How the #BlackGirlMagic movement helped make the internet a little less bleak

The concept is simple: it's a celebration of black girls and women in a world all too happy to make them small

Isn't technology amazing? I cannot fathom a world without a search engine at my fingertips. How did we cope before them? Sometimes, I remember I completed university without the distracting diversions of YouTube, and marvel silently. When I realise neither Tumblr nor Twitter were around to derail my academic career, I thank my lucky stars. In 2017, aka the hyperbolic age, we get to receive (perceived) threats of nuclear war issued via 140 characters (or, as of last month, 280), and people with strange avatars can threaten you with bodily harm. It's sometimes easy to forget there is joy to be wrung out of a life lived even partly online.

CaShawn Thompson's inadvertent #BlackGirlMagic movement has weathered all sorts since its inception, from applause to cries of "reverse racism" (no such thing exists, friends). The concept is simple: it's a celebration of black girls and women in a world all too happy to make them small, and to discard their contributions.