About

#BlackMenSmiling is a hashtag started to celebrate Black History Month and to combat some of the negative portrayals of African American males in media.

Origin

On February 2nd, 2018, Twitter ^[1] user @Felonious_munk posted two pictures of a group of African American men smiling. He captioned the post "Today let's share some pics of #BlackMenSmiling. Like big goofy smiles. Happy (even if just for a moment) with life smiles. Normalize happy. #BlackHistoryMonth where your teeth at?" The tweet (shown below) received more than 700 retweets and 3,700 likes in five days.

Spread

Shortly after the post was made, more people on Twitter began posting images of either themselves, people they know or other African American cultural figures smiling with the hashtag "BlackMenSmiling." Twitter^[2] user jeauxsef_ posted two pictures with the caption "Found a couple old pics lol #BlackMenSmiling." The post (shown below, left) received more than 390 retweets and 3,900 likes in five days.

That day actor Terry Crews tweeted^[3] a picture with the hashtag. The post (shown below, center) received more than 6.100 retweets and 37,000 likes in five days.

Twitter^[4] user @iamMelsmith posted several images with the caption "We smile often around here. #BlackMenSmiling." The post (shown below, right) received more than 490 retweets and 4,300 likes in five days.

That day, Twitter^[5] published a Moments page to archive some of the most popular tweet.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References