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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: Two summers ago, I went to a work function. Now

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Speaker 2: I may never know why that work function was a

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Speaker 2: private screening of the twenty twenty two Baz Luhrmann film Elvis.

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Speaker 2: I may never know, but it was, and I think

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Speaker 2: about it a lot. Now, if you like this movie,

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Speaker 2: I don't care. If you don't like this movie, I

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Speaker 2: do not care. I didn't like it. But there's a

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Speaker 2: moment in this movie that got a really big reaction.

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Speaker 2: In this Elvis biopic, directed by a white Australian weirdo,

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Speaker 2: there is a moment where Elvis's manager, Colonel Tom Parker

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Speaker 2: played by Tom Hanks, first hears a young Elvis on

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Speaker 2: the radio. As this movie takes comical measures to note,

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Speaker 2: Elvis was mainly influenced by black blues artists like Big Boy,

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Speaker 2: Crewed Up and Big Mama Thornton, and that's reflected in

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Speaker 2: his entire discography. In the scene, Tom Hanks as Colonel

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Speaker 2: Parker is shocked to hear that Elvis is white. If

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Speaker 2: you spend too much time online, you've probably seen this.

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Speaker 3: Now they are not putting a colored boy on the

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Speaker 3: hay Ride.

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Speaker 4: That's a thing. It is white.

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Speaker 5: Is white?

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Speaker 6: What do you think tex Arcadam, shall we play for

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Speaker 6: the twenty seven time?

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Speaker 3: Why?

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Speaker 2: Like I love mulin rouge, but applying the mulin rouge

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Speaker 2: approach to systemic racism, I don't love it. It has

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Speaker 2: to be camp or it's just depressing. So this whole

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Speaker 2: movie has a distinct mission to dispel persistent rumors that

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Speaker 2: Elvis's career was built on uncredited black music, far more

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Speaker 2: than it has any interest in actually writing a black

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Speaker 2: character Goofy example. But this scene is the inciting incident

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Speaker 2: of the movie, seeing a white artist co opting black

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Speaker 2: music and seeing that as a huge marketing opportunity. And

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Speaker 2: while Elvis is a very famous example of this phenomenon,

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Speaker 2: he was far from the first or last white artist

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Speaker 2: to be catapulted to success over his black peers, actively

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Speaker 2: profiting from their innovations music that's to this day considered

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Speaker 2: pioneering from white artists. Have this same narrative. Led Zeppelin

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Speaker 2: demonstrably stole a lot from black artists. They were heavily

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Speaker 2: influenced by American blues music. For what they did right

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Speaker 2: then at different times plagiarized Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Howland

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Speaker 2: Wolf and for what it's worth, plenty of white musicians

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Speaker 2: as well, the Beach Boys and the Beatles lifted from

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Speaker 2: Chuck Berry. The list goes on. And while the idea

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Speaker 2: of music authorship and what constitutes a reasonable copyright lawsuit

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Speaker 2: is an extremely complicated one that doesn't always make room

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Speaker 2: for influence or the recent rise in pretty ridiculous music

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Speaker 2: copyright legal cases, but I'm giving examples that I find undeniable.

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Speaker 2: And to compound that, the power dynamic of white artists

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Speaker 2: lifting from black artartists means that the white artist always

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Speaker 2: has a significantly better shot at financial success on something

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Speaker 2: that wasn't originally theirs, regardless of what their interpretation does

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Speaker 2: or does not add to the original material. This same

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Speaker 2: process took place in the do wop scene in the

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Speaker 2: nineteen fifties. Black groups like the Rivingtons would write a

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Speaker 2: song like I have to read this, Please Don't Love

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Speaker 2: at Me Papa Ooma Mau Mau paaaa Ma Ma Ma

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Speaker 2: Ma Ma, which Family Guy fans will know was popularized

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Speaker 2: by a white group covering the song as the trash

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Speaker 2: Men's Surf and bird.

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Speaker 7: Butt Ma Ma Map Button Map.

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Speaker 2: Because very few people complained when white artists did steal

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Speaker 2: like this, and it was far easier to get them

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Speaker 2: on the radio. All of these groups failed to credit

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Speaker 2: or compensate the artists that they took from outside of

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Speaker 2: sometimes acknowledging their influences in interviews. Artists have been at

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Speaker 2: the forefront of so many artistic movements, only to have

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Speaker 2: those innovations borrowed or stolen by white artists who had

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Speaker 2: more institutional support put behind them. While being a poor imitation,

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Speaker 2: it's one of the many tentacled extensions of white supremacy.

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Speaker 2: Oh you thought I was going to bring up white

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Speaker 2: supremacy in the first five minutes of the show, Well,

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Speaker 2: think again. And this oppression continues to take shape in

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Speaker 2: today's social media algorithms, because who's making these algorithms, According

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Speaker 2: to the twenty twenty three Diversity report from Tech Report,

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Speaker 2: still mostly Yeah, they're white and they are he At present,

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Speaker 2: only about a quarter of the massive tech industry consists

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Speaker 2: of women, and only seven percent of the tech industry

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Speaker 2: are black. So this week we're looking at a few things.

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Speaker 2: There's major precedent in a creative space for theft from

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Speaker 2: black artists, and the way the internetworks right now, it

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Speaker 2: enables white artists to do that which brings me to TikTok.

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Speaker 5: Brother, this guy steaks.

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Speaker 2: Now, everybody stop booing me. Give Auntie Jamie a fair

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Speaker 2: shake here, okay. TikTok, the app where one of the

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Speaker 2: most notorious examples of algorithms passing over black creators, came

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Speaker 2: to a head in the summer of twenty twenty one.

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Speaker 2: By this time, TikTok was growing fast after first being

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Speaker 2: introduced in the US from China back in twenty seventeen.

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Speaker 2: It was already ridiculously popular among young people, but the

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Speaker 2: COVID lockdown in twenty twenty brought the app into the

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Speaker 2: mega mainstream, introducing a million little subgenres where you could

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Speaker 2: become a micro influencer. But what TikTok was best known

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Speaker 2: for at this time were viral dances. These dances tended

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Speaker 2: to be really short, they were designed to be performed

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Speaker 2: to your phone camera, and they would almost always be

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Speaker 2: paired with either a song from a huge artist or

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Speaker 2: an obscure song that happened to be really danceable, which

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Speaker 2: could vault a random musician into the mainstream. The problem

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Speaker 2: was where was the credit you, as a TikTok user,

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Speaker 2: could choreograph a dance that a pop star would perform,

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Speaker 2: but there was no place in the app for the

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Speaker 2: choreographer's name. And so all that appropriative failure to credit

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Speaker 2: and music that we just talked about that applies to

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Speaker 2: dance too. White choreographers have stolen from black choreographers forever.

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Speaker 2: It's the plot of bring it on, guys, Like every

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Speaker 2: time we get some here, y'all come trying to steal it,

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Speaker 2: pins some blonde hair on it and calling it something different.

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Speaker 2: We've had the best squad around for years, but no

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Speaker 2: one's been able to see what we can do. In

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Speaker 2: the first story of sixteenth Minute, where we talked with

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Speaker 2: and about the Dodson siblings of Hide Your Kids, Hide

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Speaker 2: Your Wife Fame, I spoke with Professor Gabriel Peoples, whose

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Speaker 2: upcoming book Go and Viral Uncontrollable Black Performance explores how

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Speaker 2: blackness is expressed and interpreted online and I love asking

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Speaker 2: guests what other stories they'd like to see covered on

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Speaker 2: the show someday, and Professor Peebles did not hesitate.

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Speaker 8: How fucking bleak is it that in twenty ten there

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Speaker 8: was more attribution that still wasn't sufficient than over ten

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Speaker 8: years later, where there was no attribution and no, like nothing,

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Speaker 8: I don't have anything intelligent to say about it.

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Speaker 5: I just found it depressing.

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Speaker 6: Well, you know, we can say her name, right, Juliah Harmon, Yeah,

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Speaker 6: yea yeah. So it's like we bring attention to things

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Speaker 6: when we interact with things. If you don't like it

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Speaker 6: or you don't press play, that is almost like one

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Speaker 6: of the easiest but also like most significant things you

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Speaker 6: could do in terms of things going.

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Speaker 2: Viral or not. Julia Harmon, the Renegade Dance, and the

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Speaker 2: Black TikTok Strike, it's a cultural moment that's top of

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Speaker 2: mind for a lot of Internet historians because of its

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Speaker 2: clear moral stand in the middle of hell. It's a

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Speaker 2: story of using the Internet to organize to make artist

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Speaker 2: names known, and not just Julia Harmon, but other choreographers

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Speaker 2: like Kiara Wilson, Maya Johnson, Chris Cotter, the list goes on.

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Speaker 2: Because when it became clear that the algorithm and the

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Speaker 2: media were not going to properly credit these black choreographers

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Speaker 2: work on TikTok, they went on strike, the Black TikTok

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Speaker 2: Strike of twenty twenty one. Your sixteenth minute begins now.

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Speaker 4: Sixteen.

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Speaker 2: Welcome back. We have our first TikTok story on the

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Speaker 2: show today, So start shaking in your tiny little boots

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Speaker 2: if you're outside Leonardo DiCaprio's fuck range. The character, or

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Speaker 2: rather the moment that we're covering this week is the

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Speaker 2: Black TikTok strike in summer twenty twenty one, and it's

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Speaker 2: the sort of subject that requires quite a bit of

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Speaker 2: context because the reason that the Black TikTok strike was

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Speaker 2: significant is deeply entrenched, not just an Internet history, but

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Speaker 2: history history. So return with me, and I'm so sorry

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Speaker 2: to June twenty twenty one. While many in the US

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Speaker 2: are getting their first COVID vaccines, others are in full

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Speaker 2: blown denial and believe that none of it was real,

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Speaker 2: which ends great for them. The FBI w the general

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Speaker 2: public that QAnon followers could engage in quote unquote real

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Speaker 2: world violence, and if there's anyone that knows about real

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Speaker 2: world violence, I mean, I guess it's the FBI. And

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Speaker 2: I am desperately hoping that m Night Scheimelin's Old will

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Speaker 2: come to the drive in theater nearest my apartment because

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Speaker 2: it's the funniest idea for a movie that I've ever heard.

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Speaker 2: And the Black TikTok strike takes place, and by this

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Speaker 2: time TikTok had become a major cultural force. Everything I

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Speaker 2: talked about today was also talked about on TikTok. Why

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Speaker 2: you should get your COVID vaccine, Why you shouldn't get

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Speaker 2: your COVID vaccine, Why old is the funniest idea for

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Speaker 2: a movie anyone's ever had. But twenty nineteen to twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty one era TikTok was truly all about dance videos. Theoretically,

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Speaker 2: if you could choreograph a short dance to a new

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Speaker 2: song and it caught on, your account could blow up overnight.

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Speaker 2: This wouldn't just be great for users looking to build

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Speaker 2: an audience, it also quickly became an important facet of

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Speaker 2: the music industry, because if you can engineer a song

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Speaker 2: that's a hit on TikTok, you're well on your way

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Speaker 2: to making it to the Billboard charts and then in CVS.

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Speaker 2: In ten years, TikTok was considered to be a new

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Speaker 2: and distinct social media platform, but it did bring in

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Speaker 2: a lot of elements that people liked from other apps.

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Speaker 2: You could find a truncated deep dive or beauty content

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Speaker 2: like on YouTube. The app's algorithm tended to hook on

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Speaker 2: to bad sketch comedy like on Vine, and it connected

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Speaker 2: with music unlike any app before it had. But even

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Speaker 2: though it was unique, a familiar pattern in who became

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Speaker 2: famous on TikTok quickly emerged. While black creators were frequently

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Speaker 2: choreographing in the dances that would become most popular, the

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Speaker 2: big success stories suddenly making millions were young white TikTokers

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Speaker 2: names like Charlie Demilio and Addison Ray, White teenagers who

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Speaker 2: have gone on to have successful mainstream careers, owed much

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Speaker 2: of their early dominance to the choreography they were performing,

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Speaker 2: and they routinely failed to credit choreographers as their audiences

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Speaker 2: continued to grow in the millions. And while seeming like

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Speaker 2: perfectly nice people, I'm not here to bullyeve people who

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Speaker 2: were kids at the time, Both of them expressed some

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Speaker 2: bafflement as to why they had become famous dancing on

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Speaker 2: TikTok over anybody else. Charlie said this to mel magazine

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Speaker 2: in twenty twenty.

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Speaker 1: I wish I could give everyone an explanation as to

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Speaker 1: what happened, but I have no idea. I'm just doing

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Speaker 1: what I do every day and posting it I guess

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Speaker 1: it's very insane to me, as it is for everyone

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Speaker 1: else watching.

