Transcript of episode 003 -

BlackOutDay2020

Bridget Todd (00:04):

There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and I'm Boss Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. In recent weeks, we've seen demands for racial justice reach an unignorable roar, and a lot of it is played out online. If you were scrolling Instagram back on June 2nd, you probably saw people posting a black square as a way to pause normal social media chatter and make room for voices calling for change. Today, July 7th, is Blackout Day 2020, a boycott campaign urging people not to spend any money unless it's at a black-owned business.

Bridget Todd (00:41):

But where do these initiatives come from, and how did we get here? The story about that is confusing and familiar at the same time. It's a story about how easy it is to erase black women online, even as we're supposedly trying to make room for our voices and affirming that our lives matter. More on that in a moment, but first, let's go to Mars.

Mars Sebastian (01:06):

My name is Marissa Mars Sebastian. I go by just Mars. I am a writer, an author and a social media manager. I just say that I like to have fun on the internet and crack jokes.

Bridget Todd (01:22):

Girls-centric web games like Neopets and Polly Pocket cemented Mars' lifelong love of being online. When she discovered all the cool, weird nerds congregating on the social media platform Tumblr, it was so affirming that she describes it as a rebirth.

Mars Sebastian (01:36):

Being a nerd on Tumblr, I call it, it's like my second internet rebirth because I was on the internet as a little one but really joining Tumblr gave me a true sense of what having friendships that were internet-based were like. And so that's always been my favorite part.

Bridget Todd (01:59):

Mars was on Tumblr in 2015 when, just like today, police and state violence against black people was impossible to ignore. She and her friend, T'von Green, decided black folks just needed a break.

Mars Sebastian (02:11):

We were in a societal moment where a lot of us as young people were reckoning with what anti-blackness really looks like, specifically anti-black violence and police violence. We were dealing with the fallout and the realities of Trayvon Martin, and Mike Brown, Eric Garner and Sandra Bland, and things were heavy. The conversations about what it means to be black in America were so, so heavy, and he was like, "We just needed to have fun." We were like, “What if we just have fun?”

Mars Sebastian (02:43):

Because Black Tumbler was already this nebulous pocket where a lot of black people were creating content and chatting, and having conversations around all of this stuff, we were like, “What if we just took a break?” And so, he proposed the idea of just taking a bunch of selfies and posting just so that you can feel beautiful. Everybody wants to flex. Everybody wants to feel celebrated and loved. And so we were like, “Just love on each other, share each other's pictures and we'll take it from there.”

Mars Sebastian (03:16):

And so we really did not intend for it to get as large as it did, much less jump from Tumblr to Twitter, to Instagram and have this lasting impact that's lingered since. But, yeah, that's really what we set out to do with it. It was just to provide an oasis, a space where we could just celebrate.

Bridget Todd (03:40):

They had clearly tapped into something people were craving, and Blackout Day was a viral smash. Twitter analytics service, Topsy, said the hash tag #blackoutday was one of the top trending hashtags on Twitter and Facebook with over 58,000 tweets by noon alone. It sparked off shoots for other black folks to show up in their online communities like BlackOutKpop for Korean pop music fans or BlackOutEid for black Muslims. Mars was part of creating something really special online. But as it took off, it was a struggle to make sure she was credited with the very thing that she had helped create.

Mars Sebastian (04:12):

Let me rewind. When Blackout Day really started to pop off, it started to spread all over Tumblr, people were really excited about it. The bigger things get the harder it is to trace the origin. When our third team member, Nuka, joined us, he created a master post that was like, "This is what Blackout Day is and this is the guy who's doing it, yada, yada." I actually had to go and ask him to add my name to that post and say like, "By the way, I am also a person who is doing this; this would not be named Blackout Day if it hadn't been… It would not be Blackout if it wasn't for me because you'll see on the original posts," and I pulled receipts and I sent him the posts because he asked for receipts to prove I wasn't lying.

