| Abstrakt: |
On social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram, Black women create counternarratives to reclaim ownership of their representation from the anti-Black and misogynistic mainstream media. One example of their efforts is the proliferation of the hashtag #Blackgirlmagic, which has become a device to herald Black women’s unseen accomplishments. When Black femme social media users employ #Blackgirlmagic, they feel a sense of control over their imagery, which contributes to the hashtag’s value as a political product. However, the technology underlying #Blackgirlmagic is bound to corporate missions and deliberate algorithmic limitations. This coupling of neoliberal capitalist interests and Black femme liberatory politics causes the author to pause and interrogate the political and cultural efficacy of the hashtag. With an Afrofuturist womanist framework, the author examines the vitriolic responses by #Blackgirlmagic adherents to Linda Chavers’s 2016 article, “Here’s My Problem with #Blackgirlmagic: Black Girls Aren’t Magic. We’re Human.” The author argues that these #Blackgirlmagic online adherents demonstrate the conflict between liberating Black femme imagery and the self-commodification of Black womanhood via industrialized content creation. The marketability of the current iteration of #Blackgirlmagic diminishes the possibility of radical digital praxes such as protecting and holding virtual space for unpalatable and unprofitable Black femme affective performances. |