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Speaker 2: And this was also baffling to the black choreographers making

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Speaker 2: the dances. Lack of credit is something that's affected choreographers

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Speaker 2: of all backgrounds for a long time. I didn't know

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Speaker 2: this before doing research for this episode, but copywriting a

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Speaker 2: dance is notoriously difficult, and there's really only been ways

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Speaker 2: to do it in the United States since around the

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventies. In this case, the issue is compounded with

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Speaker 2: who the TikTok algorithm favored. A report from The Intercept

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Speaker 2: in March twenty twenty featured TikTok employee whistleblowers saying that

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Speaker 2: they were asked to filter people out considered quote unquote

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Speaker 2: unattractive or who appeared to live in poverty. And on

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Speaker 2: top of that, TikTok just isn't built to credit choreographers

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Speaker 2: in the way it's built to credit musicians. But that's

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Speaker 2: not to say that things are much better on the

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Speaker 2: musician side. TikTok, like Spotify, gives its artists the rough

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Speaker 2: mathematical figure of peep and poop poo when it comes

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Speaker 2: to royalties, But the bare minimum here is that the

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Speaker 2: artist's name and song are listed every time they're used.

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Speaker 2: Not so for choreographers, even when that might be the

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Speaker 2: main draw of the video in the first place. And

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Speaker 2: at the time Demilio was becoming famous late twenty nineteen,

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Speaker 2: there were little to no common practices among users to

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Speaker 2: credit people that the app didn't already do automatically, which

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Speaker 2: could that by the time a dance got popular enough

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Speaker 2: to make it into your feed, it might be extremely

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Speaker 2: difficult to figure out who had done the original choreography,

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Speaker 2: even if you wanted to. So how do we get

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Speaker 2: from TikTok becoming one of the fastest growing apps in

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Speaker 2: the world pre pandemic to the black TikTok strike of

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Speaker 2: summer twenty twenty one. You've got to understand the most

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Speaker 2: prominent story that led up to this the story of

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Speaker 2: a black teenage creator who demanded credit for her own choreography,

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Speaker 2: Julia Harmon, who Professor Peoples mentioned, there's.

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Speaker 9: A superstar Jelaiah Harmon we bow in her presence, wow,

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Speaker 9: the original creator of the Renegade.

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Speaker 2: If you don't know Julia's name, you've definitely seen her

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Speaker 2: most famous work, the Renegade Dance, probably the most famous

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Speaker 2: dance to ever blow up on TikTok that was first

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Speaker 2: choreographed by her back in September twenty nineteen. Julia, who

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Speaker 2: was then only fourteen years old and living in the

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Speaker 2: suburbs of Atlanta, was the daughter of two educators and

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Speaker 2: was a prolific dancer, lessons, competing and generally just being

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Speaker 2: a kid. She choreographed a dance for TikTok to the

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Speaker 2: song Lottery by k Camp and called it the Renegade Dance. Okay,

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Speaker 2: I'm going to include like three seconds of the song

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Speaker 2: so that you can remember what it sounded like. Please

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Speaker 2: nobody sue me that song. If you were on the internet,

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Speaker 2: it was inescapable and she didn't even post it to

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Speaker 2: TikTok the first time she shared it. There's a documentary

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Speaker 2: series that was made about Julia in twenty twenty one

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Speaker 2: from director Kayla Johnson where Julia talks about the day

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Speaker 2: that the Renegade Dance was first posted. And on one hand,

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Speaker 2: it was something that she was doing for fun, but

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Speaker 2: she's got a strategy here too. She's very much a

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Speaker 2: kid of the Internet and knows that dances and posts

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Speaker 2: don't always take off on the first try.

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Speaker 10: So the first day I created Renegue, it was just

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Speaker 10: a normal day for me. I come home from school,

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Speaker 10: I was getting ready for a dance class that day,

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Speaker 10: and I have found this song called Lottery on somebody

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Speaker 10: else's page, and I just thought it was a really

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Speaker 10: cool song to make a dance too, So I just decided.

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Speaker 5: I was like, sure, why not.

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Speaker 10: After I created the dance, I sent it to my

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Speaker 10: friend on Instagram and I told her to learn it

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Speaker 10: so we could do it as like a collapse, and

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Speaker 10: I put our videos together on like a little posting

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Speaker 10: and so I posted it on Instagram.

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Speaker 5: First.

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Speaker 10: It really didn't go viral. I really wasn't on TikTok.

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Speaker 10: I was more so on Instagram. As it went to TikTok,

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Speaker 10: it got viral on TikTok and I didn't even know.

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Speaker 5: But then I was just like laying in my bed

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Speaker 5: one morning and.

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Speaker 10: I saw that everybody was doing this dance and at

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Speaker 10: first I wasn't sure that it was mine because they

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Speaker 10: weren't doing the right one. So I was like, Okay,

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Speaker 10: maybe it's really not. But like it was like two

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Speaker 10: maybe two or three people that actually did it the

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Speaker 10: right way, and I was like Okay, yeah, this is

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Speaker 10: my dance, so like I need credit.

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Speaker 2: And once the dancers cross posted to TikTok, it blows

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Speaker 2: up quickly. It was Julia's dance. Everyone was doing and

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Speaker 2: anybody who was anybody at the time was doing it.

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Speaker 2: Mainstream celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Lizzo now canceled. Internet

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Speaker 2: celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Lizzo. The list goes on. Now,

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Speaker 2: for those of you who live under a rock, I

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Speaker 2: hope you're well and I envy you. And just so

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Speaker 2: you know, what Julia just described is how TikTok generally

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Speaker 2: worked for choreographers at this time. Find a song you like,

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Speaker 2: post your dance, and hope the algorithm swallows it into

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Speaker 2: its big, gaping hr Geiger mouth. And while the algorithm

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Speaker 2: sometimes boosts content for indiscernible reasons, it's really easy to

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Speaker 2: understand why the renegade dance took off. It's really fucking cool,

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Speaker 2: and Julia is trained in five styles of dance, but

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Speaker 2: in the algorithm, what takes this dance to the next

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Speaker 2: level are the then it girls of TikTok, Charlie d'milio

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Speaker 2: and Addison Ray my.

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Speaker 11: TikTok name is Charlie d'milio, Dixie dmilio, Addison r E.

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Speaker 4: I mean, get with it, guys, get on TikTok, follow

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Speaker 4: these ladies.

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Speaker 2: So the Renegade Dance is a hit.

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Speaker 10: But Jua continues, they weren't tagging me when they did

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Speaker 10: the dance. They either weren't tagging you, no, or they

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Speaker 10: were tagging Charlie. When I saw that, I started comming

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Speaker 10: a hunred people's post, like hey my nance, Hey does

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Speaker 10: my nance? Can't give me credit.

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Speaker 2: Once Charlie performs the Renegade Dance in October twenty nineteen,

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Speaker 2: it causes the dance to take off even more, but

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Speaker 2: Charlie is repeatedly mistakenly credited for having choreographed it, something

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Speaker 2: that she and her team do not seem to be

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Speaker 2: in a rush too correct. It's unclear whether Charlie and

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Speaker 2: because Charlie was a kid, her parents and as soon

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Speaker 2: to be signed agents at United Talent knew who they

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Speaker 2: were ripping off when they built a massive career off it.

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Speaker 2: But before you knew it, Charlie was being called the

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Speaker 2: CEO of Renegade and was performing in a Super Bowl

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Speaker 2: commercial for Zionist Thomas. Here's Charlie teaching her sister Dixie

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Speaker 2: the Renegade dance back in January twenty twenty, without crediting

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Speaker 2: Juleia or even the musician.

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Speaker 5: I taught my sister how did do Renegade?

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Speaker 12: So I'm such a good dancer, but I'm just gonna

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Speaker 12: let her teach me so.

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Speaker 2: Julia's parents weren't Internet natives and didn't really get why

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Speaker 2: she was upset for the lack of credit, which left

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Speaker 2: the teenager on her own at first, but by the

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Speaker 2: time these videos with Charlie and Dixie were coming out

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Speaker 2: at the beginning of twenty twenty, the rest of the

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Speaker 2: extremely online were starting to get as frustrated as Julia

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Speaker 2: was for the Damelio's failure to credit her. Barry Siegal,

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Speaker 2: who was the head of content at a now defunct

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Speaker 2: video sharing platform called Dubsmash, reached out to Julia to

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Speaker 2: confirm that she was Renegade's original creator. When she confirmed that,

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Speaker 2: Siegel asked her if she'd want to speak to someone

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Speaker 2: from The New York Times. That's someone was friend of

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Speaker 2: this very show, Taylor Lorenz Twist, and once the mainstream

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Speaker 2: media showed up, it clicked for Jelia's family. Their daughter

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Speaker 2: was very right to be pissed off, and the failure

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Speaker 2: of other TikTokers to credit her work was cheating her

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Speaker 2: out of what could be a massively lucrative career online.

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Speaker 2: Because look, Earley's account was primarily full of other people's dances,

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Speaker 2: and it hadn't prevented her, a wealthy white teenager from Connecticut,

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Speaker 2: from going from less than a million followers in the

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Speaker 2: summer of twenty nineteen to fifty million followers in April

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty, and it translated those numbers on TikTok to

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Speaker 2: millions of dollars in the bank. White creators and their

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Speaker 2: teams were discovering, performing and profiting from black creators work,

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Speaker 2: and the entertainment industry took their teeny tiny little sunglasses

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Speaker 2: off and said, what And while they made a shitload

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Speaker 2: of money and they're very much fine, are lesser side

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Speaker 2: casualties of this story of algorithmic and entertainment money greed.

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Speaker 2: Because no, they weren't great dancers. But in the internet's

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Speaker 2: classic way, there became a corner of TikTok where you

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Speaker 2: could rack up millions of views mocking these girls while

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Speaker 2: they were still kids. But these kids and their families

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Speaker 2: and their agents were making bank off of all of it,

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Speaker 2: all while Julia Harmon remained invisible to the mainstream until

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Speaker 2: February twenty twenty, the profile of Jelaia in The Times,

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Speaker 2: as well as a Vox piece from earlier that month

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Speaker 2: by Rebecca Jennings that examined how viral dances were nearly

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Speaker 2: impossible to get copyrighted, finally sparked a public demand for

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Speaker 2: her work to be acknowledged. After months of effort, the

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Speaker 2: girl from Atlanta finally had a massive platform to advocate

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Speaker 2: for herself. In the Times piece, Lorenz talked to Julia

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Speaker 2: about her struggle to be heard while continuing life as

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Speaker 2: a normal kid, and expanded on how the lack of

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Speaker 2: crediting practices on TikTok often pushed already marginalized creators out

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Speaker 2: of the picture entirely. Jelaia's profile immediately sparked an internet

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Speaker 2: wide discussion about the erasure of black artists and how

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Speaker 2: easy these platforms made it to not credit anyone at all.

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Speaker 2: In her interview, Julia said she wasn't upset with Charlie,

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Speaker 2: She just wanted credit and the Damelio's publicist caught wind.

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Speaker 2: Charlie responded, I know.

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Speaker 1: It's associated with me, but I'm so happy to give

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Speaker 1: Julaiya credit and I'd love to collaborate with her.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Charle. According to her publicist, Charlie hadn't known who

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Speaker 2: would choreographed the dance that she was performing during the

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Speaker 2: largest period of growth in her accounts and TikTok's history.

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Speaker 2: Why didn't anyone check? Okay? Jamie's stay focused? Two days later,

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Speaker 2: on February fifteenth, the NBA Slam Dunk Contest happens in Chicago,

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Speaker 2: and there were TikTokers who were announced to be attending

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Speaker 2: the game, Charlie and Dixie Demilio and Addison Ray.

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Speaker 4: I'm ready to make a lot of content with a

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Speaker 4: lot of new people.

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Speaker 5: I mean, I'm with two of some of.

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Speaker 9: The best TikTokers there are, so I'm excited to just

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Speaker 9: make a bunch of pre a lot of dancing, maybe

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Speaker 9: try some new stuff.

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Speaker 13: You know.

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Speaker 2: This appearance happened so close to Julia's feature in the

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Speaker 2: Times that people online were pissed, and rightfully so, because

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Speaker 2: at the game and in content posted by the TikTokers

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Speaker 2: and the NBA, the Renegade dance was featured without credit.

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Speaker 2: Then on February sixteenth, the actual NBA All Star Game.

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Speaker 2: Just a quick aside, it took me so long to

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Speaker 2: figure out how All Star Weekend works. I don't care. Anyways,

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Speaker 2: it appeared that someone at the NBA had done their

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Speaker 2: research because Julia Harmon was announced as a guest at

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Speaker 2: the game to perform her original choreography, and on that

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Speaker 2: same day, she posted a collab TikTok with Charlie and Addison. So,

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Speaker 2: after months of regularly performing Julaia's work, Charlie posts a

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Speaker 2: TikTok of herself, Addison Ray, and Julia Harmon performing Renegade

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Speaker 2: together and not for nothing, Julaia is doing laps around them. Anyways,

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Speaker 2: here's the caption.

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Speaker 1: Guys, I would love to introduce you to at underscore period.

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Speaker 1: XO x LAII. I'm so happy that she's able to

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Speaker 1: teach me the original choreography that she made.

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Speaker 5: She is the best.

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Speaker 2: This move is generally well received, though some don't hesitate

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Speaker 2: to call it out for what it appeared to be.