Mars Sebastian (05:10):

Then, yeah. And so that was pain point number one. Then pain point number two came really quickly when we went viral and places like Buzzfeed were picking it up. It was like, “Oh my gosh, this is such a huge deal.” I was actually in my dorm room because I was still at NYU. I was a senior just about to graduate. I was in my dorm room giving media training, flying off like, “This is what I think you should say,” to the two guys while they were interviewed. That became pain point number two. Right?

Mars Sebastian (05:44):

I don't necessarily fault them for that. It's the responsibility of people who are doing reporting to try to do their due diligence. But that became pain point number two. Then that lasted for months. People would be like, “Who are you?” whenever we wanted to get together and try again and do another thing. I would speak semi-authoritatively on something and they'd be like, “But, who are you? What do you have to do with Blackout?” I was like, “Why am I the only one getting this smoke? Why aren't the guys… Why aren't you roasting them and grilling them for…?”

Mars Sebastian (06:23):

There were accusations of me trying to bandwagon. There were accusations of me trying to scam, like I'm just some random girl who doesn't really know that. It was just so weird.

Bridget Todd (06:33):

Okay, so this is where the story gets kind of difficult to keep straight and it's a really good example of how everything online can be turned into one massive digital game of telephone. Mars' initial Blackout Day, the call to populate social media with images of black folks that I just told you about, started in 2015. Last month Brianna Agyemang and Jamila Thomas, two black women music executives, created what they called The Show Must Be Paused campaign, asking people to take a beat for an honest, reflective, and productive conversation about what actions we need to collectively take to support the black community.

Bridget Todd (07:07):

It's not entirely clear how but their call morphed with calls for people to post a black square on social media, which people then talked about as Blackout Tuesday. But posting a black square was never in their original call to action. On their website, the women's campaign asks of her folks to donate to bail funds and educate themselves about anti-racist resources. They never asked for anyone to post a black square.

Bridget Todd (07:30):

As well-meaning as it might've been, to post a black square on Instagram showing solidarity with black lives, many critique the action as performative at best and at worst, potentially blacking out the Black Lives Matter hash tag, a tag that was once full of anti-racist resources and protest information. Clearly, there was some confusion. In case that's not a confusing enough, Calvin Martyr announced another campaign called Blackout Day 2020, a boycott asking that people not spend any money today unless it's at a black owned business.

Bridget Todd (08:03):

Atlanta rapper, T.I., promoted it on his social media, which led to media outlets incorrectly reporting that he was the originator of Blackout Day 2020. Like I said, a massive game of internet telephone, and a real clusterfuck for Mars to deal with after the success of her 2015 Blackout Day.

Mars Sebastian (08:21):

Five years later I'm getting messages like, “Hey, do you know that there's a guy on Facebook with thousands of Facebook followers on this page that's called Blackout Day 2020?” I'm like, “What? Who?” Then the media then crediting that movement to T.I.

Bridget Todd (08:41):

Ugh. Oh my gosh.

Mars Sebastian (08:42):

Then I'm like, “Okay, what really is up?” I don't know what else I have to say or do to prove to people that this was a thing that happened. I don't know. It became weird. It was hard for me to even put into words what I was feeling, because then I didn't want to feel selfish. I don't want to seem like a kid throwing a tantrum when there's actual work to be done, you know? There are so many other things that are more important that are happening right now that I care about. But it did sting.

Mars Sebastian (09:20):

And so, I would also see that happened with the ladies with what became known as Blackout Tuesday, which was a complete departure from their original branding. I was like, “Well, nice to…” Like not nice, but like nice to know other black women experiences and I'm not crazy or making it up. You know?

Bridget Todd (09:41):

After finding out about the new Blackout Day 2020 boycott, Mars and her team tried to revive their Blackout Day in May in an effort to regain control of the digital infrastructure they created. But at a time when their voice was most needed, it seemed like their work was being erased.

Mars Sebastian (09:57):

It's just that confusing. What we have always faced with Blackout Day is that we don't own the word blackout. Right? We definitely do not. Blackout is a word that existed. One could say, "Okay, you don't even own the concept of when black people mobilize online." I don't own that. I don't. That is a phenomenon that no one owns. It's just us getting together and mobilizing for a greater good, right? But Blackout Day specifically did not exist as a phrase, as a tag, before us.

