UCLA

This dissertation, “Niggas on the Internet: Scenes of a Black Social Life,” considers cases across TikTok, Instagram, and the now-defunct Vine to investigate how Black women and girls have contributed to the broader culture, syntax and visual language of the Internet from 2013 to the present. In this project, I look at memes, videos, and caption posts to investigate how people, Black or not, “pass” through a deep knowledge and masterful utilization of Black cultural logics. I interpret specifically racialized signs in audiovisual media online, to analyze racial performance and the (im)possibility of Black self-determination toward an ethic of fabulation and redress for Black digital creation. While guided and inspired by contemporary theories in Black (feminist) studies, this dissertation analyzes the cultural production of Black women and girls online by merging Black (feminist) studies with media studies, Internet studies, and production studies. I do this in order to further my argument that Black women and girls have become a crucial pathway in navigating the Internet —a, or even the, way to get into the Internet.