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Speaker 2: The NBA and celebrity TikTokers realizing in the eleventh to

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Speaker 2: do right by Julia, only after a New York Times

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Speaker 2: profile and a wave of public outrage had encouraged them

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Speaker 2: to do so. Nevertheless, Jalaya performed Renegade at the NBA

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Speaker 2: All Star Game solo. She was great, It was awesome,

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Speaker 2: and it finally sent her up for some of the

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Speaker 2: cloud that she had been owed for nearly five months

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Speaker 2: at that point. Later that week, she appeared on Ellen.

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Speaker 2: Her TikTok followers spiked to over two million by April,

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Speaker 2: and the twenty twenty one documentary got put into production.

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Speaker 2: As far as the media was concerned, that was that

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Speaker 2: Julia had asked for her credit, She'd received it, and

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Speaker 2: the world had moved on, and so did the TikTok

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Speaker 2: celebrities she had collaborated with, moving on to careers in

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Speaker 2: reality TV and CVS music.

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Speaker 5: Hey guys, guess what, we have a new show on Hulu.

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Speaker 5: Find now what our lives are really like behind the scenes.

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00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:57,680
Speaker 2: After February twenty twenty, things got really awesome. The year

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Speaker 2: was shaped by global tragedy, a curse to American election,

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Speaker 2: and a major reckoning with race in America, particularly with

431
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 2: the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer. This was

432
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:11,120
Speaker 2: also a moment for racial reckoning on TikTok, creators called

433
00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:14,639
Speaker 2: the platform out for content suppression that may, and TikTok

434
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:17,200
Speaker 2: issued an apology saying.

435
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:22,000
Speaker 14: We acknowledge and apologize to our black creators and community

436
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:26,600
Speaker 14: who have felt unsafe, unsupported, or suppressed. We don't ever

437
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 14: want anyone to feel that way. We welcome the voices

438
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 14: of the black community wholeheartedly.

439
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:36,359
Speaker 2: But by early twenty twenty one, the common consensus was

440
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:39,199
Speaker 2: that the tweaks to the algorithm and the diversity of

441
00:25:39,240 --> 00:25:42,920
Speaker 2: the staff was not moving the needle enough. Twenty twenty

442
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:45,560
Speaker 2: into twenty twenty one had also been a major moment

443
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:49,960
Speaker 2: for labor discussions online, particularly after so many were unable

444
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:53,600
Speaker 2: to work with lockdown restrictions in place and governmental assistance

445
00:25:53,640 --> 00:25:56,439
Speaker 2: in the US being merely impossible to come by in

446
00:25:56,480 --> 00:25:59,280
Speaker 2: a sustainable way, and so a number of people were

447
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:02,120
Speaker 2: motivated to say, what the fuck? Why would I show

448
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:04,360
Speaker 2: up for a labor system that has not shown up

449
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 2: for me. This prompted a series of strikes in the West,

450
00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 2: rent strikes, tuition strikes, workers' strikes, and workers organizing in

451
00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 2: industries where unions had either dissolved or decreased in power.

452
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:19,640
Speaker 2: In the last several decades among young people, the promise

453
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:22,719
Speaker 2: of unionization became more prominent than I'd ever seen in

454
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:25,879
Speaker 2: my lifetime. I got so into unionizing that I fucked

455
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:28,159
Speaker 2: a guy in the union. Around the same time that

456
00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:31,920
Speaker 2: the Great Resignation took place, workers were voluntarily leaving their

457
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:35,240
Speaker 2: jobs in huge numbers early in twenty twenty because of

458
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:39,879
Speaker 2: how poorly their employers had treated them in terms of safety, wages,

459
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:43,479
Speaker 2: and benefits during the pandemic, and let's be honest, way before.

460
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 2: So by spring twenty twenty one, the conversations around race

461
00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:50,760
Speaker 2: and labor among young people had been on a steady uptick,

462
00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 2: and a lot of demonstration had been organized either online

463
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 2: or in person using the Internet. It's literally one of

464
00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:01,159
Speaker 2: the only things that's good for that and listening to

465
00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:05,640
Speaker 2: my little podcast. So this would be an exceptionally bad

466
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:08,520
Speaker 2: time for Addison Ray to perform a bunch of TikTok

467
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:12,119
Speaker 2: dancers on Jimmy fallon that March right, to perform dances

468
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:15,600
Speaker 2: without giving credit while promoting her pivot to pop music.

469
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 15: Right right, Addison performed dances to songs like Corvette, Corvette Up, Savage,

470
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:25,600
Speaker 15: Laffy Taffy, and more. All of those dances we just

471
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:28,879
Speaker 15: named were choreographed by black creators. So people took to

472
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:31,800
Speaker 15: Twitter to write things like the fact that Addison Ray

473
00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:35,320
Speaker 15: is champion for TikTok dancers whilst the black creatives that

474
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 15: made them and never get the same platform. Will never

475
00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 15: sit right with me, and this is what white privilege

476
00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:43,760
Speaker 15: looks like. Black creators innovate dances and do them amazingly,

477
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 15: but Addison Ray gets invited on Fallon to perform them

478
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:50,000
Speaker 15: in a who hum way. She's not racist, Fallon's not racist,

479
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:53,000
Speaker 15: but somehow the black dancers are erased even though they

480
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:53,640
Speaker 15: dance better.

481
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 2: Right. That clip is from Clever News, by the way,

482
00:27:56,880 --> 00:28:00,479
Speaker 2: because I credit people just a year after being fronted

483
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 2: about it the first time. Not only a failure on

484
00:28:02,800 --> 00:28:05,679
Speaker 2: the Addison Ray side, a huge failure on the Jimmy

485
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:08,880
Speaker 2: Fallon side. She's the face of the problem, but it's

486
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 2: a problem of many faces. And the Fallon team caught

487
00:28:11,760 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 2: on to that because after this wave of criticism, the

488
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 2: description on the YouTube upload of this clip, which to

489
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 2: no one surprise no longer exists, now suddenly included links

490
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:27,400
Speaker 2: to the original choreographer's TikTok accounts. Uh huh uh huh

491
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:30,680
Speaker 2: uh huh. The online outrage was so intense that both

492
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 2: Addison and Fallon had to respond. Addison Ray apologized when

493
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:37,160
Speaker 2: confronted by Human Devil's TMZ.

494
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 11: I think they were all credited in the original YouTube posting,

495
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:44,920
Speaker 11: but it's kind of hard to credit during the show.

496
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:47,120
Speaker 11: But they all know that I love them so much,

497
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:49,560
Speaker 11: and I mean I support all of them so much,

498
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:51,960
Speaker 11: and hopefully one day we can all meet up and

499
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 11: dance together.

500
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:56,480
Speaker 2: And Jimmy Fallon responded by inviting the creators of the

501
00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:59,800
Speaker 2: dances that Addison had performed on his next show.

502
00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:02,479
Speaker 16: On our last show before break, we did a bit

503
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 16: with Addison Ray where she taught me eight viral TikTok dances.

504
00:29:06,400 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 16: Now we recognize that the creators of those dances deserve

505
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:11,520
Speaker 16: to have their own spotlight. So right now, some of

506
00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:13,680
Speaker 16: the creators will join me to talk about how their

507
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 16: dance went viral and then perform the dance themselves.

508
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:24,280
Speaker 2: See Bullying Works. Fallon brings on over Zoom. Unfortunately, choreographers Maya,

509
00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 2: Nicole Johnson and Chris Carter of the Updance, Dorian Scott

510
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:31,480
Speaker 2: of the Corvette Corvette Dance, Flyboy Fu and Indy of

511
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:34,520
Speaker 2: the Laffy Taffy Dance, Greg Dahl, Adam Snyder and Nate

512
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:38,120
Speaker 2: Nail of the Blinding Lights Dance, and Kiara Wilson of

513
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 2: the Savage Dance, which was wonderful for these creators but

514
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:44,560
Speaker 2: understandably did not win a lot of trust back. The

515
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 2: fact that this slip had happened made it clear that

516
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 2: it would very likely happen again, and so in June

517
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, a number of black TikTokers announced they

518
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 2: were going on indefinite strike. User capin Ken Knuckles said

519
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:02,280
Speaker 2: in a no longer available video, for all my melanated

520
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:05,800
Speaker 2: brothers and sisters of the African diaspora, we are on strike.

521
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 2: We are not making a dance for thoughtshit. We're just

522
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 2: going to let them keep flailing. It just shows how

523
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:13,160
Speaker 2: much you need us to make a dance, because on

524
00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 2: the app there was a need for a TikTok dance.

525
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 2: On June eleventh, Megan thee Stallion released thought Shit, a

526
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 2: song literally designed to dominate TikTok, But when black choreographers

527
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:25,719
Speaker 2: agreed to not feed a dance into the algorithm that

528
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:28,680
Speaker 2: their white counterparts would take to fallon and half ass

529
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:32,280
Speaker 2: apologize for later, no strong trend emerged all while the

530
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 2: black TikTok strike tag racked up over six million views

531
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:39,040
Speaker 2: and in mainstream media this became a pretty big story.

532
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 2: It was on the nightly news. Kenyon Lee or Kenti

533
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 2: dot Heaven on TikTok, was a participant and organizer in

534
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:47,720
Speaker 2: the strike and spoke to ABC News shortly after the

535
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:49,000
Speaker 2: strike was first announced.

536
00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 7: Them going in creating these challenges under these sounds, like

537
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 7: help those sounds get boosted into the algorithm and.

538
00:30:55,520 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 2: If its native.

539
00:30:56,120 --> 00:30:59,800
Speaker 12: Kenyon Lee is a viral content creator and computer science major.

540
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 2: He says part of the blame goes to TikTok.

541
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 7: It's really centered around uniting people under like one trend,

542
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 7: So essentially like promotes you to take content, and they

543
00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 7: don't really have a system in play to show people

544
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:15,400
Speaker 7: who start, you know, any dances or anything under that.

545
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:17,120
Speaker 5: Sound, So how can you get credit.

546
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 7: It's definitely going to take somebody in like the back

547
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 7: end side of like TikTok to really come in and

548
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:24,200
Speaker 7: just like find some type of way to like mark

549
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:27,680
Speaker 7: whoever is trending in the meantime in your video description,

550
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:29,840
Speaker 7: You're going to want to make it really clear that

551
00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 7: you were the one that started this trend, plus the

552
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 7: hashtag to you know, seal the deal.

553
00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 2: Another voice in this discussion was TikToker and cultural commentator

554
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 2: Amanda Bennett, founder of Define and Empower, a consultancy firm

555
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:46,080
Speaker 2: who advises businesses from a black feminist perspective. I caught

556
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:48,560
Speaker 2: up with her about the strike almost three years later

557
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:50,000
Speaker 2: and whytt was so important.

558
00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 4: Hi. I am doctor Amanda Bennett. I am a poet,

559
00:31:55,840 --> 00:32:01,200
Speaker 4: a writer, a facilitator, and an educator. I primarily think

560
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 4: and write about black feminist cultural criticism and black women

561
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 4: of pop culture.

562
00:32:05,880 --> 00:32:09,640
Speaker 2: How were you first made aware of this strike?

563
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:11,640
Speaker 4: I was made aware of it because I was a

564
00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 4: creator on TikTok at the time, and I happened to

565
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:17,200
Speaker 4: see a lot of different black TikTokers talking about their

566
00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 4: work having been stolen in the past and no longer

567
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 4: wanting to contribute to that psycho exploitation. When Megan the

568
00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:26,520
Speaker 4: Stallion's song thought Shit came out and so they were saying,

569
00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 4: We're not actually going to make a dance for this song.

570
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:31,280
Speaker 4: We're not going to lie y'all to steal from us once.

571
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 2: Again, something I find fascinating is just how community organizing

572
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,520
Speaker 2: online and how that is extremely complicated, But I mean,

573
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 2: I feel like this is a clear case for how

574
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:45,080
Speaker 2: successful it can be. Can you walk me through sort

575
00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 2: of how this strike was organized?

576
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:49,960
Speaker 4: Sure, I wasn't one of the organizers. I'm more so

577
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:53,800
Speaker 4: a commentator, but yeah, it seems that a couple of

578
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:57,479
Speaker 4: young black women on TikTok began to notice this pattern

579
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:01,960
Speaker 4: and then began to commune kate with other dancers such

580
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:05,720
Speaker 4: as Kiera Wilson and Jelia Harman, to say, Hey, we're

581
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:07,000
Speaker 4: not going to a lot of people to work to

582
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 4: continue to be stolen, and here's how we kind of

583
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 4: develop a hashtag to be able to respond to this.

584
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:16,440
Speaker 2: And as a commentator, had you seen something like this

585
00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 2: organized online before? Was there precedent for it in this space?

586
00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 4: Honestly, not to this degree. I typically only really seeing

587
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 4: young black creators making the dancers for the different songs,

588
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 4: but not actually pushing back against racism. Although in a

589
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 4: lot of cases I did notice that many black creators

590
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:36,360
Speaker 4: were being censored or having their videos taken down, and

591
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:40,200
Speaker 4: there was ways of pushback toward that against TikTok, but

592
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:42,840
Speaker 4: it hadn't been organized into this kind of format before.

