Digital Blackface Memes

Assuming Black identities online, a growing number of non-Black individuals have embraced memes, AI imagery, and social media to spread racial stereotyping and cultural appropriation.

Mia Moody investigates the persistence and evolution of digital blackface and the commodification of Black identity in online spaces, offering insights through Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis (CTDA), intersectionality, and framing theory.

Drawing on historical contexts steeped in the tradition of Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, and Stuart Hall, Moody examines the evolution of blackface representations from minstrel shows and children’s media to TikTok trends, AI-generated personas, and political memes. The book reveals how race, gender, class, and sexuality intersect in the performance and perception of Blackness in the digital age.