Bridget Todd (00:04):

There Are No Girls On The Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls On The Internet. If you don't follow TikTok, you might not know why everyone is mad at Jimmy Fallon, and Addison Rae. Let me break it down for you. Last week on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, TikTok dance star, Addison Rae, joined host Jimmy Fallon for a segment called, Addison Rae Teaches Jimmy Eight TikTok Dances. [inaudible 00:00:35] let's face it, it was a cute segment where Addison Rae, showed Jimmy Fallon, how to do eight dances that have gone viral on the platform, TikTok, as Jimmy held up signs for the audience with each dance's name, but the backlash started when folks pointed out, that like most viral dances on TikTok, the dances were created by Black youth on a platform. Now Jimmy Fallon's team says when they uploaded the segment to YouTube, they included the credits in the description, but that's pretty different from crediting them on the show.

Bridget Todd (00:59):

And it would have been pretty easy to put the name of the creator on the title card, but they didn't. If you were watching, you might've even thought that Addison, who is White, created the dances. This is just the latest example of what Black creators on social media say happens to them all the time. They create something that takes off on social media platforms, and it's just assumed to belong to the entire internet, which on its face doesn't seem so terrible, but it actually does matter who gets credit for things that go big online, and who doesn't. Other people benefit materially from things that Black people create online, while those original Black creators go overlooked. And in some cases completely unnamed.

Speaker 2 (01:37):

We in this bitch, finna get crunk, eyebrows on fleek, dafuq.

Bridget Todd (01:42):

Most of us have heard the expression 'On fleek.' I heard it in advertisements from everything, from Hefty Bags, to Arby's, but Peaches Monroe, the black teen who first popularized the expression in a vine video, didn't see a dime from the corporations who capitalized off of her creation. This happens again and again, especially on platforms like TikTok. Last year, 14 year old Jalaiah Harmon filmed herself doing the Renegade dance on Instagram. TikTok user global.jones, copied the dance on TikTok, and it started spreading. That's when huge TikToker, Charli D'Amelio, who has over a 100000 followers on the platform, posted a video of herself doing it, and then it took off like wildfire. The dance showed up on big shows, like Good Morning America, only nobody credited Jalaiah, and Charli D'Amelio became known as quote, "The CEO of the Renegade dance challenge." Now compare that to someone like Kombucha Girl, a white woman named Brittany Tomlinson. When Brittany's hilarious TikTok video of her skeptical taste testing Kombucha for the first time went viral, she was credited, and ended up being in a Super Bowl commercial because of that TikTok.

Bridget Todd (02:49):

Meanwhile, it took users on social media to aggressively advocate for Jalaiah, for her to even be credited with creating the Renegade challenge. Getting credited for things that you online can be life-changing. It can mean opportunities, endorsements and more, and it shouldn't be such a fight for black creators to simply be credited for what they create online. Law professor K.J Greene, argues that both online and offline, Black public creativity has been rendered public domain in ways that can often leave black creators getting screwed. Now, black folks have always had our stuff stolen. But the speed of the internet means that our intellectual property, our dances, and jokes, and ideas, can be stolen really quickly.

Bridget Todd (03:27):

As Shamira Ibraham puts it over abruptly, "This means, the means in which Black niches have been rifled, through hand-selected, and proliferate may not be new. But the advent of social media has accelerated the speed at which these trends have flooded into the mainstream and ultimately corporatized for gain, especially in instances where the nuances of the privacy policy may contain obscure language that allows for corporations to own, license, and publish original and innovative content at their whim. However, unethical it may be." Now, Addison Rae has since acknowledge the backlash to the Jimmy Fallon segment.

Addison Rae (04:00):

It's hard to credit during the show, but they all know that I love them so much, and I support all of them so much. And hopefully one day we can all meet up and dance together.

Bridget Todd (04:11):

I want to see a world where crediting Black digital creators for their brilliance, isn't just an afterthought. To hear more about Black digital creators, and the struggle to be credited, check out the episode of There Are No Girls On The Internet, with Black creator, Mars Sebastian. You can find the link to the full episode in the show description.

Bridget Todd (04:26):

Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi, you can reach us at hello@tangoti.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode tango.com. There Are No Girls On The Internet, was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of iHeartRadio, and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer, Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer, Michael Amato is our contributing producer, I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.