593
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:46,680
Speaker 2: I am curious to get into the historical context for this,

594
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:50,240
Speaker 2: because you spoke about this in your commentary at the time.

595
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:55,920
Speaker 2: What is the historical precedent for this, for this behavior

596
00:33:55,960 --> 00:34:01,800
Speaker 2: from white creators in general, stealing from black creators with outccreditation.

597
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 4: Right, I mean, unfortunately, the history goes back several centuries.

598
00:34:04,560 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 4: Even in the video, I had the example of Jack

599
00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:09,480
Speaker 4: Daniels whiskey where and a slave man named near Sprain

600
00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 4: actually came up with the formula and idea for the

601
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:15,759
Speaker 4: Jack Daniels whiskey. But Jack Daniels then owned him and

602
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 4: his family basically exploited their ideas and their labor with

603
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:21,759
Speaker 4: no compensation towards the family. And now today we have

604
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:24,520
Speaker 4: a brand called Uncle Nears where folks are taking back

605
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:28,280
Speaker 4: that idea and that wealth. But it's just one example.

606
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:31,200
Speaker 4: Even I've been thinking a lot about Beyonce's album Cowboy

607
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:34,160
Speaker 4: Carter and how she basically reclaiming the genre of country

608
00:34:34,200 --> 00:34:38,360
Speaker 4: music for black creators. So much of country music is

609
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:40,920
Speaker 4: taken from black culture. So for example, the banjo is

610
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:44,520
Speaker 4: actually an African derived instrument. Beyonce talks a lot about

611
00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:47,440
Speaker 4: Linda Martel, who was a black woman country singer in

612
00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:51,600
Speaker 4: the mid twentieth century, and I think that Beyonce the

613
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:55,600
Speaker 4: album opens up a wider conversation about cultural appropriation, particularly

614
00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 4: in music. So even you know, black artists who had

615
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:02,080
Speaker 4: their style and ideas taken to create artists like Elvis

616
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:05,960
Speaker 4: for example, is one of those examples. So there is

617
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 4: a really long history of black people creating an idea

618
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:11,920
Speaker 4: or a genre of music, or a way of dancing,

619
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:15,400
Speaker 4: and then having larger white corporations or white artists appropriate

620
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 4: that without it giving them any credit or compensation.

621
00:35:18,719 --> 00:35:22,439
Speaker 2: I'm interested in, as you were observing this roll out,

622
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:26,399
Speaker 2: how did you feel about the immediate results? How did

623
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 2: you feel about the media response. I always think about

624
00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:33,600
Speaker 2: the you know, the Jimmy fallon back and forth. What

625
00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 2: you felt about sort of what the response when this

626
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:37,080
Speaker 2: went public was?

627
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:40,759
Speaker 4: Absolutely yeah, And I think that is a way that

628
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:44,279
Speaker 4: companies and big institutions are able to protect themselves and

629
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:47,360
Speaker 4: to avoid kind of do that internal di work. You know,

630
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 4: I work in tech. I have a lot of friendsy

631
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:52,799
Speaker 4: work in tech, and particularly for us as black and brown,

632
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:55,879
Speaker 4: queer people, people living with disabilities, we notice that there

633
00:35:55,960 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 4: is a tendency to uplift and higher. People who identify

634
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 4: as white or men are heterosexual, and when there are

635
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:06,680
Speaker 4: not people who are from diverse backgrounds in the room,

636
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:09,319
Speaker 4: you're not going to be able to make intentional and

637
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:12,960
Speaker 4: mindful and inclusive decisions regarding programming and even regarding who

638
00:36:12,960 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 4: gets credited. So the actual infrastructure of these systems and

639
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:20,840
Speaker 4: these algorithms are made by people who are out of

640
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:24,080
Speaker 4: touch with these kind of ideas around inclusivity, and that

641
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 4: is a problem. So you can actually get substantial responses

642
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 4: when these incidents occur because they just don't know or

643
00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:30,319
Speaker 4: don't care to know.

644
00:36:30,920 --> 00:36:33,759
Speaker 2: And then in terms of how the public sort of

645
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:36,560
Speaker 2: received the organizers kind of going public and saying, hey,

646
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:39,120
Speaker 2: we are not going to choreograph anything to the new

647
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:41,920
Speaker 2: Megan thee Stallion work. From your perspective, how did that

648
00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:43,640
Speaker 2: sort of roll out go?

649
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:46,960
Speaker 4: I definitely noticed a lot of pushback from white folks

650
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:49,279
Speaker 4: on TikTok. I think that there was a kind of

651
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:52,880
Speaker 4: entitlement or expectation that black people would kind of always

652
00:36:52,920 --> 00:36:55,560
Speaker 4: produce these dancewers for them. And it's interesting how as

653
00:36:55,560 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 4: a kind of unspoken expectation and that you don't want

654
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:01,239
Speaker 4: to admit that you are paying such close attention to

655
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:03,759
Speaker 4: Black culture, but you're wanting to rely on it to

656
00:37:03,800 --> 00:37:07,120
Speaker 4: be able to have a sense of creativity or culture

657
00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:09,319
Speaker 4: or community. And that kind of goes back to our

658
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:12,399
Speaker 4: previous point about the long history of cultural appropriation and

659
00:37:12,760 --> 00:37:15,879
Speaker 4: white community is often relying on Black art and creativity

660
00:37:16,320 --> 00:37:19,839
Speaker 4: to have a sense of soulfulness of community, of togetherness,

661
00:37:19,840 --> 00:37:23,319
Speaker 4: of expression. But obviously black people are not merely an

662
00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:27,160
Speaker 4: engine or white creative expression. They're actually human beings who

663
00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:31,160
Speaker 4: are entitled to and worthy of respect and consideration and compensation.

664
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 4: So I think when that invisible contract is breached, that

665
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:36,600
Speaker 4: can trigger a lot of white anger.

666
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:39,440
Speaker 2: Are you still actively on TikTok?

667
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:41,960
Speaker 4: I actually haven't been active on TikTok the last couple

668
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:44,720
Speaker 4: of years for many of the reasons that I actually

669
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 4: talked about about. I made a post about sexual equoitation

670
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:50,840
Speaker 4: of black women during slavery and the stereotypes that emerged

671
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:53,319
Speaker 4: around that, such as the Jezebel, and that was taken

672
00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:56,120
Speaker 4: down because it was inappropriate, and just kind of having

673
00:37:56,120 --> 00:38:00,160
Speaker 4: conflict with TikTok over me making these videos about Black

674
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 4: American history and structural oppression and having to feel as

675
00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:05,240
Speaker 4: if I was being censored, so I kind of stepped

676
00:38:05,239 --> 00:38:06,520
Speaker 4: away from that platform.

677
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:11,719
Speaker 2: That is incredibly frustrated, and it's frustrating that that it

678
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 2: does end up discouraging creators from making really useful material.

679
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 4: I mean, I think that companies aren't a place where

680
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 4: they are aware, you know, post orgeployed, that they have

681
00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:24,160
Speaker 4: to make some kind of effort to keep up with

682
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 4: the times and improve inclusivity. But the infrastructure of most

683
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:31,360
Speaker 4: tech corporations is just so byzantine that it can be

684
00:38:31,400 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 4: difficult to push like actual change forward. And obviously, these

685
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:40,719
Speaker 4: coled companies are ultimately existing to create a profit, and

686
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:44,000
Speaker 4: so I think a lot of business models are thinking

687
00:38:44,040 --> 00:38:48,839
Speaker 4: that profit is tied to facilitating white comfort. So if

688
00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:52,839
Speaker 4: your ideal customer or your centralized customer is a white,

689
00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:56,239
Speaker 4: upper middle class person living in the Midwest, that's not

690
00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:59,640
Speaker 4: going to facilitate free speech or free creative expression among

691
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:03,080
Speaker 4: you know, a black working class person living in a city,

692
00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:06,279
Speaker 4: for example. They're just not being thought of as the

693
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:10,040
Speaker 4: target demographic that should be focused on. Yeah, that's a

694
00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 4: really good question. I mean, I think there are a

695
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:14,280
Speaker 4: couple of ways. I think you can also offer direct

696
00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:17,839
Speaker 4: support to creators. So demo them, cash app them, et cetera.

697
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 4: Share their work, credit their work, as we saw on

698
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 4: the boshed example, collective organizing around particular hashtags or strikes.

699
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:30,320
Speaker 4: Even really looking into the actual structure of these different companies,

700
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:32,759
Speaker 4: you know, do they have black people in roles other

701
00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:35,759
Speaker 4: than DEI and so what are they and if they're

702
00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:37,880
Speaker 4: not present in those roles, maybe put a bit of

703
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 4: pressure in the company of do you have someone thinking

704
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:44,360
Speaker 4: about inclusivity in your algorithm team for example?

705
00:39:44,640 --> 00:39:47,040
Speaker 2: Well, Amanda, thank you so much for talking with us.

706
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:49,600
Speaker 4: Of course, thank you so much for having me. I'm

707
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 4: happy to be part of the conversation.

708
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:53,800
Speaker 2: Thank you so much to Amanda Bennett, who's work you

709
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 2: can follow over at Define and empower. And when we

710
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,520
Speaker 2: come back, I speak to one of TikTok's most successful choreographers,

711
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:04,920
Speaker 2: Kiara Wilson, creator of the Savage Dance and one of

712
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:20,279
Speaker 2: the first people to copyright their viral dance. Welcome back

713
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:22,799
Speaker 2: to sixteenth minute. The peak of my dance career was

714
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:25,520
Speaker 2: doing a hip hop dance to Rihanna's Dysturbia in two

715
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:29,080
Speaker 2: thousand and nine. I was bad. And we're back with

716
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:32,200
Speaker 2: more about the black TikTok Strike of twenty twenty one.

717
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:35,399
Speaker 2: While Julia Harmon and the Renegade Dance was the most

718
00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:38,960
Speaker 2: commonly cited dance example that led to the Black TikTok Strike,

719
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 2: a close second was by TikToker and choreographer Kiara Wilson.

720
00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:46,400
Speaker 2: She was one of the creators featured on Jimmy Fallon

721
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 2: in April twenty twenty one because Addison Rey had performed

722
00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:53,239
Speaker 2: it on the show previously without crediting her. And while

723
00:40:53,280 --> 00:40:56,680
Speaker 2: Kiara didn't formally participate in the Black TikTok Strike, she

724
00:40:56,760 --> 00:41:00,279
Speaker 2: actually took things one step further. She started the process

725
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 2: of copywriting her dance in collaboration with choreographer JAKEL. Knight.

726
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:07,160
Speaker 2: I wanted to hear all about it and about this

727
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:09,839
Speaker 2: process overall, and I was really excited to catch up

728
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:10,160
Speaker 2: with her.

729
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:14,840
Speaker 12: I am Kiara, I was Wilson. I am now a leech.

730
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:18,680
Speaker 12: I got married. I got congratulations, thank you.

731
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:20,799
Speaker 5: I have been married for almost two years.

732
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 14: So.

733
00:41:21,640 --> 00:41:24,719
Speaker 12: I grew up in a small town in Ohio, very

734
00:41:24,719 --> 00:41:25,360
Speaker 12: small town.

735
00:41:25,600 --> 00:41:28,080
Speaker 5: It's called Mansfield. Probably don't know what that.

736
00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:32,439
Speaker 12: Is, but it's right outside of Columbus, so yeah, pretty

737
00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:32,879
Speaker 12: much there.

738
00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:35,879
Speaker 5: I grew up. I was a dancer my whole life.

739
00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:42,480
Speaker 12: From age seven, I was tumbling, flipping, doing all that.

740
00:41:42,600 --> 00:41:46,120
Speaker 12: I just absolutely loved the just dance in general. I

741
00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:49,280
Speaker 12: was a cheerleader in high school, all that fun stuff

742
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:52,320
Speaker 12: and basically where it all started in a small town.

743
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:54,080
Speaker 4: I love dance and.

744
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 12: So I just wanted to pursue it more after high school.

745
00:41:57,239 --> 00:42:00,120
Speaker 12: So that's when I That was in twenty nineteen and

746
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 12: I had graduated. That's when I really started to get

747
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 12: into doing it outside of graduating and stuff.

748
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:11,960
Speaker 2: So what a weird time to have just graduated high.

749
00:42:11,800 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 12: School, just graduated, then COVID wants to come around and

750
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:17,040
Speaker 12: just in twenty twenty.

751
00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:19,920
Speaker 2: So yeah, like you think your life is about to start.

752
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:23,640
Speaker 2: And then just like you can tell from your TikTok

753
00:42:23,719 --> 00:42:26,240
Speaker 2: presence even back then that like you're a very experienced dancer,

754
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:29,120
Speaker 2: you're a very talented choreographer. What was sort of your

755
00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:31,360
Speaker 2: path into choreographing?

