On February 10th, 2019 I tweeted a photo of myself in front of the Mona Lisa and asked other Black women to join me.
I missed the thrill of travel and wanted to share and see more of that feeling.
The tweet took on a life of its own. Over a thousand Black women replied with their own photos standing in front of the Mona Lisa.
It turned into one of the most epic Twitter threads I’d ever seen, and three years later, Black women continue to add their photos and stories.
Although the photo itself contains the most famous painting in the world, my tweet is about us. We showed up as ourselves — with our varied experiences in the world — at a common destination.
I showed up at the Louvre that day with friend and writer Lakin Starling who happened to be in Paris at the same time as me. When we made our way to the velvet rope in front of the Mona Lisa. It almost felt like the tight, crowded area surrounding the small photo cleared to form a small circle for us to both take clear shots of each other.
The tweet started a debate around beauty, culture, and what the Mona Lisa painting represents and doesn't represent. It was covered by BuzzFeed, Daily Mail, and Refinery29.
Today, this thread holds stories. I want to continue them by putting it on the blockchain with an NFT so that I can do more than send tweets, but transform some of the takeaways I’ve learned throughout my career on the internet into creating more moments, media, and storytelling that I want to see out in the world.
Why NFTs?
I could get into the technicalities, but I don’t think that’s all you need to know in order to truly understand NFTs. Let me articulate to you the essence of non-fungible-tokens (NFTs).
NFTs are about ownership. Owning your content, your voice, your audience.
It’s about the idea of ownership versus ownership of a physical object. And you are the only one who can determine if that concept is valuable to you because NFTs are about having the ability to say that you possess something, and the spirit and motivation of what it represents. When NFTs represent the heart of something, its value, and its story? 🔥
“There’s this story about the Mona Lisa, how it was once hung on Napoleon’s bedroom wall, and the painting’s history and association with him brought it great cultural value.” — Matt Stephenson, Columbia University, PhD candidate, The value of NFTs, explained by an expert, Vox
So what does this tweet represent to me?
60,000 people engaged with my tweet, my photo, my story, and many others because something resonated with them.
I’ve been online since I was 8-years-old. As an adult, my career has been about supporting the constant hum of the internet for other media brands. I have been adding value to the internet for a long time, along with so many others, but my skills as a writer, reporter, producer of every storytelling medium, social media editor, news curation editor, trend forecaster, podcaster, moderator, and creative are often viewed as invisible, making it easier for companies and rads to justify paying me less than my worth. This has to end for me.
I want to empower myself with the financial resources to innovate in media, journalism, and beauty. In addition, in the spirit of the tweet, I’d like to continue to mobilize others to travel.
A portion of the money will be used to create a fund in which Black women and Black femmes can apply to have their U.S. passport fee or passport renewal fee paid for. Why? I believe all Black women should have the ability to get up and travel anywhere at a moment’s notice when desired, or when needed. Learn more HERE
If you’re a Black woman who posted their photo to this thread, here are the instructions I followed to get my tweet on the blockchain. If you decide to put an NFT behind your tweet, definitely tweet me to let me know.