Alex Earl has made tens of millions of dollars within a couple of years and has like MBA worthy business acumen, but she's a white girl and so the white girls gobble that up. But catch a black woman flaunting too much of her jewelry collection on here or talking too much about her new house or her new car and people get angry. Suddenly that black influencer that you used to love is no longer relatable. She's out of touch.

[00:10:59]She's conceited. She's And that all renders the influencing game nearly impossible for black women to even be noticed by audiences, by followers, by brands. Black women have to show that they are exceptional in some way in beauty and education and intelligence and intellect, anything. But eventually that exceptionalism compounds in a [clears throat] way that audiences find uncomfortable. It eventually makes them unrelatable and brands no longer want to work with them. I want to know how we change this paradigm and I want to know your thoughts. All right, I'm going to put on just a little bit of blush. I'm not really a liquid blush girly. So for blush, we're going to go in with the road Toasted Teddy Pocket Blush. This is just a very This is a very cute blush. I really like that she touches upon the fact that a lot of Alex Earl's success comes from being relatable as well as comes from being marketable. And she also addressed what I said that essentially black women aren't given the space to be a hot mess express. You have to be a finished package. And when I actually think about Alex Earl's black peers who are dominating the space of influencing lifestyle content, beauty content, when I think about those girls, I think about the Monae Mcichels, the Any Given Sundays, Clark, oh my goodness, uh Sedoni, Justine's Camera Roll, like these are five black young black women at the top of my head who are killing it right now. However, when I look at all of them, they are exceptional in many ways. Like Chris said in the video you just watched, they have a bevy of Ivy League degrees between them. They are just killing it at life. They consistently post high quality content. You'll never see them coming on the internet looking a certain way. Even when they're kind of dressed down, it's still very dressed up, if that makes sense. And so I think that as black women, we are not, like I said, afforded the ability to just show up as we are. I would never be given the privilege because it is a privilege to kind of show up looking sloppy. We live in a society that rewards not even necessarily high effort, but we live in a society that rewards beauty. And those beauty standards are always higher and more strict for black women. So, I would never be able to show up on this camera looking a hot mess and build a following. Now, I know some of y'all may bring up E.ca. However, she represents I want to be very careful with my words.

[00:13:07]Like I said earlier, we say that we do not want to be seen as a monolith. But then when somebody is not performing blackness in a way that is stereotypical or widely accepted by the community, people punch down on them as we saw with Annayia, which we'll get into later in the video. And so with E Kaine, with the Aris of the world, um Ari Fletcher, with Jada Chz, who again is a very successful woman, but when I specifically think about those three women, they occupy a space in the community where they are either representing the worst of the community, ec, and let me not say the worst of the community, let me say very stereotypical, what we ascribe, what many people think blackness is, the very stereotypical drama just a lot of adverse life experiences being displayed for consumption, a lot of trauma. That is a Kane and she has built a platform of millions of followers. She's not necessarily marketable the way Alex Earl is, but she is very successful within the community because she is relatable. And then also when you think about the Ari Fletchers, when you think about Jada Chz, they are the mothers of the children of rappers.

[00:14:20]And in our community, unfortunately, many people put rappers on a pedestal and we view their lifestyle as aspirational and that extends to their girlfriends, the mothers of their children, their wives, etc. What this leaves us is two extremes of blackness represented. One that's a little bit more stereotypical in nature, again, very high drama, hoodri, flashy, etc. or you have the black girl kind of in luxury or the very educated black woman who's doing all the things who has a bunch of degrees who is ascending the ladder in life. There is very little room for the regular, the average everyday black woman who I feel like kind of like myself in many ways to get a certain level of success. We are not given the opportunity to post relatable content and be rewarded for it in the ways the Alex Earls of the world, the white women in the creator space who just post their little days in the life, who are mommy bloggers, etc., who are just going out to coffee and pilates, doing their hot girl walks, filming it.

[00:15:22]It's not massively edited. It's not really engaging, but they just look a certain way or they're aspirational while also being very relatable and they are rewarded for it. So there is a certain level of marketability at play, but I also think that we need to have a conversation within the community about who we put on a pedestal and more specifically why we put them on a pedestal. We also need to have a conversation though, and this is what I want to primarily focus on in this video, about the ways in which the community is extremely harsh on our content creators and the ways we just openly drag them and knock one another down the minute we feel they are out of reach or they ascend a level of success that we are no longer comfortable with or we do not feel that they have earned.