756
00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:34,360
Speaker 12: So yes, I actually did choreograph a little bit, but

757
00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:36,839
Speaker 12: it was like just for fun, Like I never did

758
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:39,319
Speaker 12: it like as a job or I just did it

759
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:41,560
Speaker 12: for fun, Like I would just make up a dance

760
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:44,279
Speaker 12: in my head and then like maybe I'll show it

761
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 12: to somebody, but it wasn't nothing like big or spectacular.

762
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 12: And then I had actually moved away from my hometown

763
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:54,440
Speaker 12: when I did graduate, I moved in with my sister

764
00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:57,279
Speaker 12: to Texas and that's where I am currently living now.

765
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:01,120
Speaker 12: And I actually did join a dance team and I

766
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:06,440
Speaker 12: was choreographing for a small kids jazz group. I was

767
00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 12: just doing cool through jazz dances to like kids songs,

768
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 12: but that was also just for fun. That was just

769
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:13,839
Speaker 12: like a little after school program for the kids, and

770
00:43:14,200 --> 00:43:17,960
Speaker 12: I just ended up making dances for them and that

771
00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:21,640
Speaker 12: rolled into TikTok because that was literally the same, like

772
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:24,800
Speaker 12: not the same month, maybe like a month later.

773
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 2: This is always like the stupidest question in the world,

774
00:43:28,040 --> 00:43:31,760
Speaker 2: But what were you hoping? What happened in twenty twenty

775
00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:34,280
Speaker 2: when you get out of high school, you moved to Texas,

776
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:36,960
Speaker 2: You're with your sister, you're choreographing on the side, Like

777
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 2: what were you hoping for in that first year getting

778
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:41,320
Speaker 2: out of high school?

779
00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:44,440
Speaker 12: So I actually was planning on going to the military,

780
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:48,200
Speaker 12: like that was my plan. And one of the reasons

781
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:50,200
Speaker 12: why I did come to Texas was to focus on

782
00:43:50,600 --> 00:43:53,040
Speaker 12: getting into the military because my sister was in the military,

783
00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:56,360
Speaker 12: and I was also watching over my niece at the

784
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:57,719
Speaker 12: time because she had to go to work. So that

785
00:43:57,760 --> 00:43:59,759
Speaker 12: was really the whole reason why I didn't come down

786
00:43:59,800 --> 00:44:03,239
Speaker 12: to Texas. So that was really my main focus. I

787
00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 12: was studying, I would work out and all that, and

788
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:10,040
Speaker 12: then on top of that, I was I was just like,

789
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:11,400
Speaker 12: I need a break. I need a break, and then

790
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:14,240
Speaker 12: that's when I started to create the dance.

791
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:17,400
Speaker 5: So it's crazy how things tie together.

792
00:44:17,880 --> 00:44:23,279
Speaker 2: At the time you started posting on TikTok more, what

793
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:27,919
Speaker 2: was your relationship like to the internet, you know, as

794
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:28,799
Speaker 2: you were growing up.

795
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:35,000
Speaker 5: So I love the Internet. I stayed on all the time, literally,

796
00:44:35,680 --> 00:44:36,840
Speaker 5: I don't think though.

797
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:40,360
Speaker 12: I didn't really post like, okay, I was trying to

798
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:42,920
Speaker 12: go viral or anything. I just posted like a regular

799
00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 12: like people posting like Easter pitch or stuff like that.

800
00:44:46,680 --> 00:44:48,759
Speaker 5: I never like try to.

801
00:44:50,560 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 4: Go viral.

802
00:44:51,200 --> 00:44:54,120
Speaker 5: I don't know if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, I

803
00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:55,279
Speaker 5: just I loved it.

804
00:44:55,480 --> 00:44:59,960
Speaker 12: I love TikTok, I loved dubsmash, all those different apps.

805
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:02,600
Speaker 12: I was on them and I was learning all the

806
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:05,319
Speaker 12: dances on them. So I think that's really what made

807
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:08,480
Speaker 12: me gravitate towards TikTok so much because there were so

808
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:10,080
Speaker 12: many dances on there and I'm just like, I just

809
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:12,719
Speaker 12: want to learn these these it seems so fun. And

810
00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:15,000
Speaker 12: you're fresh out of high school and you were doing

811
00:45:15,080 --> 00:45:17,719
Speaker 12: dancer whole life. You're like, this is like bring me

812
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:18,920
Speaker 12: back to my roots, you know.

813
00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:23,239
Speaker 2: So, dude, when you're choreographing a dance for TikTok, are

814
00:45:23,280 --> 00:45:26,600
Speaker 2: you approaching it differently? I'm assuming yes, but like, how

815
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:30,520
Speaker 2: do you approach it versus you know, something for the stage,

816
00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:32,680
Speaker 2: something for the kids, whatever it is.

817
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:37,080
Speaker 12: So, first off, good thing about TikTok you only have

818
00:45:37,160 --> 00:45:38,840
Speaker 12: to make like a fifteen second dance.

819
00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:41,000
Speaker 5: Yeah, so you have.

820
00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:43,200
Speaker 12: To think about how you're going to cram the moves

821
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:47,360
Speaker 12: and make it look good in fifteen seconds, so versus

822
00:45:48,200 --> 00:45:50,120
Speaker 12: a one minute long dance, you know what I'm saying.

823
00:45:50,200 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 5: So I think that's really.

824
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:56,840
Speaker 12: What made my approach like that way, because I knew

825
00:45:56,880 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 12: I didn't have as much time, so we have to make.

826
00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:01,520
Speaker 5: It good in short and sweet.

827
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:04,160
Speaker 12: That way everybody can do it and it was perfect

828
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:07,840
Speaker 12: for all ages versus a minute long dance that you

829
00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:09,920
Speaker 12: know you have all the time in the world.

830
00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:12,080
Speaker 2: I think it has a huge part to do with

831
00:46:12,200 --> 00:46:15,440
Speaker 2: like why you're why the Savage Challenge became so successful,

832
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 2: as like anyone can do it, but anyone can't do it.

833
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:22,960
Speaker 5: Well, definitely understand that.

834
00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:26,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's just TikTok dances. I guess the Savage Challenge.

835
00:46:27,239 --> 00:46:32,080
Speaker 2: You posted it in March twenty twenty, right, yes, very

836
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:36,480
Speaker 2: very top of COVID lockdown. How does your life change

837
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 2: immediately around this time, even like notwithstanding with the post?

838
00:46:42,040 --> 00:46:45,920
Speaker 5: Okay, so it changed like rapid speed.

839
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 12: Yeah, I did the dance, It went viral, everyone was

840
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:54,360
Speaker 12: doing it, and in those processes, my numbers were going up,

841
00:46:54,480 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 12: so I was growing on all platforms. I would get

842
00:46:57,719 --> 00:47:01,279
Speaker 12: promotions and ads, so like people reach out and be like,

843
00:47:01,320 --> 00:47:04,480
Speaker 12: can you make up a dance to my song that

844
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:08,200
Speaker 12: I just recorded or something like along those lines or

845
00:47:09,400 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 12: an ad, so like say like just a brand, they

846
00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:14,279
Speaker 12: would reach out and be like, we want you to

847
00:47:14,320 --> 00:47:18,640
Speaker 12: make a dance to this song or make a dance

848
00:47:18,680 --> 00:47:22,360
Speaker 12: to something that we are you doing, like a service

849
00:47:22,440 --> 00:47:22,920
Speaker 12: or something.

850
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:26,080
Speaker 5: So that's really the big shift.

851
00:47:26,680 --> 00:47:29,839
Speaker 2: What was your follower account like before this? Like how

852
00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:31,280
Speaker 2: rapid a shift are we talking?

853
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:35,960
Speaker 12: I probably only had one hundred followers maybe okay, one

854
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:37,799
Speaker 12: hundred to one thousand, I'll give that right.

855
00:47:38,200 --> 00:47:40,400
Speaker 2: And all of this happening like in the context of

856
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:43,160
Speaker 2: COVID too, like you're when you're dealing with all this,

857
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:45,720
Speaker 2: are you just sort of with your sister and your niece,

858
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:48,040
Speaker 2: Like what is your day to day life like at this.

859
00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:49,840
Speaker 5: Time, I was with my sister, my niece.

860
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:53,399
Speaker 12: I was sitting around like I would when people would

861
00:47:53,440 --> 00:47:55,640
Speaker 12: reach out for me to choreograph. I would like, write

862
00:47:55,680 --> 00:47:57,400
Speaker 12: it down, Okay, I need to do this for this

863
00:47:57,520 --> 00:48:00,840
Speaker 12: amount that just write them down in the pop in

864
00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:03,359
Speaker 12: my headphones, and I would just choreograph to the song

865
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:06,520
Speaker 12: like I would listen to the song, get in the groove, whatever.

866
00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:12,360
Speaker 12: And then the months later, I actually had a boyfriend

867
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:14,359
Speaker 12: at the time, so that's who I'm married too now.

868
00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:17,680
Speaker 12: But he was back in Ohio, so I went and

869
00:48:17,719 --> 00:48:21,239
Speaker 12: got him and brought him to Texas with me to live.

870
00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:23,240
Speaker 5: So that's how we got.

871
00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:27,240
Speaker 2: I know that you said you made an original post

872
00:48:27,239 --> 00:48:28,920
Speaker 2: that didn't do great, and then you did it again.

873
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:32,239
Speaker 2: What was that like revision process? Like a lot of

874
00:48:32,280 --> 00:48:37,280
Speaker 2: what I'm interested in is like how to make these weird,

875
00:48:37,680 --> 00:48:41,840
Speaker 2: confusing like opaque algorithms work in your favor. Which sounded

876
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:44,080
Speaker 2: like you were kind of trying to do. So walk

877
00:48:44,120 --> 00:48:46,719
Speaker 2: me through sort of what that thought process was.

878
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:51,040
Speaker 12: So at the time, everyone honestly was doing this, I

879
00:48:51,040 --> 00:48:54,480
Speaker 12: feel like. So they would post like day one of

880
00:48:54,480 --> 00:48:57,000
Speaker 12: trying to get my dance viral or day two, day three.

881
00:48:57,040 --> 00:48:57,960
Speaker 5: They would just keep.

882
00:48:57,800 --> 00:49:01,320
Speaker 12: Going until either they went viral or like you know,

883
00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:03,840
Speaker 12: they would give up. But I was just like, Okay,

884
00:49:03,880 --> 00:49:06,000
Speaker 12: I'm gonna try that because I'm not going to give

885
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:08,279
Speaker 12: up on this one. Like I think this one, this

886
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:12,440
Speaker 12: one's this is pretty good. So I did the day one.

887
00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:15,160
Speaker 12: Like everyone used to ask me, like, was there like

888
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:17,719
Speaker 12: a way you used to dress? Did that change the way?

889
00:49:17,880 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 12: Like you went viral? And honestly, no, I can be honest.

890
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:25,000
Speaker 12: The first day I had on a some some leggings,

891
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:28,920
Speaker 12: I believe in a little crop top, and the second

892
00:49:28,960 --> 00:49:30,239
Speaker 12: day I had on pajamas.

893
00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:33,360
Speaker 5: So it's kind of like it's like and the second

894
00:49:33,400 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 5: day is the one that went viral, so it's like

895
00:49:36,000 --> 00:49:38,040
Speaker 5: not really on what you're wearing.

896
00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:42,000
Speaker 12: It's just like I don't I don't even I couldn't

897
00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 12: even tell you still to this day.

898
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:43,880
Speaker 5: I don't even know how.

899
00:49:43,920 --> 00:49:46,640
Speaker 2: I don't know, Like, yeah, it took off, I think

900
00:49:46,680 --> 00:49:51,880
Speaker 2: after day two pretty aggressively. And so you're you're a

901
00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:56,200
Speaker 2: teenager that is dealing with COVID, You've just graduated from

902
00:49:56,239 --> 00:49:59,359
Speaker 2: high school. How do you process and handle sort of

903
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:02,120
Speaker 2: the volume of people reaching out? How do you sort

904
00:50:02,160 --> 00:50:05,000
Speaker 2: of sift your way through it and like also protect

905
00:50:05,080 --> 00:50:06,080
Speaker 2: your brain?

906
00:50:06,960 --> 00:50:10,480
Speaker 12: Yeah, it was a lot at first, trust Yeah, Oh

907
00:50:10,600 --> 00:50:13,000
Speaker 12: my gosh, it was a lot at the time.

908
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:15,600
Speaker 5: I did end up.

909
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:19,440
Speaker 12: Getting a PR, so I think that's really what helped

910
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:21,799
Speaker 12: so much. And then of course my family they were

911
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:25,719
Speaker 12: there to help me like set everything up and tell

912
00:50:25,760 --> 00:50:27,600
Speaker 12: me like, okay, this is when you need to do this,

913
00:50:27,719 --> 00:50:30,040
Speaker 12: or like you have an interview at this time, you know.

914
00:50:30,840 --> 00:50:33,719
Speaker 12: But as a teenager, it definitely was a lot. But

915
00:50:33,760 --> 00:50:37,080
Speaker 12: I learned very fast, Like it's fast paced. So you

916
00:50:37,120 --> 00:50:38,920
Speaker 12: got to get it going and got to get it out.

