What Buzzfeed Failure Reveal About the Future of Black Content
Buzzfeed is struggling as a content operation, constantly doing layoffs and cost-cutting measures. The latest news at the time of this article Buzzfeed closing down its news division. Buzzfeed was a really crappy clickbait platform that tried to take itself seriously. What we see going on with Buzzfeed is an indicator of these joke Black content platforms from Black Enterprise to Blavity – all of them were a joke.
If you look at Black content platforms, overall, they were co-opted by white liberals and DEI corporatists and were never organic within the Black community. Even those that started in the Black community, the problem still exists where we had inexperienced, lame loser content creators who are Black trying to wordsmith a Black narrative when me and you can see what they discussing is a nothing-burger with no substance, no beef.
Why Black Content Platforms Also Failing
I wrote last year there are two major shifts that will take down these lame Black content platforms out here trying to look like an authority on Black narratives. The first major problem is rising interest rates – remember these Black cornballs were bragging about getting VC financing and “getting the bag” when they actually financed the bag with a buy-now-pay-later program. It was cheap money with next to zero interest going around so that is why a lot of cornball Black folks showed up bragging they got “financing” and started talking about their “valuations” like that Brian Brackeen clown.
Now that interest rates are high, the cheap money is gone and VCs and investors are moving their money elsewhere so all those clowns that didn’t build their cash flow from the bottom and fake it – they ain’t going to make it.
The second factor is advertisers have moved to video ads and influencer sponsorships away from these content platforms. Think about that ugly-looking dude tranny and the Bud Light episode – man, they are always stealing from Black people, first, they stole Little Richard style and now these White trannys are stealing from Tyler Perry and RuPaul. The Bud Light was not even a commercial – it was just some weird-looking guy dressed up as a woman holding a Bud Light can in an Instagram post. The fact that Instagram post created so much of a reaction with Bud Light show you the power of using social media influencers for marketing.
Black Content Revolution - Kevin Samuels and Passport Bros
The good thing is Black content has actually evolved into something better than the Blavity cornball nonsense where they at Blavity acted like they were the narrative talking up “click views” to gaslight us to think Blavity was something other than a corporate-sponsored joke.
Organic Black content creators like Kevin Samuels notably, created their own platform and stage using YouTube and social media and drew in a Black audience. Most of them talk about relationships or comedy, typical topics among the low-frequency Black folks out here but the point was we saw organic Black content growth, something we have not really seen before.
Black people were fully engaged in these Black content creators who used YouTube and social media to publish and distribute their works to a Black audience that engaged with the content, engaged with each other as a community, and shared the content among their social network connections. That is the revolution we are in today and that fact will never be televised on BET or these cornball Black content platforms.
The passport bro movement did something that we all have not seen before in the Black community. The movement triggered Black women who thought they can run that “Black feminist” BS the sistas relied on the gay community and liberals to sponsor them attacking Black men. Because when Black men said they getting passports and leaving the country to find a nice Latina, African, Asian, and European chick as an alternative – these Black feminists lost their minds because the Black man removed himself from the Black feminist equation altogether.
The passport bro movement also upstage these fake Black nationalists who always talking about Black unity and Black upliftment but weren’t doing anything but talking. When brothas adopted SYSBM or save yourself, Black man, that means these brothas no longer cared about the plantations and the Matrix. That means Brothas not voting for Stacy Abrams just because. That means brothas leaving the Black church and Black nationalists that failed the Black community now ridden with gun-toting teens killing and robbing Black folks every day. These were all underlying flash points Black men put up with but said no more – they get a passport.
Now we see everybody trying to get into the “passport bro” topic from crazed Black women hoping to shame Black men from leaving the Black community to simps who have to stay on the plantation, to clown brothas who haven’t built up anything, they just traveled somewhere and talking on the topic like they can lead and guide. We got a whole bunch of Black people now jumping on an organic Black topic and creating their own movement and direction. Think about the sheer number of passports being requested 500,000 a day – that is unprecedented and show that Black men are serious about leaving and kicking American Black women to the curb.
The Black Content Revolution Has Just Begun
We are actually in a wonderful era in this part of the 21st century – the content revolution. The old way was Black Enterprise magazine and those punk clowns working there deciding what Black entrepreneur they want to spotlight or which Black entrepreneur they want to ignore. They were abusing their Black content platform to pick and choose who to cover and Blavity is doing the same nonsense. Most of these Black content platforms need permission to cover certain Black people by liberals and corporatists and that is why you don’t see coverage of strong Black men. If anything, they work to vilify strong Black men from coverage in these Black content platforms.
In the new era, Black content creators are publishing the true voice, the true pulse of Black people. What is nice is the content range is limitless. Now we can start having real conversations. One of the things I have pointed out is Black people should just early withdraw and cash out their retirement and focus on creating content right now. The reason is obvious to anybody who is a Black person – most of us won’t live to be Black and 72 years old and if we do, our quality of health and our situation is not going to let us enjoy the retirement money. Instead, focus on what move you can make in your 40s and 50s right now and create content that you can keep selling past your lifetime like advice books, software licenses, and video instructions - those residuals and royalties are your real retirement plan.
Why We Design Our New Platform Around Contributors
We have designed our new platform around contributors to face the new paradigm and opportunity of content. You will not see me walking around like Monique DeBaum ditzy behind talking about numbers like she got 80 million views or got VC funding trying to pretend she running anything other than what looks like a zombie company. Blavity is unauthentic and a bunch of pompous Black writers who think they can speak on Black people better than Black people can speak for themselves and we can speak to each other.
Our new platform is based on the YouTube model of monetization of content creators or user-generated content. We allow content creators to be free to create and express themselves and let the market determine who to put on. When it comes to content, we use contextual algorithms, not some Boule “I like this Black person as a representation” nonsense you see with stuff like Essence and Black Enterprise.
By focusing on algorithms, we bring up the true content creators, we pay the true content creators and our sponsors focus on contextual matching instead of the old failed Black content model that relied on corporatists and liberals to prop up. We are going to move forward where we support content by contributors as a plan for them to side-hustle, to full-hustle to a retirement plan like a Hollywood actor, book author, or music artist still receiving royalties in their old age.
Zombie Black content media companies will fail just like Buzzfeed and real Black folks will start speaking for themselves. We are in a new content gold rush and that is the era we are in – start modifying your future plans.