Mars Sebastian (10:37):

We were actually preparing to try to archive the work and leave the pages up as a sort of museum and a reminder that they happened. Right? But we were actually saying, “Okay, maybe we should make a comeback.” Because people were obviously, with the success of Blackout Day 2020 and how quickly that man's movement was growing… We were like, “People are obviously hungry for some sort of action. We are also reentering a societal moment, just like the one in 2016.” You know what I mean?

Mars Sebastian (11:13):

We are currently now living in that sort of moment again, maybe this is the time. Maybe we should just try again. It gets discouraging to try to do this for so many years and feel like you're screaming into a void. And so we were like, “Okay, let's try again.” But the issue is that this guy knew that our hashtag existed and then he was just like, “I'm going to just do my thing using a hash tag with a year on it.” Unfortunately we're so confused with each other that people send me hate mail that is meant for him, which is a crazy thing to think about.

Mars Sebastian (11:55):

Our email gets emails meant for this man, and I have never spoken to him before. I don't know him. I don't know how T.I. got mixed up in this. It does sound like the media was just like, “Yeah, T.I. reposted this thing from Facebook and now he's a thought leader,” which is a whole nother conversation to have in and of itself. It's like, where is the bar? And I know that I am probably shooting myself in the foot, I'm very aware that I'm rocking the boat in this way, but why do we keep making thought leaders of people who are really just doing their duty?

Mars Sebastian (12:36):

They're just doing what is right. They're just doing what is them amplifying the voices of other people. But, all of a sudden, I'm supposed to really, really listen and hone in as T.I. comes up with this grand economic plan to save black people using the hash tag that, for five years of my life, I have been getting called slurs for. It is really odd. I felt like I was in the Twilight zone because the whole thing really exploded the day after my birthday and I was like, “What is going on?" Happy birthday to me, a project that you really wanted to sunset and keep sacred is now back with a vengeance being led by a man you don't know, and then The Show Must Be Paused.

Mars Sebastian (13:23):

That was like adding fuel to a fire already, because we were already having the weird tension and confusion between us and Blackout Day 2020, and then Blackout Tuesday. And really as a scholar of the internet and thinking about how content travels, The Show Must Be Paused is a perfect example of how you can be really, really, really tight with your messaging but as soon as your messaging reaches a certain threshold it's out there in the wild. You don't know how people are going to interpret it, you don't know how it's going to change and how it's going to morph.

Mars Sebastian (14:08):

And so, yeah, the black square thing across very many industries, that didn't make sense. Then people were coming and asking me like, “What do we do next?” And I'm like, “I have no idea. That's not me.”

Bridget Todd (14:22):

What was it like to be forced into making a statement about Blackout Day 2020, an initiative you had nothing to do with?

Mars Sebastian (14:28):

It was actually so panic-inducing. To be really real I was terrified. Although I could say like, “Oh, I've done a bunch of really cool things,” I don't necessarily have a spotlight shown on me very often on the internet. Yeah, my Tumblr following is pretty hefty, but Tumblr's pretty returning to being niche at this point and so having a massive tumbler following doesn't mean much outside of Tumblr. Right? But I got almost 3,000 Twitter followers in two days and was like, “What's going on? I hope you guys aren't following me because you think that I'm going to have a super well-put together plan about what's happening because I can't answer those questions."

Mars Sebastian (15:25):

Again, we get emails that are meant for everyone else. I have really had to think seriously about how to move forward.

Bridget Todd (15:35):

Let's take a quick break. We're back. Mars was supportive of the spinoffs and offshoots of Blackout Day, and she gave them her blessing. But the Blackout Day 2020 boycott, with its massive virality and celebrity endorsement, this was different. It makes it hard for her to imagine doing anything else online using the name Blackout Day.

Mars Sebastian (16:03):

For me, it makes very little sense to continue with Blackout as our name, just because it's kind of… They have the story that's… What is it? It's like escalators didn't used to be called escalators. It was really the brand escalators but then everybody started calling it escalators, so now every moving staircase is an escalator and they lost their copyright. That's literally what it feels like. It's now everybody's got a different version of blackout, and that's been a thing for years.