917
00:50:38,760 --> 00:50:41,680
Speaker 2: There and it worked. And so as you're getting these

918
00:50:41,719 --> 00:50:45,920
Speaker 2: offers through twenty twenty, you're starting to choreograph kind of

919
00:50:45,960 --> 00:50:50,200
Speaker 2: full time. Did that feel like a natural transition? Was

920
00:50:50,239 --> 00:50:52,520
Speaker 2: it like you had to sort of renegotiate what you

921
00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:55,239
Speaker 2: wanted your life to look like or yeah, as your

922
00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:59,480
Speaker 2: life kind of changed overnight, how are you processing that.

923
00:51:00,440 --> 00:51:03,960
Speaker 12: So it was like, uh, should I still go to

924
00:51:04,000 --> 00:51:07,280
Speaker 12: the military, And then I'm like, no, I shouldn't.

925
00:51:07,320 --> 00:51:11,400
Speaker 5: Like I'm literally living in like you know, like spotlight

926
00:51:11,480 --> 00:51:11,839
Speaker 5: right now.

927
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:16,239
Speaker 12: That would ruin everything that I could potentially have going on.

928
00:51:16,440 --> 00:51:18,960
Speaker 12: So I was just like I didn't want to risk it.

929
00:51:19,040 --> 00:51:23,000
Speaker 12: So it was a hard decision to like be like, no,

930
00:51:23,160 --> 00:51:26,000
Speaker 12: we got to go in a different direction. But you know, God,

931
00:51:26,040 --> 00:51:28,319
Speaker 12: he is always with me, and that was my path

932
00:51:28,320 --> 00:51:31,160
Speaker 12: that I was supposed to walk, So I walked.

933
00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:31,480
Speaker 5: It in faith.

934
00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:35,239
Speaker 2: That rocks. Oh that's so cool. It really like I yeah,

935
00:51:35,280 --> 00:51:36,920
Speaker 2: You're like, oh, yeah, I guess I'll just be a

936
00:51:36,960 --> 00:51:38,440
Speaker 2: full time choreographer.

937
00:51:38,920 --> 00:51:39,600
Speaker 12: Yeah right.

938
00:51:41,440 --> 00:51:43,600
Speaker 2: And your family was, I mean, your support system. It

939
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:45,480
Speaker 2: sounds like everyone was on board with this too.

940
00:51:45,520 --> 00:51:46,280
Speaker 4: Absolutely.

941
00:51:46,560 --> 00:51:52,400
Speaker 12: Everyone love that this happened like no one would ever imagine.

942
00:51:52,880 --> 00:51:55,840
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty one, there's sort of a whole second

943
00:51:55,960 --> 00:52:00,759
Speaker 2: phase to the Savage challenge that is tied into this

944
00:52:00,880 --> 00:52:08,200
Speaker 2: larger conversation around crediting black artists and this whole labor conversation.

945
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:12,640
Speaker 2: When did you feel sort of the tenor of that conversation.

946
00:52:12,760 --> 00:52:16,279
Speaker 5: Shift the shift? Yeah, I don't know.

947
00:52:16,880 --> 00:52:23,120
Speaker 12: It wasn't like I think once everyone realized like what

948
00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:27,799
Speaker 12: happened with Jilea with the Renegade dance, we all just

949
00:52:27,840 --> 00:52:31,960
Speaker 12: collectively decided we need to start crediting creators because we

950
00:52:32,400 --> 00:52:36,840
Speaker 12: don't need anyone else stealing anybody else's career I guess

951
00:52:36,880 --> 00:52:41,080
Speaker 12: you could say, or just their lifestyle. So I think

952
00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:44,440
Speaker 12: just after that incident, everyone just decided, like, we're going

953
00:52:44,520 --> 00:52:46,760
Speaker 12: to start making sure everybody gives their credit.

954
00:52:47,440 --> 00:52:50,520
Speaker 2: Was crediting? Was that like a conversation you were thinking

955
00:52:50,560 --> 00:52:55,080
Speaker 2: about prior to your dance sort of being picked up

956
00:52:55,080 --> 00:52:56,399
Speaker 2: and becoming this huge thing.

957
00:52:57,160 --> 00:53:01,760
Speaker 5: No, honestly I did not, and so long ago.

958
00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:05,400
Speaker 12: I don't believe I actually may have back then though,

959
00:53:05,520 --> 00:53:09,640
Speaker 12: like I genuinely cannot remember, but I'm gonna say no,

960
00:53:10,480 --> 00:53:15,000
Speaker 12: until everyone knew like, okay, we need to seriously put

961
00:53:15,120 --> 00:53:17,440
Speaker 12: dance creds and then like tag the creator.

962
00:53:18,120 --> 00:53:20,680
Speaker 2: And this is also the year of like the Jimmy

963
00:53:20,719 --> 00:53:23,920
Speaker 2: Fallon appearance and stuff like that. How did that sort

964
00:53:23,960 --> 00:53:25,120
Speaker 2: of come across your desk?

965
00:53:25,840 --> 00:53:33,200
Speaker 12: So Jimmy Fallon was receiving backlash from bringing Charlie on.

966
00:53:33,520 --> 00:53:36,920
Speaker 12: I do believe that's who was on and she was

967
00:53:36,960 --> 00:53:42,520
Speaker 12: doing black people's dances. So everyone did not like that,

968
00:53:42,680 --> 00:53:49,400
Speaker 12: and everyone was definitely going and attacking, so I think

969
00:53:49,520 --> 00:53:51,400
Speaker 12: it was just in his best interest for him to

970
00:53:51,520 --> 00:53:54,799
Speaker 12: just bring us on there and either we do Yeah,

971
00:53:54,840 --> 00:53:57,240
Speaker 12: we did do our dances actually, but it was over zoomed.

972
00:53:57,360 --> 00:54:00,279
Speaker 12: So for me, it was kind of like, dang, she

973
00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:02,320
Speaker 12: still could have like when a person, But of course

974
00:54:02,360 --> 00:54:03,480
Speaker 12: COVID was a thing.

975
00:54:03,440 --> 00:54:07,319
Speaker 5: So yeah, it is what it is, but it was it.

976
00:54:07,320 --> 00:54:10,000
Speaker 12: Was really fun. It was really fun, and it was

977
00:54:10,280 --> 00:54:11,279
Speaker 12: a great experience.

978
00:54:11,800 --> 00:54:13,399
Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean the thing that struck me about

979
00:54:13,400 --> 00:54:15,960
Speaker 2: that was like, I think this is more of just

980
00:54:16,040 --> 00:54:19,600
Speaker 2: like a pr So you have this sort of huge

981
00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:24,080
Speaker 2: burst in followers and work in twenty twenty. Does that

982
00:54:24,520 --> 00:54:27,120
Speaker 2: multiply again in twenty twenty one.

983
00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:33,320
Speaker 12: Yes, and it still does currently. So it's it's definitely

984
00:54:33,440 --> 00:54:37,160
Speaker 12: it's my full time and I'm just so thankful that

985
00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:42,320
Speaker 12: it has continued on and I can continue to entertain

986
00:54:42,360 --> 00:54:43,400
Speaker 12: and inspire people.

987
00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:46,480
Speaker 2: The last thing I wanted your insight on getting your

988
00:54:46,600 --> 00:54:51,560
Speaker 2: dance copyrighted? How did that come about? And how do

989
00:54:51,680 --> 00:54:55,480
Speaker 2: you do that? I'd never heard of that happening on

990
00:54:55,520 --> 00:54:57,719
Speaker 2: the internet before, and it feels like it should just

991
00:54:57,760 --> 00:55:00,520
Speaker 2: be a precedent that exists, So how did that happen?

992
00:55:01,360 --> 00:55:05,319
Speaker 12: Yeah, so the idea was always there to copyright even

993
00:55:05,400 --> 00:55:07,160
Speaker 12: before it was.

994
00:55:07,960 --> 00:55:09,359
Speaker 5: Like said and done.

995
00:55:09,400 --> 00:55:13,400
Speaker 12: I guess that you kind of say. Basically it was

996
00:55:13,960 --> 00:55:18,000
Speaker 12: JaQuel Knights. He's a big choreographer. It was his idea

997
00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:23,040
Speaker 12: to get everyone copyrighted. The process is still in the process,

998
00:55:23,160 --> 00:55:26,240
Speaker 12: so I can't really say much about how it happened,

999
00:55:26,280 --> 00:55:28,520
Speaker 12: how it works and stuff. I just it was just

1000
00:55:28,600 --> 00:55:33,520
Speaker 12: his idea to get everyone's stuff. So I definitely had

1001
00:55:33,520 --> 00:55:36,880
Speaker 12: a copyright my dances because it was just going everywhere,

1002
00:55:36,920 --> 00:55:39,520
Speaker 12: like and it's even in a movie called Dumb Money.

1003
00:55:40,080 --> 00:55:43,480
Speaker 2: So did you compensated for that or yeah?

1004
00:55:43,600 --> 00:55:44,520
Speaker 5: I did. Yes.

1005
00:55:45,080 --> 00:55:49,839
Speaker 12: So it's nice to see like my work and other

1006
00:55:49,920 --> 00:55:53,719
Speaker 12: things and it's it's just so amazing, just like for.

1007
00:55:53,960 --> 00:55:56,880
Speaker 2: My So seeing you sort of be a part of

1008
00:55:56,880 --> 00:55:59,239
Speaker 2: a movement to be like yeah, and you need to.

1009
00:55:59,360 --> 00:56:04,880
Speaker 12: Maybe everyone deserves to get paid for something they've created

1010
00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:05,600
Speaker 12: or worked for.

1011
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:08,759
Speaker 2: So what are you up to right now and is

1012
00:56:08,760 --> 00:56:11,319
Speaker 2: there anything that you are like looking forward to or

1013
00:56:11,360 --> 00:56:13,240
Speaker 2: want to get into moving forward?

1014
00:56:14,040 --> 00:56:17,520
Speaker 12: So currently I am a stay at home mommy and

1015
00:56:17,719 --> 00:56:20,880
Speaker 12: I still am a full time time content creator. Of course,

1016
00:56:22,640 --> 00:56:26,640
Speaker 12: right now, I am just trying to transition my content

1017
00:56:26,920 --> 00:56:31,800
Speaker 12: to family lifestyle, but obviously dance is always.

1018
00:56:31,440 --> 00:56:32,279
Speaker 5: Going to be a part of me.

1019
00:56:33,040 --> 00:56:36,880
Speaker 12: Really, my goals are for myself and my family is

1020
00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:40,600
Speaker 12: we're trying to punch hard on YouTube. We're trying to

1021
00:56:40,840 --> 00:56:45,680
Speaker 12: just get more traction on YouTube, get more travel type

1022
00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:51,360
Speaker 12: deals and stuff like that, you know, so more family

1023
00:56:51,440 --> 00:56:55,160
Speaker 12: things because I absolutely love my family.

1024
00:56:57,000 --> 00:57:00,279
Speaker 2: To stay in the influencer space, but switch to something

1025
00:57:00,320 --> 00:57:02,080
Speaker 2: that matches more of what your life looks like.

1026
00:57:02,239 --> 00:57:05,480
Speaker 12: Now, yeah, absolutely, that was a great way of putting it. Yes,

1027
00:57:05,560 --> 00:57:08,720
Speaker 12: that is exactly because that is literally my life.

