Trend with Truth: The Brown Twitter Bird Movement

Will the genius at Slate who created the brown Twitter bird, identify yourself?

I side-eyed Farhad Manjoo’s post about how black people use Twitter like I side-eyed the scores of non-black folks who’ve asked me if they can touch my hair or if certain mythologies are true about African Americans or why all the black kids sit at a separate table in the lunchroom. ‘He’s just curious,’ I thought and kept it moving. But I couldn’t take my eyes off of the bird.

You know the only thing it’s missing are a pair of Air Force Ones and a white tee, right? If the post was a quasi-intellectual yet delicate attempt at deconstructing black use of Twitter, then that bird represented a stereotype of what is supposed to be a typical black user of the social network. Or were you implying that the good folks at Twitter need to change the logo because the ‘neighborhood’ has changed?

Anyhoo…

Dr. Laura clumsily attempted to illustrate black use of the N word, 11 times, in less than 5 minutes … I think it’s safe to say, because I’m black, Dr. Laura was wrong. Wrong but right. We use it but really don’t like it when folks who don’t look like us use it.

Same for the bird. So we’re taking back the bird. (Some might call it “flipping.”)

The hashtag #browntwitterbird and references to your brown Twitter bird are blowing up. One user tweeted out the link to this page and I found your bird’s cousins. That is, your bird’s smarter and unapologetic cousins. That’s right, someone or some people have taken your veiled reference and turned it into a statement akin to “Say it loud, I’m a brown Twitter bird and I’m proud.” But then again, black people do that well. We know how to reclaim and reuse almost anything, including brown birds.

These birds are treasures. To quote one black Twitter user, “The #browntwitterbird is providing one of my best moments on Twitter.”

Thanks, Slate. Looks like you helped to birth a movement. To @innyvinny, could you make mine a little tan-ish with unruly hair and horn-rimmed glasses, please? And you might want to begin production on the #yellowtwitterbird because Asians tweet more than any other user group. (Wonder if Mr. Manjoo is following them too.)

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Managing Editor. Blogger. Consultant. Nerd who likes it behind the scenes.
See all posts by Robin Caldwell.