[00:16:04]This is a Laura Mercier translucent loose setting powder and it is in medium deep. I really liked Chris's video because yes, she's touched on the marketability. Unfortunately, it is just the reality that black women in these spaces are not getting the same opportunities as our white counterparts.

[00:16:20]We have to fight for so much more and the opportunities and room for growth are a lot more limited. Yes, there is an opportunity for growth on the behalf of marketers and people who are giving these opportunities. But do you think they're going to give us these opportunities when they see us ripping each other apart and when they see us not supporting each other? Every six to eight business months, Tik Tok specifically takes it upon themselves to rip apart Jackie Aina. And this most recent situation with the Patrick Todd blushes that had nothing to do with her.

[00:16:51]It was it was honestly the worst that I have personally seen. And it was so deeply unnecessary. A lot of people do not view content creators and influencers as real people deserving of respect, deserving of kindness, deserving of empathy. And I think that there are a few reasons to why. In part, what plays a role in this is that these screens have made it so people can hide behind the guise of anonymity while being extremely cruel to people for no reason at all. These screens are absolutely eroding our humanity and our ability to be kind towards one another.

[00:17:22]But I also think there is a level of envy and I also think there's a level of jealousy. We typically root for the underdog. I think a really good example of this right now is Monae Mcichael. she started posting more regularly or at least she was introduced to me when she was in nursing school and she's just posting her days in the life and she's just very sweet. I've always liked her demeanor. I've always liked how she has carried herself once she gained a certain level of success as many content creators and influencers do who are making good money and who want to turn this into a career. She started doing influencing and content creation full-time. And that is when I noticed the shift towards her. And that's the the shift that I noticed towards a lot of content creators and influencers. It seems like we only appreciate black women content creators and influencers who are in the same boat of life as us, who are struggling, who are relatable, but the minute they become unrelatable to us because they ascend a certain level in life, that's when people want to start kicking them down and being disrespectful to them. It's like people are it's like some people have this crabs in a bucket mentality that they want you to be doing just as good as them, maybe a little bit worse than them, but they never want you to be doing better than them. This is the Freck Noir, the original freckle. I love me a good freckle pen. But anyways, yeah, it's like we want people to be doing just as good as us, but the minute they start doing better than us, a lot of people become haters. A lot of people become bitter. A lot of people become envious. And they did that to Monae Mcichael, especially when she started dating her boyfriend. And I've noticed she's definitely taken a step back and is not on the internet as much. And I really appreciate that for her. And it's the same thing with Jackie. A she is someone who has been in this for many years in many ways. She is a pioneer.

[00:19:02]She is a pioneer in the beauty influencing space in the content creating space. And I think she has paved the way for many of us who are in this space. And the minute that she became unrelatable to people, I noticed that especially when she stepped into the more luxury lifestyle era, her soft life era, that's when a lot of people started to be extremely negative towards her, extremely costic, extremely disrespectful towards her. And it became normalized. It became normalized to treat her this way. There's this mentality that a lot of people have that just because you are someone who is creating content or or showing up on the internet in a certain capacity that means you should be accepting of and expect abuse, vitriol, hate, and that couldn't be further from the truth.

[00:19:46]Nobody deserves to be on the receiving end of that negativity just because they create content, just because they turn on their camera and post for a living.

[00:19:54]And as content creators, as influencers, these apps don't protect us. These social media platforms don't protect us from this hate, from this abuse. So the only means we have to protect ourselves is deleting comments. It's blocking people. It is unfollowing people. It's muting accounts. It's going private. And when content creators and influencers, when we do that, when we exercise these options available to us, people will then make fun of you. People will call you weak or turn it into a joke. And now there's this long-standing joke on the internet about Jackie Aa blocking me.

[00:20:25]And it's just like crazy that people have turned this into a thing. Every six to eight months when people decide that it's time to beat down abuse and just be disgusting towards her, people will then come out of the woodworks to talk about the ways in which they were blocked by her. And people will laugh about it. And I'm like, that's weird. It is weird to get on the internet and laugh about the fact that you were abusive to someone to the degree that they had to block you.