1028
00:57:09,239 --> 00:57:11,719
Speaker 2: Thank you so much to Kiara Wilson, whose work you

1029
00:57:11,760 --> 00:57:16,680
Speaker 2: can follow now over at keykey dot ja na Jah

1030
00:57:16,800 --> 00:57:20,439
Speaker 2: on TikTok and YouTube. I really hope the copyright works

1031
00:57:20,440 --> 00:57:22,480
Speaker 2: out and we will be right back with more on

1032
00:57:22,640 --> 00:57:40,240
Speaker 2: why this is actually the computer's fault. Welcome back to

1033
00:57:40,280 --> 00:57:43,000
Speaker 2: sixteenth minute. I was at a hospital recently and there

1034
00:57:43,080 --> 00:57:45,800
Speaker 2: was this choir of church ladies that came every Tuesday

1035
00:57:45,880 --> 00:57:49,040
Speaker 2: night and would just sing outside everyone's room, one by one,

1036
00:57:49,120 --> 00:57:51,640
Speaker 2: without ever asking if you wanted them to. They didn't

1037
00:57:51,640 --> 00:57:54,640
Speaker 2: take requests, they wouldn't stop singing aba, and I felt

1038
00:57:54,680 --> 00:57:58,200
Speaker 2: awkward and started dancing supportively, and so they just kept

1039
00:57:58,240 --> 00:58:01,600
Speaker 2: singing get a life, ladies. No one likes it. And

1040
00:58:01,640 --> 00:58:04,000
Speaker 2: today on the podcast we are talking about something that

1041
00:58:04,040 --> 00:58:05,959
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with that. We are talking about

1042
00:58:06,040 --> 00:58:08,640
Speaker 2: the black TikTok strike of twenty twenty one. And I

1043
00:58:08,680 --> 00:58:11,840
Speaker 2: hope that after hearing from Kiara Wilson and Amanda Bennett,

1044
00:58:11,880 --> 00:58:14,480
Speaker 2: you have a better idea of the cultural forces that

1045
00:58:14,640 --> 00:58:17,720
Speaker 2: led to black users having to fight to be credited

1046
00:58:17,920 --> 00:58:21,280
Speaker 2: for their own work. But I still had questions about

1047
00:58:21,320 --> 00:58:26,480
Speaker 2: how this was enabled through algorithms. Fortunately, biases in algorithms

1048
00:58:26,560 --> 00:58:29,160
Speaker 2: is a fast growing area of study and there's no

1049
00:58:29,240 --> 00:58:31,760
Speaker 2: shortage of reporting on the issue. One of the leading

1050
00:58:31,840 --> 00:58:35,640
Speaker 2: voices on this issue is black poet of code, Joy Bollamwini,

1051
00:58:35,920 --> 00:58:39,440
Speaker 2: the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League and author of

1052
00:58:39,640 --> 00:58:43,280
Speaker 2: Unmasking AI, My mission to protect what is human in

1053
00:58:43,320 --> 00:58:45,840
Speaker 2: a world of machines. She was inspired to do all

1054
00:58:45,880 --> 00:58:48,920
Speaker 2: of the above while in grad school at MIT, when

1055
00:58:48,960 --> 00:58:51,880
Speaker 2: she had a first hand experience of the basic racism

1056
00:58:52,040 --> 00:58:54,920
Speaker 2: that's cooked into our algorithms. She was trying to design

1057
00:58:54,960 --> 00:58:57,960
Speaker 2: a mirror that would detect a user's face and provide

1058
00:58:58,000 --> 00:59:01,680
Speaker 2: a positive affirmation and the art. Joy used a generic

1059
00:59:01,720 --> 00:59:04,560
Speaker 2: line of face detection code, only to find that it

1060
00:59:04,600 --> 00:59:07,800
Speaker 2: didn't detect her face, and then when she put on

1061
00:59:07,840 --> 00:59:11,080
Speaker 2: a creepy V for Vendetta style white mask on, it

1062
00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:15,040
Speaker 2: suddenly did detect her face. The algorithm had not been

1063
00:59:15,080 --> 00:59:18,680
Speaker 2: designed to recognize her as a person. This is from

1064
00:59:18,680 --> 00:59:20,760
Speaker 2: a TED talk she did back in twenty seventeen.

1065
00:59:21,000 --> 00:59:25,080
Speaker 3: So I used generic facial recognition software to build the system,

1066
00:59:25,440 --> 00:59:27,960
Speaker 3: but found that it was really hard to test it

1067
00:59:28,320 --> 00:59:32,480
Speaker 3: unless if I wore a white mask. Unfortunately, I've run

1068
00:59:32,640 --> 00:59:34,280
Speaker 3: into this issue before.

1069
00:59:34,800 --> 00:59:38,560
Speaker 2: Another terrific writer on this topic is Meredith Broussard, author

1070
00:59:38,680 --> 00:59:42,160
Speaker 2: of More Than a Glitch, Confronting race, gender, and ability

1071
00:59:42,160 --> 00:59:45,919
Speaker 2: bias in Tech. She's currently an associate professor at NYU

1072
00:59:46,080 --> 00:59:48,960
Speaker 2: and the Research director at the NYU Alliance for Public

1073
00:59:49,000 --> 00:59:53,240
Speaker 2: Interest Technology, and she tackles algorithmic bias from all sides.

1074
00:59:53,320 --> 00:59:58,120
Speaker 2: She examines how racism, transphobia, classism, and more are features

1075
00:59:58,160 --> 01:00:01,120
Speaker 2: of these systems, not bugs. And so I asked her

1076
01:00:01,240 --> 01:00:05,240
Speaker 2: how algorithms like TikTok can get away with it. Important

1077
01:00:05,280 --> 01:00:07,880
Speaker 2: sort of repeating theme in your book is the way

1078
01:00:08,160 --> 01:00:12,920
Speaker 2: that algorithms just in general are presented by the people

1079
01:00:12,920 --> 01:00:18,720
Speaker 2: who design them as this impartial thing that can theoretically

1080
01:00:18,880 --> 01:00:23,680
Speaker 2: make decisions better than a human and all of their biases,

1081
01:00:24,360 --> 01:00:29,919
Speaker 2: and you pretty cleanly deconstruct why that is what would

1082
01:00:29,920 --> 01:00:34,200
Speaker 2: need to happen for an algorithm to work cleanly? Is

1083
01:00:34,240 --> 01:00:34,920
Speaker 2: it possible?

1084
01:00:35,640 --> 01:00:39,840
Speaker 9: You know, sometimes it's possible and sometimes it's not. So

1085
01:00:40,160 --> 01:00:44,440
Speaker 9: we get into this binary thinking sometimes when it comes

1086
01:00:44,480 --> 01:00:52,280
Speaker 9: to computers solving problems, and the world is not always binary.

1087
01:00:52,360 --> 01:00:54,680
Speaker 9: So I would say two things. I would say that

1088
01:00:55,160 --> 01:01:00,200
Speaker 9: all of the problems that are easy to solve using

1089
01:00:59,800 --> 01:01:05,760
Speaker 9: algorithms or using code have been solved, and we are

1090
01:01:05,800 --> 01:01:11,560
Speaker 9: only left with the really complicated problems. So we are

1091
01:01:11,680 --> 01:01:18,760
Speaker 9: in a very different era right now, and using mathematical

1092
01:01:18,840 --> 01:01:25,040
Speaker 9: methods to solve social problems is not always a good strategy.

1093
01:01:25,560 --> 01:01:32,480
Speaker 9: A computer can only calculate mathematical fairness, and mathematical fairness

1094
01:01:32,640 --> 01:01:36,760
Speaker 9: is not the same as social justice. So this explains

1095
01:01:36,800 --> 01:01:40,280
Speaker 9: why we've run into so many problems when we try

1096
01:01:40,280 --> 01:01:46,240
Speaker 9: and use computers to solve social problems. So computer is

1097
01:01:46,280 --> 01:01:50,520
Speaker 9: not the right tool for every task. It's about the context,

1098
01:01:50,720 --> 01:01:55,080
Speaker 9: and we just need a more nuanced approach to computational

1099
01:01:55,120 --> 01:01:55,800
Speaker 9: problem solving.

1100
01:01:56,160 --> 01:01:59,080
Speaker 2: So I'm curious if you have thoughts on how social

1101
01:01:59,120 --> 01:02:01,040
Speaker 2: media has us algorithms.

1102
01:02:01,280 --> 01:02:03,920
Speaker 9: So I think that there are a couple of things

1103
01:02:03,920 --> 01:02:07,880
Speaker 9: going on. I think that we should talk about our

1104
01:02:07,920 --> 01:02:14,640
Speaker 9: shared fantasies around what social media algorithms can do, and

1105
01:02:14,680 --> 01:02:19,520
Speaker 9: then we should also talk about the effect that people

1106
01:02:19,920 --> 01:02:24,080
Speaker 9: using algorithms has on the information ecosystem. At the beginning

1107
01:02:24,120 --> 01:02:27,880
Speaker 9: of the social media era, there was this collective fantasy

1108
01:02:28,680 --> 01:02:33,720
Speaker 9: that somehow was going to be possible to make algorithms,

1109
01:02:33,760 --> 01:02:40,160
Speaker 9: that we're going to govern our social interaction spaces, That

1110
01:02:40,440 --> 01:02:46,560
Speaker 9: the algorithms were going to replace the curation function of journalists,

1111
01:02:46,600 --> 01:02:50,440
Speaker 9: That algorithms were going to be able to mediate conversations,

1112
01:02:50,440 --> 01:02:53,840
Speaker 9: that algorithms are going to be able to bring people together,

1113
01:02:54,000 --> 01:02:59,760
Speaker 9: that the algorithmic spaces were going to replace irl spaces.

1114
01:03:00,240 --> 01:03:06,080
Speaker 9: And this collective fantasy was so compelling so many people

1115
01:03:06,120 --> 01:03:10,120
Speaker 9: believed it that people started to act as if that

1116
01:03:10,240 --> 01:03:14,960
Speaker 9: were happening, right, as if that were true. But the

1117
01:03:15,040 --> 01:03:19,240
Speaker 9: algorithms do a really bad job, right, and so now

1118
01:03:19,440 --> 01:03:25,840
Speaker 9: we're left with what we have now, which is misinformation, chaos,

1119
01:03:26,560 --> 01:03:32,680
Speaker 9: journalists without jobs, compromise democracy. It's partly about the collective fantasy.

1120
01:03:32,800 --> 01:03:38,800
Speaker 9: But it's partly about what happens when people use systems

1121
01:03:38,960 --> 01:03:43,760
Speaker 9: and the systems change human behavior, but then also the

1122
01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:47,040
Speaker 9: systems changed to adapt to what the people are doing

1123
01:03:47,080 --> 01:03:51,200
Speaker 9: in them. One of the ideas that I really rely

1124
01:03:51,280 --> 01:03:54,600
Speaker 9: on heavily is something that comes from Rehab Benjamin's book

1125
01:03:54,680 --> 01:03:58,360
Speaker 9: Race After Technology, and this is the idea that algorithmic

1126
01:03:58,480 --> 01:04:03,720
Speaker 9: systems discriminate by default. Right, So, for a very long time,

1127
01:04:03,800 --> 01:04:07,480
Speaker 9: there was this perception out there that algorithms were neutral

1128
01:04:07,560 --> 01:04:11,240
Speaker 9: or unbiased or objective, and that's a kind of pro

1129
01:04:11,440 --> 01:04:14,840
Speaker 9: technology bias that I call technoschauvinism, and.

1130
01:04:15,480 --> 01:04:16,640
Speaker 5: It's not at all true.

1131
01:04:16,760 --> 01:04:21,320
Speaker 9: Technological solutions are not necessarily superior to others. It's about

1132
01:04:21,360 --> 01:04:23,800
Speaker 9: the right tool for the task. And sometimes the right

1133
01:04:23,800 --> 01:04:27,320
Speaker 9: tool for the task is undoubtedly a computer, and sometimes

1134
01:04:27,320 --> 01:04:29,160
Speaker 9: it's something simple like a book in the hands of

1135
01:04:29,160 --> 01:04:31,120
Speaker 9: a child sitting at a parent's lap. One is not

1136
01:04:31,240 --> 01:04:34,560
Speaker 9: inherently better than the other. Right, So we can push

1137
01:04:34,600 --> 01:04:38,640
Speaker 9: back against technoschauvinism, and if we adopt the frame that

1138
01:04:38,840 --> 01:04:46,680
Speaker 9: algorithmic systems discriminate by default, well, we can see the

1139
01:04:46,800 --> 01:04:50,880
Speaker 9: poor treatment of marginalized groups on the internet. In a

1140
01:04:50,920 --> 01:04:54,880
Speaker 9: different light, we can see it as inevitable. Right, So

1141
01:04:55,880 --> 01:05:00,240
Speaker 9: if we assume that there is going to be a

1142
01:05:00,280 --> 01:05:03,400
Speaker 9: lot of sexism, that there are not going to be

1143
01:05:03,640 --> 01:05:07,960
Speaker 9: protections for women in or appropriate protections for women in

1144
01:05:08,000 --> 01:05:11,720
Speaker 9: online spaces the way that there are not appropriate protections

1145
01:05:11,920 --> 01:05:16,040
Speaker 9: in the real world, well then you know we're a

1146
01:05:16,080 --> 01:05:21,080
Speaker 9: little more prepared when these things happen. So something that

1147
01:05:21,120 --> 01:05:25,640
Speaker 9: I think about a lot is I think about stack overflow,

1148
01:05:26,080 --> 01:05:30,800
Speaker 9: which is this website that has a lot of answers

1149
01:05:30,840 --> 01:05:38,560
Speaker 9: to programming questions. And the profession of professional computer programmers

1150
01:05:38,680 --> 01:05:42,480
Speaker 9: could not exist at this point without stack overflow because

1151
01:05:42,720 --> 01:05:48,000
Speaker 9: everybody goes there to look up answers to code questions

1152
01:05:48,120 --> 01:05:52,080
Speaker 9: and ask code questions, and it has this like pretty

1153
01:05:52,160 --> 01:05:57,160
Speaker 9: dreadful and toxic climate. And I always wondered, well, why

1154
01:05:57,520 --> 01:06:01,560
Speaker 9: is this thing so essential and yet so And then

1155
01:06:01,640 --> 01:06:05,840
Speaker 9: I looked one time at a at a survey of

1156
01:06:05,960 --> 01:06:10,000
Speaker 9: who are the people on stack overflow, and it turns

1157
01:06:10,040 --> 01:06:16,120
Speaker 9: out it's mostly like twenty something guys, and I was like, oh, well,

1158
01:06:16,440 --> 01:06:21,440
Speaker 9: this explains a lot about why I have always felt,

1159
01:06:21,720 --> 01:06:25,760
Speaker 9: you know, unwelcome as a woman of color who is

1160
01:06:25,800 --> 01:06:30,280
Speaker 9: no longer in her twenties, So the fact that this

1161
01:06:30,800 --> 01:06:37,480
Speaker 9: really essential resource on the Internet is populated by people

1162
01:06:37,560 --> 01:06:42,080
Speaker 9: being unpleasant to each other, it says a lot to

1163
01:06:42,120 --> 01:06:47,640
Speaker 9: me about what the dominant culture is among the people

1164
01:06:47,720 --> 01:06:50,320
Speaker 9: who make Internet technologies.

