Emoblackthot Identity Hoax

Overview

@Emoblackthot Identity Hoax refers to the revelation that popular Twitter account @emoblackthot, long thought to be a black woman, was actually a black man named Isaiah Hickland. Hickland revealed himself via a profile in Paper Magazine. The revelation caused controversy on social media as people felt betrayed and accused Hickland of profiting off black womanhood.

Background

@emoblackthot was a popular Twitter account, gaining over 165,000 followers over the course of several years between 2017 and 2019.^[1] The account has been cited as influential in Black Twitter. ^[1][2] Paper Magazine^[3] credited the account with helping to popularize artists including Meghan Thee Stallion, Rico Nasty, and Lil Nas X. The account tweeted in the voice of a black woman named Nicole, going as far as tweeting about "her" periods and menstrual cramps.

On October 11th, 2019 Paper Magazine^[3] ran a profile on Isaiah Hickland in which Hickland came out as the person running @emoblackthot. Hickland also posted a 20 minute video explaining his choice to run the account as a woman and why he was revealing himself at that moment, but the video has since been deleted. In the Paper profile, Hickland explained:

"I was just trying to be the kind of person I didn't have for myself, just virtually [for others]… it's also my fault. I could've [handled this whole thing] better. I had good intentions, but I still hid behind an anonymous identity and hid who I was -- I feel like I fucked up majorly… I lied to people. I could've been honest, but the account got so big at some point, it almost turned into a nightmare. People were relying on me for self-care and advice, and they'd DM me whenever they were going through it. Paragraphs of people in need of advice, financial help, someone to talk to. I couldn't just disappear. At the same time, I fucking hated it. I wanted to disappear."

Developments

After the profile was published, Twitter users expressed their confusion and outrage over Hickland's gender hoax as well as the laudatory profile given to him by Paper Magazine. Twitter user @deray^[4] wrote, "I don’t understand how someone creates an entire online persona, lies about it, says they lied, then gets a glowing profile story. We are in the end of times," gaining over 140 retweets and 870 likes (shown below, left). Twitter user @natelege_^[5] wrote, "So this person emoblackthot was pretending go be a black woman online for years. Now he’s apologizing like it's all good from here. No it's not all good. The internet is a wild ass place," gaining over 600 retweets and 3,100 likes (shown below, right).

On YouTube, the reveal led to several lengthy videos from vloggers offering their thoughts. KingOfReads covered it in a video that gained over 43,000 views (shown below, left). User Keeks Life posted a video about the reveal that gained over 3,400 views (shown below, right).

The controversy was covered by Insider,^[1] Daily Dot,^[2] HipHopWired,^[6] and many other publications.

Search Interest

External References