Twitter may be no more, but a new docuseries from Prentice Penny shows Black Twitter’s influence is forever

Twitter may no longer be Twitter, but the presence of Black Twitter is still being felt.

Twitter may no longer be Twitter, but the presence of Black Twitter is still being felt. If you doubt that, just hop over to X (the platform formally known as Twitter) and search for the recent hip-hop beef involving Drake and Kendrick Lamar. That drama is just the type of thing that Black Twitter has sunk its teeth into with memes and pithy quotes. But there is also a history of serious cultural commentary that has spotlighted inequality and injustice, like the tragic deaths of teens Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin. All of that is documented by producer and director Prentice Penny in the new Hulu limited docuseries, “Black Twitter: A People’s History.” Penny, who both admires and participates in Black Twitter, told CNN the project came along at a time when he was looking “to chase that feeling of being scared again.” “I also wanted a project that wasn’t gonna be compared immediately to what I had just done,” Penny, whose recent credits include serving as the showrunner for the HBO comedy “Insecure,” said. “They brought me this article in the fall of 2021, and I was like ‘I love Black Twitter. I would love to do something in this space.’” That article was a retrospective of Black Twitter, written for Wired by journalist Jason Parham, which serves as the foundation for the three-episode docuseries.