1165
01:06:50,600 --> 01:06:52,760
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask a little bit as well, how

1166
01:06:53,520 --> 01:06:59,960
Speaker 2: algorithms have a consistent tendency to conspire against some target

1167
01:07:00,080 --> 01:07:00,880
Speaker 2: people of color.

1168
01:07:01,160 --> 01:07:04,840
Speaker 9: I think it goes back to this idea of discrimination

1169
01:07:05,000 --> 01:07:09,400
Speaker 9: by default. So let's take facial recognition and let's think

1170
01:07:09,440 --> 01:07:14,360
Speaker 9: about the historical view. So facial recognition, a kind of

1171
01:07:14,520 --> 01:07:20,120
Speaker 9: AI technology that we have today, is biased against people

1172
01:07:20,160 --> 01:07:22,920
Speaker 9: with darker skin. It's better at recognizing men than women.

1173
01:07:23,720 --> 01:07:27,520
Speaker 9: I Trans and non binary folks are generally not recognized

1174
01:07:27,560 --> 01:07:31,160
Speaker 9: at all, better at recognized people light skin people.

1175
01:07:30,920 --> 01:07:31,480
Speaker 4: With dark skin.

1176
01:07:32,080 --> 01:07:38,760
Speaker 9: So facial recognition technologies are built on earlier technologies. So

1177
01:07:40,040 --> 01:07:44,480
Speaker 9: computer vision as a field is built on top of

1178
01:07:46,760 --> 01:07:53,080
Speaker 9: color photography. Color photography, of course, was preceded by black

1179
01:07:53,120 --> 01:07:57,760
Speaker 9: and white photography, and at every step of the way

1180
01:07:58,840 --> 01:08:04,880
Speaker 9: there has been profound racism in the representation, and so

1181
01:08:04,960 --> 01:08:08,840
Speaker 9: we see that continuing today. Let's go back to color film.

1182
01:08:09,000 --> 01:08:14,000
Speaker 9: When Kodak developed it was a big revolution, but it

1183
01:08:14,080 --> 01:08:19,320
Speaker 9: was tuned for light skin, so labs were given these

1184
01:08:19,320 --> 01:08:24,160
Speaker 9: things called Shirley cards, which featured a white woman named Shirley,

1185
01:08:24,760 --> 01:08:28,160
Speaker 9: usually holding like pillows or balloons or something in primary colors.

1186
01:08:28,520 --> 01:08:31,040
Speaker 9: And these are the cards that labs were supposed to

1187
01:08:31,120 --> 01:08:35,759
Speaker 9: use to tune their color photography equipment. But the Shirley

1188
01:08:35,800 --> 01:08:38,880
Speaker 9: cards did not include a range of browns, and so

1189
01:08:40,320 --> 01:08:44,880
Speaker 9: browns came out muddy in color photos. And this persisted

1190
01:08:45,080 --> 01:08:49,200
Speaker 9: through the nineteen seventies, and in the nineteen seventies Kodak

1191
01:08:49,320 --> 01:08:56,160
Speaker 9: finally started including a range of browns on the color

1192
01:08:56,479 --> 01:09:01,160
Speaker 9: tuning cards, and darker skinned people looked better in photographs. Well,

1193
01:09:01,240 --> 01:09:06,519
Speaker 9: this was not because Kodak had some kind of racial

1194
01:09:06,560 --> 01:09:11,360
Speaker 9: reckoning or some kind of a weakening. It was because

1195
01:09:11,479 --> 01:09:18,479
Speaker 9: furniture makers complained. Furniture makers refused to switch over from

1196
01:09:18,600 --> 01:09:22,080
Speaker 9: black and white catalog photography to color photography and the

1197
01:09:22,120 --> 01:09:29,240
Speaker 9: catalogs because they complained that their walnut and mahogany furniture

1198
01:09:29,720 --> 01:09:34,160
Speaker 9: looked money. So Kodak responded to the furniture and manufacturers,

1199
01:09:34,520 --> 01:09:38,519
Speaker 9: not to the millions of people. We see this same

1200
01:09:38,600 --> 01:09:42,280
Speaker 9: problem happening then, not just in color photography, but it

1201
01:09:42,320 --> 01:09:48,560
Speaker 9: also happened in uh cinematography. One of the big revolutions

1202
01:09:48,840 --> 01:09:52,719
Speaker 9: of Isa's show Insecure was there were all these articles

1203
01:09:52,760 --> 01:09:56,000
Speaker 9: written about like how the lighting was so great because

1204
01:09:56,120 --> 01:09:58,599
Speaker 9: guess what that a black cinematographer who had like did

1205
01:09:58,600 --> 01:10:02,120
Speaker 9: the lighting so that people with darker skin looked fantastic.

1206
01:10:02,439 --> 01:10:05,960
Speaker 9: So all of these all of these things have been

1207
01:10:06,000 --> 01:10:12,000
Speaker 9: happening all along. It's not really surprising that facial recognition

1208
01:10:12,320 --> 01:10:18,520
Speaker 9: had these kinds of problems because all the predecessor technologies

1209
01:10:18,560 --> 01:10:19,679
Speaker 9: had these kinds of problems.

1210
01:10:19,720 --> 01:10:20,839
Speaker 2: And so what you need.

1211
01:10:20,680 --> 01:10:26,120
Speaker 9: To do is you need to examine what's going on

1212
01:10:26,240 --> 01:10:29,360
Speaker 9: in the underlying social system. So when we have you know,

1213
01:10:29,479 --> 01:10:31,880
Speaker 9: like the gender Shades project that reveals this big flaw

1214
01:10:32,040 --> 01:10:35,599
Speaker 9: and facial facial recognition, people like to talk about that

1215
01:10:35,840 --> 01:10:40,360
Speaker 9: as a glitch, as something that is easily fixed, you know,

1216
01:10:40,600 --> 01:10:43,720
Speaker 9: just just oh, let's just like write a ticket for

1217
01:10:43,800 --> 01:10:44,960
Speaker 9: it and just fix it.

1218
01:10:44,960 --> 01:10:46,679
Speaker 2: It's it's a blip, it's not important.

1219
01:10:46,720 --> 01:10:49,800
Speaker 9: But my argument is that we should look at things

1220
01:10:49,840 --> 01:10:54,800
Speaker 9: like this as indicative of larger social problems, and it's

1221
01:10:54,840 --> 01:10:56,880
Speaker 9: an indicator that we need to step take a step

1222
01:10:56,920 --> 01:11:02,519
Speaker 9: back and reassess what's going on socially. In addition to

1223
01:11:03,160 --> 01:11:05,800
Speaker 9: rebuilding the code, and rebuilding the code, by the way,

1224
01:11:06,080 --> 01:11:09,960
Speaker 9: is always way more expensive and time consuming and complicated

1225
01:11:10,000 --> 01:11:11,000
Speaker 9: than anybody imagines.

1226
01:11:11,960 --> 01:11:14,679
Speaker 2: Thank you so much again to Meredith Broussard. I cannot

1227
01:11:14,720 --> 01:11:17,960
Speaker 2: recommend her book more than a glitch confronting race, gender,

1228
01:11:18,000 --> 01:11:21,760
Speaker 2: and ability bias in tech enough. Ultimately, it's hard to

1229
01:11:21,800 --> 01:11:25,240
Speaker 2: determine how successful the Black TikTok strike of twenty twenty

1230
01:11:25,240 --> 01:11:28,160
Speaker 2: one was. Online boycotts of an app as dominant as

1231
01:11:28,240 --> 01:11:30,960
Speaker 2: TikTok are extremely hard to make a dent in, at

1232
01:11:31,040 --> 01:11:33,360
Speaker 2: least for now, because as I record this, there's a

1233
01:11:33,360 --> 01:11:36,280
Speaker 2: possibility it won't be available in the US much longer.

1234
01:11:36,360 --> 01:11:40,160
Speaker 2: But the strike was a critical inflection point. Black TikTokers

1235
01:11:40,200 --> 01:11:43,240
Speaker 2: were sick of getting lip service from the platform, the media,

1236
01:11:43,640 --> 01:11:47,040
Speaker 2: and the white TikTokers ripping them off. It's an ongoing fight,

1237
01:11:47,360 --> 01:11:50,879
Speaker 2: but this was an important battle. Crediting choreographers on TikTok

1238
01:11:51,000 --> 01:11:54,960
Speaker 2: has improved, if not changed entirely, because of stories like

1239
01:11:55,080 --> 01:11:59,600
Speaker 2: Kiara Wilson and Julia Harmon. Creators will fight back, and

1240
01:11:59,600 --> 01:12:02,320
Speaker 2: there's no shortage of things to fight for. Racism in

1241
01:12:02,400 --> 01:12:06,040
Speaker 2: the TikTok algorithm persists. Many cited a continuation of the

1242
01:12:06,040 --> 01:12:10,280
Speaker 2: strike after creators found themselves being flagged for quote inappropriate

1243
01:12:10,320 --> 01:12:13,439
Speaker 2: content unquote every time they used the word black in

1244
01:12:13,479 --> 01:12:16,679
Speaker 2: their bio. The influencer pay gap is very much a thing,

1245
01:12:16,840 --> 01:12:19,840
Speaker 2: and after TikTok pledged to hire more black employees back

1246
01:12:19,880 --> 01:12:23,559
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty years later, reports that racism still persisted

1247
01:12:23,600 --> 01:12:26,200
Speaker 2: within the company and that employees concerns were not taken

1248
01:12:26,280 --> 01:12:30,080
Speaker 2: seriously came to light and appropriation is still happening in

1249
01:12:30,120 --> 01:12:33,880
Speaker 2: TikTok choreography. Major atte dances from black choreographers have been

1250
01:12:33,920 --> 01:12:39,040
Speaker 2: slowly overtaken by algorithm provided white girls. Again just last year,

1251
01:12:39,240 --> 01:12:43,000
Speaker 2: another historically black dance style being lifted. But June twenty

1252
01:12:43,040 --> 01:12:46,519
Speaker 2: twenty one was an exciting moment for labor, for racial

1253
01:12:46,680 --> 01:12:50,200
Speaker 2: justice and for creators demanding to be treated barely. The

1254
01:12:50,240 --> 01:12:52,240
Speaker 2: Internet should not forget about it, and I hope it's

1255
01:12:52,280 --> 01:12:55,479
Speaker 2: inspiration for further action the Black TikTok strike of twenty

1256
01:12:55,520 --> 01:12:59,719
Speaker 2: twenty one. Your sixteenth minute ends when our algorithms aren't

1257
01:12:59,760 --> 01:13:05,200
Speaker 2: don shit anymore. Thank you so much for listening to

1258
01:13:05,200 --> 01:13:08,200
Speaker 2: sixteenth minute, and if you enjoyed this episode, support our

1259
01:13:08,240 --> 01:13:11,080
Speaker 2: guests and keep learning about the myriad ways that algorithms

1260
01:13:11,080 --> 01:13:14,519
Speaker 2: amplify racism with works like Meredith Brizard's more Than a Glitch,

1261
01:13:14,760 --> 01:13:18,160
Speaker 2: Algorithms of Oppression by Sophia Omosha Noble and the Great

1262
01:13:18,320 --> 01:13:25,479
Speaker 2: joy Bolamwini's Unmasking Ai. Here's that hospital choir singing Abba God, you.

1263
01:13:25,880 --> 01:13:33,880
Speaker 13: Can, you can job having the time of your love. Oh,

1264
01:13:37,160 --> 01:14:00,240
Speaker 13: watch that scene, dancing, Watch that scene, dig in the dancing.

1265
01:13:57,000 --> 01:13:57,200
Speaker 4: Could.

1266
01:14:04,000 --> 01:14:07,600
Speaker 2: Sixteenth Minute is a production of fool Zone Media and iHeartRadio.

1267
01:14:08,160 --> 01:14:11,479
Speaker 2: It is written, posted, and produced by me Jamie Loftus.

1268
01:14:11,680 --> 01:14:15,080
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Sophie Lichtman and Robert Evans Lee.

1269
01:14:15,200 --> 01:14:19,080
Speaker 2: Izzie ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor.

1270
01:14:19,640 --> 01:14:23,439
Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Sad thirteen and Pet. Shout

1271
01:14:23,479 --> 01:14:26,160
Speaker 2: outs to our dog producer Anderson my Kat's Flee and

1272
01:14:26,240 --> 01:14:29,759
Speaker 2: Casper and by Pet Rockbert who will outlive us all Bye.