
People changing their appearance or pretending to be something they are not in order to gain likes and followers on social media is far from a new phenomenon, but a troubling trend appears to have taken the charade to a whole new level.
I’m talking about the rise of “blackfishing” a term that draws parallels to the term “catfishing” and is used to describe women who appear to masquerade as black or mixed-race women, or appropriate black style and culture, in order to build a profile, gain social media followers or make themselves seem more suited to certain brand collaborations.
The most notorious accusation of blackfishing took place in November 2018 when Swedish Instagram model Emma Hallberg both shocked and angered many of the people who make up her immense legion of followers when they realised she was white, and not black as many of them had thought from the photos she posted.
The conversation started when a black woman who had been following the influencer on Instagram publicly revealed that she had assumed Hallberg was black or mixed race, leading to a slew of angry and bewildered tweets from people who felt deceived by Hallberg and a discussion around the many other Instagram influencers who appeared to be doing the same thing.
In an interview with Buzzfeed, Hallberg said, “I do not see myself as anything else than white. I get a deep tan naturally from the sun.”
In the same interview with BuzzFeed News Reporter Tanya Chen, writer Wanna Thompson said she had been tweeting about the concept of blackfishing for quite some time after noticing the alarming trend beginning to rise on Instagram many years ago.
Thompson’s Twitter thread – which highlighted women accused of blackfishing – went viral in November 2017 after she wrote, “Can we start a thread and post all of the white girls cosplaying as black women on Instagram? Let’s air them out because this is ALARMING.”
“It’s clear that a lot of black women are being overlooked for these white women, so that narrative needs to change,” she told Buzzfeed in the interview. “Nobody is saying you can’t get a tan or modify your appearance but she was intentionally ignoring the comments from black women specifically who genuinely wanted honest dialogue.”
Top Comments
There is a successful white male theatre director called Anthony Lennon who identifies as black African. Why is it that men who appropriate culturally seem to get away with it? Women get criticized much more for this sort of behaviour.
Did these women claim to be persons of colour? Or were they just perceived to be by these followers?
Either way, it's 2019 and we're still judging people based on the colour (or perceived colour) of their skin.