[00:20:47]That's embarrassing. I would be embarrassed about this. But apparently we have normalized hate towards influencers and content creators so much that it has now become a badge of honor for people to be blocked by social media personalities especially if and when the internet has decided this is somebody that doesn't have feelings. This is somebody who's no longer a person and it is okay to abuse them which is exactly what happens to Jackiea. So we have created this environment within our own community that if somebody ascends a level of too much success, more success than we are comfortable with, especially a black woman, especially especially in particularly a dark-skinned black woman, that opens her up for scrutiny and abuse, and she's no longer relatable.

[00:21:26]And we no longer want to see her succeed. And now we're just going to punch her down and kick her down and target and make her a target, which also opens up opportunities for people to do the same thing to us. How can we sit here and say protect black women when black women aren't even protecting one another? We have created an environment where we freely, openly bully one another. And it's crazy. And this is exactly what we saw with Annayia on this season of Love Island. Annayia was clearly a fan favorite, a cast favorite, a production favorite, and I think it's one of many reasons. I don't know this girl personally, but from everything we've seen of her on the show, she seems like a very sweet young woman who is going places in life and unfortunately had an experience many of us deal with trying to date someone, trying to find love. I wouldn't even say most of us, but a lot of us have experienced some level of degree of what Annia went through on this season of Love Island, but we had the privilege of not having it displayed and dissected for millions of people to see. And out of this season of Love Island, Annayia has quickly just become the fan favorite. I mean, there's Trinity, obviously, Trinity and Bryce one. People love Trinity. But when it comes to Annayia, she represents something different. And when I say something different, she doesn't embody again that stereotypical black representation of dark-kinned black women that we see on social media and on the internet. I don't think I'm going to put on eyeliner today.

[00:22:51]Sometimes I want to put on eyeliner, sometimes I don't. Normally I like a little wing, but I'm not going to do it.

[00:22:55]We're just going to go in with mascara.

[00:22:57]Yeah, I think we're just going to keep it light today. Okay, we're going to keep it light today. A little barefaced baddy action. So, I like this Dior. I wish I could like read off what it actually is, but it's just a basic eyelash primer. P.S., over the past two months, I've been using two different lash extensions. I've been using the Epis lash extension as well as the Oaji lash extension because I've kind of gotten tired of I don't want anybody that close to my face anymore if I'm being totally honest. So, I grew out of lash extensions for a minute. So, I've been like trying to grow my natural lashes over the past two months, and I'm very surprised at how quickly they have grown. So, if you're looking for a good lash serum, Oaji has a good lash serum.

[00:23:34]It's kind of a splurge, though. It's like 125 bucks, but then Epace, theirs is more affordable. I think I bought it for like 20 bucks. So, just a little bit more affordable if you're looking to grow your own natural lashes. But anyways, this season of Love Island, it was very vitriolic towards the black women on the show, but more specifically Annayia. And I've already done a video about the way she was treated and regarded. So I won't do too much on her.

[00:23:56]I would encourage you to actually go and watch that video separately. But essentially the gist of that video and it ties into kind of why we don't have a black Alex Earl is that black women, we are damned if we do and we're damned if we don't. If we don't perform blackness in a way that is stereotypical, in a way that is in line with what people want to see from black women or expect from black women, even within the community, then people will just rip her apart.

[00:24:19]Something that I thought was interesting about Annayia and the way people criticized her where people criticized her for being too sensitive. Even Casey when he came out of the villa, he said she was fragile. And I saw a lot of black women attacking her for that. Oh, she's sensitive. Oh, she's always crying. Oh, she's weak. She's this, that, and the third. How often as black women have we been saying for years that we want to rest, that we're tired of the strong black woman trope. And here y'all are making fun of a woman who a black woman, a young black woman who embodies what you say you want to be seen as.

[00:24:50]Annayia is soft. Annia was vulnerable.

[00:24:53]Annayia doesn't come from struggle.