Mars Sebastian (16:33):

Blackout Eid is my favorite one. Every Eid as Ramadan is ending, black Muslims show out. I love that one. There's a Blackout for K-pop fans, black BTS fans. Blackout BTS, that's what it is. Those are all considered direct spinoffs, we've supported them over the years, it's been cool, but no one's ever really known what those actions were mimicking on a grand scale. And so I am just so now used to blackout this blackout that, or like even this Blackout Day fiasco that I'm like… I really am like, at this point, I don't know if there's ever going to be a point where what we were doing before will ever make sense again.

Bridget Todd (17:28):

Do you think that the organizer of Blackout Day 2020 intentionally camped out on this infrastructure that you built, or like do you wish they had reached out to you? What do you think is going on with that?

Mars Sebastian (17:40):

I have no idea. I haven't spoken to him beyond a Twitter exchange where, I think, he saw my thread about T.I. and felt a little defensive. And so I was just like, “No, I stand by what I said in my thread simply because I was explaining to people the actual mechanics of the erasure that happened here.” I was pointing out that the media gave T.I. credit for a thing that's happening on Facebook. The thing that's happening on Facebook is our name with a year on it organized by someone I do not know. None of the things I said was a lie.

Mars Sebastian (18:21):

I haven't spoken to him since, he has not reached out again. I've buckled down and prepared for the worst, I think, in terms of like any kind of pushback, or fall out, spam mail or hate mail in my DMs or anything. But I haven't spoken to him since. But I find it hard to believe that he didn't see our tag at all on the internet. I find it incredibly hard to believe just because we're Googleable, like we have a Wikipedia page. It's there.

Mars Sebastian (19:04):

Then nevertheless, the fact that he did see this whole thing happening, he did see this conversation I was having and then has not reached out again and has continued trucking and is selling merchandise, and he is doing whatever, that tells me what I need to know. You could say, “Well, Mars, why don't you reach out?” But I'm tired of doing that. Again, I have this whole, from five years ago on up, I have been the one who reached out to the other person and advocate for myself.

Mars Sebastian (19:38):

At this point I'm like, “You know, I'm going to sit here and I'm going to wait. If it works out, it works out. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out.” But I am going to put the onus on the black man to do that, to be the initiator here just because they've gotten away with erasing me from the very start. It's frustrating. It's hurtful to think about. Also, I'm only saying this because I'm not scared anymore. You know what I mean? I used to be scared like, “Oh my gosh, what if they think I'm bitchy? What if they think I'm complaining, and I'm detracting and yada, yada, yada.”

Mars Sebastian (20:27):

But at the end of the day, you can do the right thing and reach out and ask me what I think and actually say, “Okay, you know what? I am actually causing problems for this person. Let me do better and do right by her.” Or, you cannot. That's just it. I mean, until then I'm hanging out. I have other things that I've got going on, and other things that I'm working on, and that I care about. At the end of the day we all want the same thing, which is better for black people in America, better for black people all around the world.

Bridget Todd (21:15):

Mars was genuinely hurt, and on top of that she felt a lot of pressure to put on a happy PR friendly version of how she felt. On Twitter, she said she was tired of the expectation that she'd just be grateful to be a footnote on something that she created while men she's never even spoken to got the credit.

Mars Sebastian (21:35):

It's a thing that I'm still actively processing, but essentially look at the difference between like a T.I. and I, right? T.I. is a multimillionaire, successful, heralded, out here and does not have to worry about healthcare or paying his rent or anything like that. Right? I'm actually just coming off of the tail end of what I've been jokingly but not jokingly calling the toughest year of my life, the year 25. I turned 25 and then the brakes broke. That year, it was so painful and so hard for me.

Mars Sebastian (22:16):

And so here I am watching Blackout Day get erased and become a footnote again, because it happens all the time. But the difference here now is that like, Holy crap, there are people with so many more resources than I have at my disposal actively celebrated for doing a thing that is confusing people. Like we also have our long-term community who was like, “Mars, what's going on? What's happening?” Because we do still have people who care about the work we do. We do still have people who we consider our Blackout Day family.

