This NAIDOC Week, I’m celebrating one of the things that brings me the most Blak joy: Blackfulla Twitter.
The best way to describe the phenomenon of Blackfulla Twitter is that it’s publicly exclusive. It’s 1 cup of Blak excellence, 1 cup of direct accountability, 1 cup of free education for non-mob and we mix it all up with a pinch of our secret herb ‘n’ spice, the subtweet.
Blackfullas have always found ways to get together with a magnetic force that has strengthened throughout time. We share, we care and we lair, together! So, it’s no surprise that through one of the biggest social media platforms there is that we’d find each other — or more truthfully, be drawn to each other — to form a strong online community.
We’ve got the maddest mix of famous ones, smart ones, sporting ones, creative ones and staunch ones and for the most part we stand back-to-back knowing that the next attack on us as a people is never too far away. As sad as the attacks on our existence are for us, they forge a bond that makes us fam. Now it ain’t always Devon and sauce sangas; we do have our moments, like all families.
Critique and accountability are lateral gifts that are often misconstrued. We hold each other to account, especially in circumstances where mob step out of an individual nation’s business and try to speak for others. Or where some mob use other Aboriginal people to advance themselves in a world that otherwise wouldn’t accept them. Sometimes we remind each other about our responsibility to each other and to those that came before us. We sometimes need reminding that success can come in so many different forms for us and doesn’t have to be under the measures or guidelines of what white australia sees as Blak success. It might look complex to those viewing from outside of Blackfulla Twitter, but it really isn’t and deep down we know it.
Throughout the years, we have utilised Blackfulla Twitter’s reach to help raise much needed funds for Aboriginal families and individuals doing it tough with sorry business, illness, bushfires, the pandemic, living expenses and just generally dealing with life in the colony when it feels like no one else gives a fuck. We never hesitate to help each other out or amplify each other’s voices when our mob are in need and it’s something I can comfortably say that we all pride ourselves on.
To me (I can only speak for me), NAIDOC week is all about honouring those that came before us and fought for our right to celebrate our Blakness, not hide it. Which reminds me, I had the maddest time at the national NAIDOC ball on Saturday night. It was the usual mix of well-known mob and relatives you hadn’t seen for ages all under one roof to celebrate Blackfulla joy and excellence. We know how to have a good time and when we get together on such a big scale, we take it to the next level. There were so many mob from Blackfulla Twitter who have become part of an online family but had never met in the physical before.
I moved down to Naarm from up north four years ago. Now, I don’t have family down this way, but I did have some connections with mob that I was blessed to make through Blackfulla Twitter. Who would have thought ay, this little bird app that everyone blames for all the bad in the world helped us build friendships that we’ll cherish and last a lifetime?
It was proper mad to catch up with everyone. We were yarnin’ up, smiling and laughing like we’d been havin’ sleepovers on mattresses in each other’s lounge rooms for our entire lives. Which eventually led to us taking photos styling up like it was fashion week in Milan. The night was so deadly and to borrow the words of Stephen Oliver, “I get itchy for biggest mob”.
Online connection will never take over from personal connection. But for Blackfulla Twitter, just knowing the mob are online and ready to stand shoulder to shoulder as we celebrate Blak excellence and also navigate this racist hellscape together is something I love being a part of and definitely don’t take for granted.
As Professor Chelsea Watego explains it, BlackfullaTwitter does solidarity like no one else from Palestine to West Papua… we’ll take down white supremacists and carceral feminists — no settler is safe, or their allies. For a platform that privileges a blue tick, it’s the Blak tick that matters most!
Yoway!
BundjalungBud is a Bundjalung/Yuin man living in Naarm. He tweets at @BundjalungBud.
