Why Is Twitter More Popular With Black People Than White People?

By on May 1, 2010 in News 18

twitter logoI can’t say I knew that … reported by Business Insider:

New data confirms that Twitter’s population is disproportionately black.

According to Edison Research’s annual report on Twitter, black people represent 25% of Twitter users, roughly twice their share of the population in general.

Why is this? A few ideas:

— Black people (and Hispanics) are much more likely to access the Internet from mobile devices. Twitter is well-suited to mobile use, and its users are more engaged with the mobile Internet than the general population by a wide margin.

— More black than white celebrities are active Twitter users; Shaquille O’Neal, Oprah, 50 Cent, and P Diddy are all among the most followed accounts on Twitter. That’s great publicity for Twitter, and could be helping Twitter become more mainstream among black people…

More on Business Insider

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  • RONIN

    Because it makes it so much easier to set up our gang related events.

    What reason does this need to be figured out? That's what I wanna know. I mean, if we figured out why it's more popular with blacks, then what? Where's this going?

    • tonyviner

      Tracking devices!!!

  • Justsayin

    The same reason they have expensive Cadillacs yet live in shitty houses: showing off. Every black person wants you to think their life is great through appearances. Twitter is an attention whore's wet dream.

    • RONIN

      Now who didn't see this coming?

      • tonyviner

        Not me, I am just shocked he didn't mention Fubu, too.

    • tonyviner

      Jackass!

  • http://thefirstchurchofmutterhals.blogspot.com/ mutterhals

    Blacks! They're just like us!

  • BeastyMcAllister

    twitter is more or less a time waster, though a damn good one. is this just a back-handed way of calling people of color lazy? ha. i'm kidding. we need to focus on the real issue here. where are the the bluetooth stats? 98% of the folks wearing one of those things KNOWS it looks stupid and PRETENDS that it's cool. 43% percent of those people are just talking to themselves…

  • BeastyMcAllister

    twitter is more or less a time waster, though a damn good one. is this just a back-handed way of calling people of color lazy? ha. i'm kidding. we need to focus on the real issue here. where are the the bluetooth stats? 98% of the folks wearing one of those things KNOWS it looks stupid and PRETENDS that it's cool. 43% percent of those people are just talking to themselves…

  • Mike

    congratulations racist shitbags, you can't even talk about this without resorting to utterly infantile commentary.

    very generally, and i don't think i'm saying anything profound or new here, black people seem to have an affinity or take on words and language that white people either don't have or just don't access as much. take popular culture, where black people (again, making huge generalizations) seem to more often be making up new words, for instance, “bling” or the whole “fo' shizzle” stuff that Snoop does (I know that's probably not how you spell fo shizzle). how often do we see white people doing that? a recent pop culture example of white people trying to do that is the movie “i love you, man” with paul rudd. i thought he perfectly captured attempts by white people, like myself, to keep up with all these new words that are always popping up. he never gets it though, as he continually makes up words that make utterly no sense and fail to capture the moment he is trying to memorialize.

    obviously black people and white people and all people love words and love to use them in new ways, make up new words, twist them around and turn them upside down to create new understandings and definitions. again, very generally, at least in pop culture, there seems to be more black people actually engaging with words in this manner. i'll leave it at that. ultimately, i don't think this subject can be discussed without an understanding of the role that racism plays. different people may look at the same words differently, and racism probably has something to do with that. black people may have a different take on words on language simply as a means of warding off white racism. again, and i'm emphasizing this again, and again, i just made a whole bunch of generalizations. please keep that in mind when responding to the huge generalizations i made. thank you.

    • RONIN

      Where are you getting this shit? It has nothing to do with racism. It's just subculture generated, mostly, by celebrities. Lil Wayne is generally considered to be the first person to say bling, and I think it might have been Snoop Dog who was the originator of Fo Shizzle. They just say some shit they think sounds cool.

      Plus, the black subculture uses an adaptation of a particular word that white people created. Namely, nigger.

  • Carlos

    as far as I can tell when I’m walking down the street cell phones are the new slavery. 90% of blacks appear to be completely enslaved by their mobile phone

  • Carlos

    as far as I can tell when I'm walking down the street cell phones are the new slavery. 90% of blacks appear to be completely enslaved by their mobile phone

  • Hav0k2

    This is “politically incorrect” and I should mention I’m definitely not racist and have tons of black friends but as a whole there are a few reasons black people tweet more than other groups.

    1 – Black people love talking – about themselves and with other black people. Black people stick together/relate more as a group than any other group. Not only do they relate/stick together more they talk and don’t care what any one else thinks. They speak more freely than say, white people do as a whole.

    2 – This is a biggie… Twitter keeps your posts to 140 characters. Very “unpolitically correct” but black people as whole are less educated and don’t want to write entire blog posts or emails to each other. 140 words is easy and convenient and gets their point across easily.

    3 – Agreed with the black celebrities using twitter much more than white celebrities. This goes hand in hand with #1 and #2 above.

    Call me racist, I don’t care, I say what’s real. If you think I’m incorrect would love to hear your thoughts but don’t call me a racist – just tell me why I’m wrong — but really double read what I wrote before you look silly.

    I love black people BTW – grew up in inner city Los Angeles and half my great friends were black kids. So feel like I have insite most white people won’t get.

  • Hav0k2

    This is “politically incorrect” and I should mention I’m definitely not racist and have tons of black friends but as a whole there are a few reasons black people tweet more than other groups.

    1 – Black people love talking – about themselves and with other black people. Black people stick together/relate more as a group than any other group. Not only do they relate/stick together more they talk and don’t care what any one else thinks. They speak more freely than say, white people do as a whole.

    2 – This is a biggie… Twitter keeps your posts to 140 characters. Very “unpolitically correct” but black people as whole are less educated and don’t want to write entire blog posts or emails to each other. 140 words is easy and convenient and gets their point across easily.

    3 – Agreed with the black celebrities using twitter much more than white celebrities. This goes hand in hand with #1 and #2 above.

    Call me racist, I don’t care, I say what’s real. If you think I’m incorrect would love to hear your thoughts but don’t call me a racist – just tell me why I’m wrong — but really double read what I wrote before you look silly.

    I love black people BTW – grew up in inner city Los Angeles and half my great friends were black kids. So feel like I have insite most white people won’t get.

  • aamat

    Twitter enabled phones, yet still on welfare? Priorities

  • aamat

    Twitter enabled phones, yet still on welfare? Priorities

  • yello

    You seriously can’t answer this without sounding racist.