Mars Sebastian (22:57):

They're like, “What's happening over there?” And I'm like, “I have no clue.” And so part of me was like, it really does hurt. Because here I am, a 26 year old freelancer, I have scraped by like black women do, like spinning gold out of straw, constantly just grinding and grinding. I'm out here just trying to get people to read my writing and just trying to keep my peace. Then you have like… Yeah, I don't want to say a multimillionaire, like a hip-hop celebrity, a superstar, getting called a hero. That's so annoying.

Mars Sebastian (23:36):

It was hurtful, it was annoying, it was frustrating. I was just like, “I have no health care.” You know what I mean? Like, I am surviving the day-to-day grind for creative and it hurt and it stung. I was like, “I can't be silent about this anymore, because if I keep this inside me I'm going to explode.” And I was not expecting the level of support that I got in response. I was like, “This is nuts.” I wasn't expecting anybody to care, if that makes sense, which is a really sad thing to say.

Mars Sebastian (24:19):

But I wasn't expecting people to really be as passionate as they were about it. Then knowing that I'm not alone in this, it meant a lot. But, yeah, it hurt. Like, it's more than just like, “Give me credit.” Like, whatever. But, yeah, I cried. I cried, and I cried, and I cried. I'm really lucky to have been quarantining with my parents because I think if I was dealing with this particular unfortunate piece of… I don't even know what to call it. Like if I was dealing with this unfortunate thing alone, I don't know how I would have coped properly.

Mars Sebastian (25:08):

I think it's also like a combination of a bunch of years of this happening, right? I mean, it was just like the straw that broke the camel's back, which seems to be the theme of this societal moment that we are living in. Like, “Listen, we are fed up, honey.” But, yeah, I was really deeply hurt by it.

Bridget Todd (25:29):

When I saw Mars' tweets, I was furious on her behalf. I wasn't alone either. The community she built online was ready to flip tables to make sure she got credited and had support. It's a good reminder that sometimes we're all we got.

Mars Sebastian (25:42):

It was amazing. It's so weird too because I don't feel seen. Like, I forget people see me. You know what I mean? And I don't know if other black women have experienced this, but I definitely forget that when I throw a tweet out into the universe, or when I write something, when I create something, when I make something, that other people do see me. You know what I mean? I think that might be a combination of just like the act of erasure of black women in a lot of our workspaces and a lot of the things we make and create, but also just a little symptomatic of going viral for your work.

Mars Sebastian (26:25):

You know what I mean? I want to be those cool writers who are getting all those cool interviews and yada, yada, yada. I think I got so caught up in wanting to sit with the cool kids. I think about it this way, I try not to get so caught up wanting to sit at the cool kids' lunch table that I forget that there are very many people who are inviting me to sit with them; like there are so many people who would go, “Hey, Mars, over here.” And I'm so focused on wanting to try to get to the cool kids' table that I miss out on that.

Mars Sebastian (26:59):

One of the silver linings was like, “Oh my gosh, you are seen and you are loved. People see you.” People went out for me and I was like, “This is so great.” And, you know what? We need to stop trying to take things on… and by ‘we' I mean black women, trying to take things on all by ourselves. Because, for real, the energy and the love you feel when you just let people go out for you, just let people start a fire for you. It's okay. It's going to be okay. Let people be your defense squad. You know what I mean?

Mars Sebastian (27:30):

Especially other black women, especially like women and femmes really and the people from Tumblr who were like, “Oh, nah, nah, nah. I know y'all are not out here trying to disrespect Mars.” And I was like, “This is so…” I cried happy tears. But, it's crazy. Let people go out for you and remember that the cool kids' lunch table is overrated. You know what I mean? Like, cool, cool, cool they have a New York Times bestseller. Cool, cool, cool they went there on vacation; or they're speaking there or yada, yada, yada. But comparison is the thief of joy.

Mars Sebastian (28:07):

I've had to process all of that, of course, because I was like, “Am I just mad that T.I. is getting attention? Let's unpack this.” You know? Like becoming your own therapist, sitting down on the metaphorical couch in your mind and being like, “Okay, what are you really feeling?”

