Perception #2

Video of an African American woman responding to a journalist about her experience with an apartment fire

Viral videos on social media create a perception that African Americans are low-class, unintelligent citizens. There are several videos that have become quite popular on multiple social media platforms  of African Americans making uneducated responses to media interviews. While these videos went viral for their humor, they have a side effect of negative social stereotypes for African Americans.

Video of two African American women answering a math question

This is limiting because the videos imply an untrue message. They are isolated moments that do not accurately represent the intelligence of African Americans. This can cause people to create an unfair perception of African Americans that they encounter in their lives without knowing them.

Another video of an African American woman responding to a journalist about her experience with a fire

What I found interesting is how results on Twitter vary depending on if you search “black people” versus “African American”. The social stereotypes of African Americans are almost completely different between the two searches. When I searched "African American" on Twitter, the results were mostly political and educational. When I searched "black people" on Twitter, the results were a lot more negative. The search result included several parody accounts making fun of black people and negative tweets toward black people. It is interesting to note the different connotation "African American" brings than "black people"

Screen shot of "African American" Twitter search versus "black people" Twitter search

Social media generally creates a negative image of African Americans, but the world of social media usually uses the term "black people" when depicting this image. The two different terms carry a different story for the same group of people. Popular social media trends tend to lean toward the more negative stereotype of African Americans because of the terms that are normally used and the connotation they bring. This limits African Americans because they are not taken as seriously in popular media because of the single story social media creates of them.