Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Unboss Creative. I'm Bridget Todd
Speaker 1: and this is there are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: If you don't follow TikTok, you might not know. Like
Speaker 1: everyone is mad at Jimmy Fallon and Addison Ray, let
Speaker 1: me break it down for you. Last week on This
Speaker 1: Night Show with Jimmy Fallen, TikTok dance star Addison Ray
Speaker 1: joined host Jimmy Fallon for a segment called Addison Ray
Speaker 1: Teaches Jimmy Eight TikTok Dances No. One of Space. It
Speaker 1: was a cute segment or Addison Ray showed Jimmy Fallon
Speaker 1: how to do eight dances that have gone viral on
Speaker 1: the platform TikTok as Jimmy held up signs for the
Speaker 1: audience with each dances name. But the backlash started when
Speaker 1: folks pointed out that, like most viral dances on TikTok,
Speaker 1: the dances were created by black youth on the platform. Now,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Fallon's team says when they uploaded the segment to YouTube,
Speaker 1: they included the credits and the description, but that's pretty
Speaker 1: different from crediting them on the show, and it would
Speaker 1: have been pretty easy to put the name of the
Speaker 1: creator on the title card, but they didn't. If you
Speaker 1: were watching, you might have even thought that Addison, who
Speaker 1: is white, created the dances. This is just the latest
Speaker 1: example of what black creators on social media say happens
Speaker 1: to them all the time. They create something that takes
Speaker 1: off on social media platforms and it's just assumed to
Speaker 1: belong to the entire Internet, which on its face doesn't
Speaker 1: seem so terrible, but it actually does matter. Who gets
Speaker 1: credit for things that go big online and who doesn't.
Speaker 1: Other people benefit materially from things that black people create online,
Speaker 1: while those original black creators go overlooked and in some
Speaker 1: cases completely unnamed. We in his reach for a get
Speaker 1: quit abrazon fleek the buk. Most of us have heard
Speaker 1: the expression on fleek. I heard it in advertisements from
Speaker 1: everything from Hefty Bags to Arby's. But Peaches Monroe, the
Speaker 1: black team who first popularized the expression in a vine video,
Speaker 1: didn't see a dime from the corporations who capitalized off
Speaker 1: of her creation. This happens again in again, especially on
Speaker 1: platforms like TikTok. Last year, fourteen year old Jelila Harmon
Speaker 1: filmed herself doing the Renegade dance on Instagram. TikTok user
Speaker 1: global dot Jones copied the dance on TikTok and it
Speaker 1: started spreading. That's been huge. TikTok er Charlie Demilio, who
Speaker 1: has over a hundred thousand followers on the platform, posted
Speaker 1: a video of herself doing it, and then it took
Speaker 1: off like wildfire. The dance showed up on big shows
Speaker 1: like Good Morning America, only nobody credited Jelila and Charlie
Speaker 1: Demilio became known as quote the CEO of the Renegade
Speaker 1: Dance Challenge. Now compare that to someone like Kombucha Girl,
Speaker 1: a white woman named Brittany Tomilson. When Britney's hilarious TikTok
Speaker 1: video of her skeptical taste testing kombucha for the first
Speaker 1: time went viral, she was credited and ended up being
Speaker 1: in a Super Bowl commercial because of that TikTok. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: it took users on social media to aggressively advocate for
Speaker 1: Jelila for her to even be credited with creating the
Speaker 1: Renegade challenge. Getting credited for things that you create online
Speaker 1: can be changing. It can mean opportunities endorsements and more,
Speaker 1: and it shouldn't be such a fight for black creators
Speaker 1: to simply be credited for what they create. Online law
Speaker 1: professor kJ Green argues that both online and offline, black
Speaker 1: public creativity has been rendered public domain in ways that
Speaker 1: can often leave black creators getting screwed. Now, Black folks
Speaker 1: have always had our stuff stolen, but the speed of
Speaker 1: the Internet means that our intellectual property, our dances and
Speaker 1: jokes and ideas, can be stolen really quickly. As Shamira
Speaker 1: Ibraham puts it over at broadly, this means the means
Speaker 1: in which black niches have been rifled through, hand selected,
Speaker 1: and proliferated may not be new, but the advent of
Speaker 1: social media has accelerated the speed at which these trends
Speaker 1: have floored into the mainstream and ultimately corporatized for gain,
Speaker 1: especially in instances where the nuances of the privacy policy
Speaker 1: may contain obscure language that allows for corporations to own, license,
Speaker 1: and publish original and innovative content at their whim, however
Speaker 1: unethical it may be. Now, Addison raisons acknowledge the backlash
Speaker 1: to the Jimmy Fallen segment. It's kind of hard to
Speaker 1: credit during the show. But they all know that I
Speaker 1: love them so much, and um, I mean I support
Speaker 1: all of them so much, and hopefully one day we
Speaker 1: can all meet up and dance together. I want to
Speaker 1: see a world we're crediting black digital creators, but they're brilliant.
Speaker 1: Isn't just an afterthought? To hear more about black digital
Speaker 1: creators and the struggle to be credited. Check out the
Speaker 1: episode of There Are No Girls on the Internet with
Speaker 1: black creator mar Sebastian. You can find the link to
Speaker 1: the full episode in the show description. Got a story
Speaker 1: about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to
Speaker 1: say hi? You can re us at Hello at tangodi
Speaker 1: dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode
Speaker 1: at tangodi dot com. There Are No Girls on the
Speaker 1: Internet was created by me Bridget Tod. It's a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as
Speaker 1: our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.
Speaker 1: Michaelmato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd.
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