Bridget Todd (28:22):

It really comes down to feeling accepted, celebrated and seen. That's what Mars was looking for on Tumblr, and that's what drove her to create Blackout Day in the first place, and it's what she thinks makes online movements so special.

Mars Sebastian (28:35):

Getting right back down to the heart of what I hope a lot of these movements think about going forward is how do you make the people who felt like me, who forget that people see them, how do you make them remember that people see them and expand their expectations for themselves? Like, what do they want for themselves? Just within the context of the internet, because this is the thing that I think should be applied everywhere in real time and what I think a lot of campaigns and a lot of sayings, like representation matters, are getting at.

Mars Sebastian (29:16):

It's how do you make the people who feel forgotten, who feel unseen, feel seen and celebrated in a way that's authentic and amazing, and empower them to want more for themselves? And like if I were to pivot and Blackout Day probably can't exist as it has, but if I were to pivot the project that would really be what I would want to get at, whether it's completely scrapping the whole thing and starting fresh with a new project. That is always what I've wanted my work to do. It's you feel forgotten, you feel like no one loves you, I want this thing that I make for you, I want this organization that I build for you, I want this poem that I wrote, I want this T.V. show that I create, I want this thing I sing to feel like a love letter specifically to you.

Mars Sebastian (30:10):

That's really how my brain works and how I approach everything. It's how does this feel like a love letter to the person I'm talking to, to the audience-

Bridget Todd (30:20):

It's so beautiful.

Mars Sebastian (30:20):

-that I'm seeking to create.

Bridget Todd (30:23):

Thank you. I'm a poet. I don't know if you know that, but… More on There Are No Girls on the Internet after this quick break. We're back. Anyone can make a Black Lives Matter post on Instagram, but how do you really and truly affirm black lives? How do you show up for black people, especially the black people who are likely to go marginalized or over-looked? You might love to consume black content and black culture, but do you really love black people?

Mars Sebastian (30:58):

To me love looks like, love for black women especially, looks like giving us credit. It looks like giving us credit. It looks like giving us space. It looks like giving us opportunity. It also looks like recognizing when you take up too much space, right? Because I have been seeing in this recent wave of like, oh my gosh, we're dedicating this space to doing black creatives and that and that and supporting black lives. Like in Blackout too, there's always, always ‘cream that rises to the top', right?

Mars Sebastian (31:31):

There's always the people who are going to be chosen first for the kickball team, which sometimes it's not great because sometimes that means that the powers that be are tokenizing you, and that is garbage. That is a horrible position to be in. I don't wish that on anybody. But also sometimes it looks like you having a ton of access and then not leaving space for someone who might not have as much access to get that opportunity and to have that conversation opened up for them as well.

Mars Sebastian (32:09):

It's hard to have that combo because sometimes, like especially on Twitter if I tweet that, it will be like, “Why are you at such a hater? Who are you sub-tweeting?” I don't know. It's hard too, because as a black woman people are also projecting either this snobbiness onto you, like a cattiness; or, for me, it's like the mommy. Right? I'm everyone's emotional support blogger, which is… I'm honored, but it's also exhausting. Having this kind of conversation about like who gets where and who does what, and yada, yada, yada, is near impossible on the internet. But I think it's a conversation worth having, for sure.

Bridget Todd (32:54):

Mars is right. We should be having conversations about who gets credited for their creations. But those conversations are often difficult to have, especially online. Then when black folks make things online, the assumption is it just belongs to everybody. Think about viral sensations like kombucha girl, real name Brittany Tomlinson, who's hilarious TikTok of her taste testing kombucha landed her lucrative brand deals, including a Superbowl ad.

Brittany Tomlinson (33:19):

It really smells like a public restroom. From the first video I ever posted, I have like 50,000 followers, which is so many.

Speaker 4 (33:26):

It's so many.

Brittany Tomlinson (33:27):

Then, from there, I just kept posting. The kombucha video was like the ninth video I ever posted.

