A new docuseries, from Insecure showrunner Prentice Penny, explores how a section of Twitter became an inventive and impactful community<\/p>\n
How to explain Black Twitter? It\u2019s less of an actual place than a general practice, sometimes a secret society and then sometimes a prominent advocacy bloc, neither a standalone digital platform nor its own hashtag per se. Yet when cops kill<\/a>, Kendrick Lamar drops<\/a> or Harlem shakes<\/a>, we know Black Twitter when we see it.<\/p>\n In the almost 20 years that Twitter (or X now, if we must) has been a thing, Black Twitter has been the mystical life force that has kept it real, riveting and rich. But where does one even start, much less catalog a seemingly endless stream of killer punchlines? \u201cI remember when the Alabama brawl <\/a>stuff came out and there were a lot of jokes about Terrence Howard and the way he says \u2018mayne\u2019 <\/strong>in Hustle and Flow,\u201d says the comedy guru Prentice Penny. \u201cAnd then somebody calls the [teen who dived off a riverboat to join the fight] Aquamayne<\/a>. \u201cJust using the kid coming out of the water as a set-up to call back to mayne<\/a> <\/strong>is hilarious. <\/strong>Like, I just wanna keep being this funny.\u201d<\/p>\n