Somehow the body disappeared when I posted this so I am going to copy my comment that inspired the post:
This community doesn’t fit Lemmy. Why are we segregating tweets? I’ll bet the mods here don’t even know why /r/whitepeopletwitter existed in the first place because if they did, they’d know we don’t “need” it here. It’s arguably worse if they don’t know because they’re separating tweets by race for no fucking reason
Seriously just delete this community and use microblogmemes or whatever. Can’t believe this reddit shit got copied over here.
I’d respectfully disagree. The X people Twitter communities are for people who grew up within the context of their race to talk about things that are relevant to that race.
A lot of blackpeopletwitter posts wouldn’t “do well” (receive upvotes) if they are presented to a general (mixed race) audience, simply because the majority of people may not relate to it. Therefore, there is a demand for black voices to speak to black voices. This extends to all races–my wife is Mexican, so I’ll hop into latinopeopletwitter on occasion.
So why stop whitepeopletwitter? Unless there’s something exclusionary/ problematic/ Nazi-adjacent happening, it seems like a good way for stereotypical white peeps to make dumb jokes about meatloaf. Micro blog memes has a similar-ish vibe, but that’s mostly because the site is mostly white lol.
“But there’s no such thing as “white culture” in the same way that black culture in America developed from having their cultural identity taken away, and being forced to create new traditions to navigate slavery, civil rights, and modern America! They already have cultural traditions tied to their country of origin, like Germans or Irish celebrations!”
Yup! But the concept of “whiteness” is becoming a thing, and it’s fun to make memes about. That’s all.
Your examples make some sense for reddit because all of those subreddits are big - but we’re on Lemmy where none of those communities are big enough to necessitate separating them. I’ve never looked for Latinopeopletwitter but blackpeopletwitter is dead here
I also completely disagree that posts from other races don’t do well. People of all races LOVED blackpeopletwitter because it was funny as hell. The main dividing line on Twitter posts is political vs non-political.
Plus, we’re talking about screenshots of tweets…not actual discourse.
Sorry about the long post, it’s mostly quotes!
For now. Unless you’re assuming Lemmy will be small forever, in which case why are we here to begin with?
Yes, because there was an explicitly-carved-out community that was able to express themselves within the context of the black experience. Trying to introduce race-centric memes to a general audience is a recipe for disaster, as it’s really hard to judge intent.
Yup. And race has an effect on how one is affected by politics. This feels like the conservative mindset of “there are two sexualities: straight, and political”. (Mostly kidding, but there’s truth in there).
Comments. Comments are where discourse happens. A screenshot is posted with a hot take, shared experience, meme, whatever, and people talk about it. It’s an echo of what goes on in actual Twitter comments, but here.
(forgive the lack of in-line quotes)
In regards to size, I think it makes way more sense to splinter later than start segregated. Especially when pretty much everything posted here is ALSO posted on microblogmemes…very little of which is new. We’re just populating both with reposts from reddit
BPT splintering off from the main tweet sub made sense for the reasons you describe. We don’t have the userbase for it to be worthwhile on Lemmy yet…which is kind of my point about this place.
This community doesn’t focus on “white issues” or “white culture” at all so I guess my real question is …what benefit does c/whitepeopletwitter bring that’s different than c/microblogmemes? Are there actually people who subscribe here because of the non-white content over there? I kind of doubt it.
The way all these communities were scooped up in a gold rush wasn’t organic so it all feels…artificial. The original mod of this place registered it and disappeared, too.
Okay, I think the practical reasons you gave are sound. Pre-dividing a userbase into more chunks than necessary makes the site seem smaller than it is. And trying to “force” the same subs that were on Reddit into Lemmy prevents uniquely-Lemmy stuff from forming.
And the “need” for white people twitter is basically “if we give everyone but white people a twitter space they’ll get mad and say it’s racist” lmao. I 100% agree that it doesn’t talk about “white issues” anywhere near the same degree as other communities talk about what they face.
With that said, I’m still not seeing a reason why the sub shouldn’t exist. I might eventually agree that it’s not necessary, it’s redundant, or it’s not funny… But that just means micro blog memes needs to get better posts and drive interest. Both are silly little communities with silly little posts, and each can right for more users.