Bridget Todd (33:32):

Compare that with 14-year-old Jalaiah Harmon. Jalaiah's Renegade dance challenge on TikTok went mega viral with everybody from Lizzo to Ava doing it. But another dancer on TikTok was initially credited with starting the dance trend, and people on social media had to go hard just to make sure Jalaiah was given credit at all. Mars wants to know why it's so easy for black women creators online to not get credit for our contributions and have tough conversations about the role of power and cultural exchange.

Mars Sebastian (34:04):

We had to go up for a little baby girl to get credit for that, right? And watching that and I'm like, “Oh my gosh.” And I actually just made a post about this. You see people, no shade to her, kombucha girl. Right? I actually still don't know her name. I'm so sorry. But she ended up in a Superbowl commercial, like hello. That's nuts. Like how is it that when people who aren't black go viral it seems that it's a life-changing type deal. Right? Then black people have to actively make sure that our names are plastered all over everything or like people have to make a tweet that's like, “So-and-so made this.”

Mars Sebastian (34:48):

But y'all don't want to have that conversation before we get to those types of opportunities, and especially with black women. Maybe it's just a small fraction of a piece of the phenomenon that black people are just essentially the ghost writers of popular culture, right? Maybe it's just a tiny little subset of that issue. Just like there was… Oh my gosh, I remember back in the day Tumblr would have this argument about the word fuck boy and there was this rumor that it was a homophobic slur. It was like, “What are y'all talking about?”

Mars Sebastian (35:32):

Like, life is the biggest game of telephone. I'm really and truly like no offense to them, but also if you're offended it's the truth. But once non-black people latch onto something... That's exactly what happened with The Show Must Be Paused, because the CTA was two black people in the music industry. That was the CTA and that was the audience. It was an A-B conversation. But as soon as C, D and E, which were non-black people, joined in the whole thing is just like stripped of its original CTA, removed from its context and then completely bastardized and corny. Right?

Bridget Todd (36:22):

Yeah. Corny and not effective and confusing.

Mars Sebastian (36:25):

Ineffective and weird and confusing. I think that's what the world just does to black people creating things all the time, especially black Americans, especially African Americans. As soon as black people like or do anything that seems cool, as soon as it crosses that boundary and the people are like, “Oh my God, you don't want your slang to cross generations. You don't want it to cross races. That's beautiful. That's cultural exchange.” It's like, okay, well, what do I get in exchange for all of the white women going, “Yes sis. Yes queen. Work.”

Mars Sebastian (37:07):

What do I get in exchange? If it's cultural exchange, I don't have any privilege. You're not giving me your privilege. You're not giving me your money. You are not hiring me. Like, what is the cultural exchange that people keep referring to when they talk about the ways in which black creations are disseminated and bastardized on their way out of black spaces. You know what I mean? Like, please, you gave me nothing and I am dealing with you guys arguing about Karen being a slur. Oh, come on.

Mars Sebastian (37:40):

You give me nothing culturally. I am black. We create all this cool shalbo, I will say. Dungeons and Dragons, Naps, because Dungeons and Dragons is my favorite hobby, I guess that's the exchange part for me on a personal level. But, you know what I mean? From a systemic point of view, come on.

Bridget Todd (38:08):

I'm making this podcast because I want to make sure all the marginalized voices that make being online what it is don't go erased or overlooked just because of our identities. Mars has had a big impact on how folks show up online. If I were writing a history book about the internet of the 2000s, she'd be all over it. But Mars wishes there were some way that other marginalized people could measure the impact they have online, because our impact has been huge and we deserve to have that impact celebrated and affirmed.

Mars Sebastian (38:39):

I would love it if I could build a thing or somebody somewhere could build a thing where we teach people, we teach black women especially, how to… Like black women within internet spaces, black women who are shaping the internet essentially, if we could have a collective where we all just like, number one, just get together and key. That'd be great. Number two, really teaching people how to make their impact quantifiable, because I think that's always been my issue. Right? That's always been the thing that's been hard for Blackout especially.