[00:24:55]Annayia comes from a privileged background. And because a lot of people couldn't relate to that, it triggered their own insecurities. And now they just took the opportunity to rip this black woman apart and put her down in defense of a black man. It's so crazy to see that a lot of the detractors who are speaking out negatively against the treatment they perceive to be racism that some cast members are on the receiving end of the people that they are attacking in order to support their claim of racism, to support their claim of colorism are two women who are black and who are dark-kinned black women. So again, it's protect black women until it is a black woman who doesn't embody blackness the way some people desire and feel it should be expressed. Black women have been disrespected and mistreated on Love Island for years, and no one was calling racism. No one was talking about colorism until they perceived both of these things were happening to a black man. It's honestly been very trippy and disturbing to see if I'm being totally honest. We're not going to do too much on the lip. We're going to go in with this Summer Fridays. This is the Summer Fridays Lip Butter Balm and this is in pink sugar. It's basically clear and it just smells really good. This is why I find the conversation every 6 to 8 months when it pops up about why we don't have a black Alex Earl. I find it simultaneously disingenuous and annoying because a our measure of success when it comes to black women influencers who are killing it or who are ascending their career doesn't have to be a white woman, especially when any is right there. Like I said, Sedona, Jackie, Aina, Monae Mcichael, Justine's camera roll, Tony Bravo, um, Gloria. These are black women who are killing it, who many, a few of them have been on the Forbes 25 under 25, 30 under 30. Jackie is a multi-millionaire, an entrepreneur. They are successful in their own right. We don't need to ask for a black Alex Earl.

[00:26:50]A black Alex Earl already exists. white women are not our standard of success.

[00:26:56]We need to get out of that very colonized mentality. So, I find that conversation annoying. But I also find it disingenuous. And I find it disingenuous because these black women exist and we should be supporting them.

[00:27:09]But the minute they ascend a level of success higher than what we deem comfortable for some people or what people feel like they are worthy of, what do we do? Instead of supporting them and uplifting them, we turn around and attack them and antagonize them, creating windows for other people of other communities to do the same thing.

[00:27:27]Annayia's hair was such a talking point this season, and it is absolutely disgusting. We saw black women week after week on the show turn on their cameras to talk about Annayia's hair because it seems like it's okay when we do it to one another, but let somebody outside of our community do it to us and everybody all of a sudden wants to talk about texturism. All of a sudden, everybody is familiar with the Crown Act and we want to use it against other people, but we create opportunities for people to do that to us because they see us doing it to each other on social media for free. All right, let me finish this up. For mascara, I'm going to use the Too Faced Better Than Sex mascara.

[00:28:04]They have a waterproof formula.

[00:28:06]Honestly, I don't prefer the waterproof formula. I like this formula better. So, yeah.

[00:28:12]Perfect. Maybe I'll put on a lip liner.

[00:28:14]I don't know. But all of this to say, there was all of this unnecessary discourse about her hair. So much so that even it was covered on NPR.

[00:28:21]>> Women, especially black women, don't look a certain way. We are often policed by others. I remember with Love Island where people were talking about Alandria's uh undereye concealer being too bright or um talking about, you know, >> God forbid a girl gets a tan in Fiji being out.

[00:28:35]>> God forbid a girl gets a tan in Fiji. I mean, there's a girl there with like a shortcut. They talked about her hair.

[00:28:40]There are girls there who have on different kinds of wigs.

[00:28:42]>> But Trinity, why do you have a sew in?

[00:28:44]>> Why is there leave out involved on this island?

[00:28:46]>> Why do we police each other in this way even when we hate to be on the receiving end of it? the internet. Like I think it's made everyone feel entitled to audit black women's faces, bodies, hair.

[00:28:56]Yeah.

[00:28:57]>> I also think that black women get judged for doing too much, but then you will be judged if you don't do enough. So, it's like >> you really can't win. Um, and the margin for error is incredibly small. I think the hair conversation is interesting because I think that the hair conversation, the like policing of black women's hair, I see it much more from other black women because I think outside of our culture, like they don't know what's going on.

[00:29:17]>> Yes. We I think as black women, speaking for for the black women's community, I think we need to be very careful about having these conversations in public spaces like the internet because then I worry that it then makes other non-black people also feel entitled to comment on black women's hair and their features.

[00:29:33]Um >> so it's like keep it to the group chat.

[00:29:36]>> Now I understand that there is some in community banter and I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that. We all joan on one another. We all talk like I get it. I get it. But we have to be so careful about the way we speak about one another on these social media platforms, especially when representation is already so limited.

[00:29:52]Black women should have been Annayia and Trinity's biggest cheerleaders. And I feel like in many ways we were. However, black women were Annayia and Trinity's biggest bullies this season. And they in turn created an environment where other people from other communities felt comfortable doing the same thing, getting on the internet sharing memes about Annayia's hair. And even though I didn't like the way Titi came into the villa, I thought it was a little much.

[00:30:16]And I agreed with Annayia. Like, is this a Bad Girls club? What? Like, I agreed with Annayia when she said that. But if I'm being totally honest, I haven't liked the memes that I've been seeing about Titi. I haven't liked the way she has been masculineized to the point that brands feel comfortable doing it. Why?

