“The Black Purposes of Space Travel”

Abstract

This chapter argues that Twitter can be properly understood as an online venue for shared pathos and catharsis, due in large part to the contributions of Black culture and cultural content. By focusing on the banal and everyday commentary that originally raised Black Twitter to national prominence, this chapter provides insights into Black Twitter as a political and cultural force. This chapter deconstructs arguments for Twitter as a broadcast network, as an information provider, and as a news source by profiling Black Twitter as an example of how a closely knit community—culturally isolated and socially segregated—can easily parlay its communitarian ethos and discursive identity into social network practice.