Mars Sebastian (39:19):

It's how do I, Mars, make my impact on the internet quantifiable. Even being asked to do this podcast I was like, “But I'm not a big deal.” And the people were like, “But, no, you are.” And I'm like, “But I don't actually understand. I don't think I've internalized how I'm a big deal.” You know what I mean? Like, how do I measure my impact? How do I make that impact? And then the last step is how do you make that impact work for you, because that's the problem. It's that black women will be super, amazingly impactful and people will benefit greatly with rich, rich benefits from the work that black women have done, but how do we make it work for ourselves?

Mars Sebastian (40:06):

Like speaking specifically back to movement work, it's Black Lives Matter was founded by three queer black women. That's amazing. But guess who's actively erased from what has been heralded as the ‘main Black Lives Matter movement'? Black women, black LGBTQ folks. And like how do we make the thing that we make work for us? You know? I'm thinking way far into the future when this era of the internet is over, what I want to be remembered for is making cool things that made people happy, made people feel loved; made my people, black people, feel loved.

Mars Sebastian (40:58):

Made girls like me, bad girls, black girls, dark skin girls, made us feel loved and happy but also got credit for it, and made my mark, and was able to carve out space so that it's easier for the next person. I mean, that's the eternal question of how we do that. That's a beautiful goal. Everything I do, that's really, I want to be able to… I'm no longer ashamed of saying that. I want to be able to eat, and sleep, and rest, and take care of myself and buy myself a coach bag when I want to just as a little treat because I've worked hard.

Bridget Todd (41:40):

You deserve it.

Mars Sebastian (41:41):

Oh, no. You know what? No, not coach. We've [inaudible 00:41:44]. What is it that everybody wants right now? Telfar?

Bridget Todd (41:46):

Telfar.

Mars Sebastian (41:46):

I was like, “Oh my God, the peer pressure. I want one too.” Then I found out they're black, and I was like, “Okay, gag.” But I want to be able to rest on my laurels, and that's not a bad thing. For black women, I want us to really internalize it is not a bad thing to want to be credited and it's also not a bad thing to want to have the basic necessities of your life and yourself cared for. Period. Whether it be being credited properly or cited properly for your work.

Mars Sebastian (42:19):

You know how many times I have seen amazing black writers on Tumblr, amazing black writers, women too, have their words lifted and posted on Twitter? And I know it's the internet, I know it's public and yada, yada, yada, but oh my gosh, please. Like to see people who care about black women and protect black women, this editor, this is how I'm supporting a black woman today, you are actively repeating the words, like stealing the intellectual thought, the intellectual property and thoughts of black women.

Mars Sebastian (42:57):

That black woman goes to bed a little hungrier than she should while you have people who are benefiting actively from their work in rooms of celebrities. Some people are going to want to aspire to celebrity, and that is on them to want to aspire to that, but to do it while stepping on the hands and the backs and the necks of black women is just… I cannot abide. I'm tired of being nice about that frustration, I've resorted to being angry out loud about it. Because it's like, if you're going to call me angry anyway I might as well get my licks in. You know what I mean?

Bridget Todd (43:42):

Yes.

Mars Sebastian (43:44):

Like if you're going to call me big mad or jealous or a hater because I'm not the ‘influencer type'. You know what I mean? For a while, that's what I aspire to. I did want to pivot to not specifically within the realm of Blackout, but I did want to pivot to being cute and quirky and fun and having attention, but I've tossed that in the garbage bin. It's like I'm not trying to be famous. I'd like to say it's a dangerous thing and a hard line to tiptoe across when you're asking to be credited and then having to fight the clout monster too. You know what I mean? I'm not saying this for clout, I'm not doing this for clout, but also you're going to know who I am because what I did was important.

Bridget Todd (44:34):

Making a specific effort to support black-owned businesses is a great call to action. As we show support for black lives on Blackout Day 2020, let's also honor and amplify the black women whose labor and talent laid the foundation for us to do so. To support Blackout Day 2020, don't spend any money today, July 7th, unless it's at a black-owned business. To support Mars, follow her on social media @MarsinCharge on Twitter and @MarsinCharge_ on Instagram.

Bridget Todd (45:01):

There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of iHeartRadio and I'm Boss Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tara Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. For more podcasts from iHeart, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.