[00:30:33]Because we have created an environment where we get on social media and talk about all of these women and people from outside the community. They see that and they think it's okay. Transposing Annayia on George Floyd and Casey's face on the officer, whatever his name was.

[00:30:52]That's not acceptable. It's not okay.

[00:30:54]And I'm not saying that we created that meme. I don't know if a black person created it. I don't know if a white person created it. But the amount of people I saw sharing that meme was concerning. The amount of people that I saw very comfortable sharing those memes that masculineized Titi, very disgraceful. And here's the thing. I know that like 60% of social media is bots. This is why I don't respond to hate comments. This is why I delete most of these comments. And this is why I don't really interact with them and engage with them because I know if you are on social media and somebody is being hateful towards you, the chances of it being an actual human being are like four out of 10, four or five times out of 10 if somebody is coming at me crazy on social media, I just assume it's a bot. Even when I recognize I'm talking to a human because I'll go and check their profile and I'll see that it is an actual person with friends, family members, etc. It's not one of those ghost bot accounts. It's an actual human being. I don't generally believe in conspiracy theories, but I do believe in the dead internet theory. I believe that most of us are interfacing with and interacting with just bots. But there are like the 40% of the time where I'm dealing with a level of hate or I see a comment from somebody and I will go to their page and it's a real human being.

[00:31:59]And I'm always so disappointed when it comes to hating black women to see a black woman on the end of that. If I'm being totally honest, if I'm being extremely transparent, I'm not even surprised when black men do it to black women. The amount of hate that I had been on the receiving end of 70 60 or 70% of it was coming from black men. It was to be expected because the internet is a very violent place for black women. And unfortunately, a lot of the time it will be men who look like me driving that hate. So, I don't I'm not even when when that's the case, I'm like, it's expected, done. But when I see it coming from women who look like me, it's always disappointing because as black women, we know what we go through.

[00:32:39]We know what we are up against. We know what we have to deal with. And when we do it to one another, why? How does that make you feel better? I think to a certain degree, it is a level of pickmeism.

[00:32:50]It is a level of, oh, these black men will protect me or I will get protection from the community. I will get likes. I will get shares. I will get followers. I will get some level of reward if I castigate and put down and throw out this black woman that the community has already discarded and decided to hate. I get that. But when people have discarded and castigated all of the black women before you that they deemed not worthy of protection that they deemed didn't level live up to their level of whatever they believe black women should be and the likable black women, black women they f with, when they're done with us, who do you think they're going to attack next?

[00:33:30]This is why I in many ways I understand why Titi came into the villa she the way she did in defense of Casey. I totally understood that. But I also hope Titi knows unfortunately that her experience will be the people who are praising her now. The black men who are praising her now, the Kevin Samuels acolytes, the male identified pickme black women, the birds who are praising her. the minute that anything negative happens between her and KC, those will be the first people to tear her down and to throw her aside. And so, at the very least with Annayia, what I appreciated about Annayia is she stayed true to herself and what she wanted and who she was. And I hope that as she now that she is out of the villa, I hope that she is only seeing the positive that was spoken about her, the love that people showed her. I hope that that is only what she is seeing. But unfortunately, the reality of it is I know that's not only what she's seeing. I know she sees the hateful comments. I know she sees the bullying the same way Jackie Aa sees the hateful comments and the bullying. The same way Monae McMichael sees the hateful comments and the bullying. And it's more intense because of the way well not with Monae she is a lighterkinned biracial black woman but with darkerkinned black women because of misogynir and because of colorism it's always going to be worse in the pursuit of success as a content creator and an influencer. It requires you to develop definitely some level of a tough skin but it is always so disappointing when the hate you are receiving is coming from people who look like you. And I understand that because we are a minority, we are a smaller voice and a smaller demographic. When voices are louder, it may seem like that is what the majority feels. And to that, I will say, if you disagree with everything I said in this video, if you do not think black women are harsher towards other black women, instead of getting in my comments to tell me all the ways in which I'm wrong and I suck and I'm this and I'm that and the third, go and love on a black woman content creator. Go like her most recent video. Go repost it. Go share it. Go follow her. Follow another black woman content creator because I think that that is what we need to focus our energy on. And that's what I'll close with. I decided that I am going to do a lip liner. But before I do this lip liner, I'm going to seal everything in again with the Charlotte Tilbury the airbrush flawless setting spray. This is like my holy grail, okay, of setting sprays. Like especially in this weather, it has been so humid out here. But yeah, that's what I'll close with. I think people spend a disproportionate amount of time and energy talking about things that they don't like, focusing on people that they don't like. Stop doing that. Your attention is currency. We are living in an era and an age where your energy is currency. Your attention is currency. So spend it wisely. Stop engaging with and interacting with content and people you do not like. I think it is very psychotic and I think it is very weird how we've normalized hate following people, keeping up with the people we say we hate and we dislike. If you like someone, go and hype them up. Okay, I'm going to put on the lip liner. This is the Oh my gosh, I've had it so long it's kind of rubbed off. This is a Sephora Rouge gel lip liner and the color Ooh, is this 37 child? I don't know. It's brown. It's a brown lip liner. We have normalized a great level of dysfunction on the internet. And I genuinely feel it's weird. It's weird. We need to call this behavior what it is. I think it is very weird to sit there and interact with and engage with people you do not like who are not doing anything for you.

