A Day for Black Creativity on TikTok

I have been part of the TikTok community for close to three months, joining for one reason many can relate to: quarantine and boredom, with a mixture of curiosity. My sister did the last convincing blow and mentioned that I was funny enough to create some content, so I said why not. It was fun to make TikToks besides, of course, catching the slightly disappointing looks from my family members. But I was having fun and that's all that mattered ... well until my account was banned for "violating multiple community guidelines". I was confused being that I never even received an email nor a notification for violating even ONE guideline, let alone multiple. I was even more confused that the same day I saw a video of someone twerking in a very tiny bikini on the For You Page (the explore page for TikTok), which goes against the guidelines, reached more than 10K likes.

Yes. Yes she was.

So I started doing some research and in short, TikTok's algorithm and policies specifically targets Black creators and silence them when speaking on racism and anti-blackness, either in general or the racism and anti-blackness on the app itself. Not only that, Black creators are silenced or even banned when expressing their selves on the app.

Of course I did this, so it was all making sense. Plus I did make a video about white women complaining about being told they should not wear box braids that was gaining a lot of views and likes before POOF! My account is gone. So, of course, I made another account! And thankfully I did because I was able to experience all the beautiful and funny Black creators TikTok was keeping hidden in their "guidelines" this past Tuesday (May 19th).

May 19th, also known as Blackout Day, was the #ImBlackMovement where Black creators and Non-Black allies united together to combat the uneven application of the community guidelines. People changed their profile pictures to the Black Power Fist in order to display their involvement in the movement. Black creators made content and used the hashtags #ImBlackMovement, #BlackVoicesHeard, and #BlackLivesMatter while Non-Black allies liked, followed, and commented on Black creator accounts using the #BlackVoicesHeard tag in order to show support without overstepping boundaries. All day, all I saw on my For You Page were Black creators, when on a normal day the FYP rarely promotes Black creators. Essentially, Black creators and Non-Black allies who participated broke the system and I was here for it!

This was also a chance for small accounts to get some love and get more followers and support for great content. It felt great to be part of a great virtual movement like this and there was truly a great feeling of unison. Virtually and in reality, Black creators of any kind are constantly silenced and must work three times harder just to get some form of recognition on a platform of any sort. We shouldn't have to actively search for Black creators and content we relate to, in order to get it. It should just be there! And this Blackout Day was there to showcase that.

It's been said that Blackout Day will happen the 19th of every month and it just so happens that the next one is on Juneteenth. A great, beautiful, coincidence if I do say so myself.