Current Events > The Popeyes chicken sandwich was a very good example of black appropriation

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Popeyes recently created a frenzy and generated approximately $23 million worth of advertising in 11 days by launching a new chicken sandwich. Following the announcement of their new sandwich, Popeyes Twitter account began responding to tweets from Chick-fil-A and other competitors about their sandwiches. When Chick-fil-A shared a tweet about their original chicken sandwich, Popeyes responded, yall good? (The International Business Times notes that Popeyes gained 25,000 followers overnight while Chick-fil-A gained 10,000.) This Twitter war over the superior chicken sandwich resulted in Popeyes new product selling out, much to the disdain of those eager to try out the sandwich and the frustration of Popeyes employees, who have largely been swarmed with customers without receiving any real support from their employer. As Complex points out, though, the success of this marketing didnt start with Popeyesit started with Black Twitter.
Black Twitter isnt a specific group of people or organization but rather a space where Black Twitter users have formed what Feminista Jones calls a virtual community. As Farhad Manjoo wrote in Slate in 2010, Black peoplespecifically, young Black peopledo seem to use Twitter differently from everyone else on the service. They form tighter clusters on the networkits this behavior, intentional or not, that gives Black peopleand in particular, Black teenagersthe means to dominate the conversation on Twitter. Brands have been paying close attention to this community, which is unsurprising considering how many Black people are using the platform. From the recent appropriation of hot-girl summer, a term coined by rapper Megan Thee Stallion to then 16-year-old Kayla Lewiss viral phrase on fleek being co-opted by a number of different companies, brands that are trying to sound more cool and more human on social media are profiting from the unique voice that members of Black Twitter have cultivated.
In 2018, content companies are certainly still borrowing cool, particularly from online communities of color, writes Keidra Chaney in Issue 26 of Uncanny Magazine. Want proof? Just check out the number of corporate brands on Twitter who regularly drop memes made by Black teens and African American Vernacular English (AAVE) like lets get this bread or my wig is snatched on the daily. Even the simple response of yall good has the distinct cadence of AAVE. But Popeyes is far from the only brand to benefit financially from the use of AAVE and the larger use of speech crafted by communities of color.

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Frisbee, if that article is true, then I'm curious what your thoughts are on why black people choose to self-segregate on social media.

FrisbeeDude posted...

Black Twitter isnt a specific group of people or organization but rather a space where Black Twitter users have formed what Feminista Jones calls a virtual community. As Farhad Manjoo wrote in Slate in 2010, Black peoplespecifically, young Black peopledo seem to use Twitter differently from everyone else on the service. They form tighter clusters on the network

This part in particular. You would think given the anonymity of the internet, and the fact that when you're talking to people online you don't inherently know what their race, creed, gender, Etc are that you would find more diverse communities.

Yet given the opportunity to Branch out, this seems to imply that they instead form a uniquely tight circle where others aren't welcome.
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If you dont know why black people may feel compelled to create spaces for themselves on social media, well...you just havent been paying attention

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