[00:37:17]It's weird. I have a filter on my comments because you will not be in my space talking crazy to me and saying whatever you want. Sorry, go somewhere else and do that. And it's always very interesting to me how many people how many comments get caught in that filter.

[00:37:30]Especially over the past two weeks, people felt very strongly about my Love Island commentary. Go pound sand. Sorry, not sorry. People felt very strongly about it. But it was if you hate me so much and if you dislike my platform so much, go to somebody else you like.

[00:37:45]support and uplift what it is you want to see. It really is just as simple as that. So, to wrap this video up, we don't need a black Alex Earl. We have amazing black women, lifestyle, influencers, content creators, beauty influencers, content creators who are just killing it. Smart black women, successful black women. We do not need to be measuring ourselves against white women who are successful at what they do. What we need to do is support our own and be more intentional about protecting one another. And that starts with how we talk to one another on these apps. How we talk about other black women on these apps. We are not the only ones who are watching. Other people are watching us. They're studying us. And we are giving them permission to be hateful towards us. We're giving them permission to be texturous towards us. We're giving them permission to be colorist towards us and practice a level of misogynir because we are doing it to one another.

[00:38:39]And I think it goes past the point of gentle teasing and wanting to be helpful. There is something very insidious to it. There is something very cruel to it. And it has become way too normalized to get on the internet and treat perfect strangers this way.

[00:38:53]Especially black women. Protect black women means protect all black women. Not just the black women we like. Not just the black women who look like us. Not just the black women we find aspirational, we find attractive. Not the ones who perform blackness in the ways that we like. that is comfortable for us and to us. No, there's no stipulations on protect black women.

[00:39:14]Protect black women means protect all black women. And it starts with how we talk to one another and how we treat one another, especially on these social media platforms. Because whether you want to acknowledge it or not, you are we are teaching and telling other people how to treat us. And I think it's really sad. I think it is really sad that we finally see black women being uplifted, supported, loved, received generally very positively on a reality TV show, on a dating reality TV show, which is always generally a living hell for most black women in terms of how we are represented and how we are treated. We finally see black women having an amazing experience on reality TV. And what do people do? Turn it into this.

[00:40:01]turn it into centering a man, centering a man's experience instead of uplifting the black women from our community who just slayed on the show and who were great representation. And what I loved about both Annayia and Trinity is that they were different depictions of black women. That's what we need to see more of and we need to be celebrating that instead of tearing them apart because we didn't like their makeup on camera or their hair wasn't laid all the time or one of them was too vulnerable, one of them was too sensitive. We are not a monolith. Words mean things. Like people will get on the internet and say, "Oh, we're not a monolith. We need to celebrate our diversity." But then what are y'all doing? Putting down black women who exist in a space of blackness that y'all do not find acceptable. It's crazy. So to wrap this up, like I said, because this is getting long and your girl has errands to run today, celebrate and uplift who you love, instead of talking down to and about what you hate or what you don't like. I think this world would be a much better place and the social media experience black women have, black lifestyle creators, black content creators, the experiences we have on social media would be 10 times better if the people who claimed not to like us just left us alone and went and supported who they actually like. That's it. That's all. Drop that in the comments. Let me know your thoughts.

[00:41:20]Don't forget to like the video.

[00:41:21]Subscribe to the channel. And in the meantime, between time, take care of yourself. Take care of one another.

[00:41:26]Peace out.