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media Color My (Virtual) World: BlackPlanet
BlackPlanet's success has vastly exceeded that of other ethnically identified websites. What's the portal's secret? Job-networking opportunities? Afrocentric news? Or the site's unofficial meat market, a hit with sex-hungry users? With more than 10 million registered users, 3.5 million of whom logged on in February 2004, BlackPlanet.com (BP) is a popular way for African-Americans to meet and network, online. Under Executive Director Omar Wasow, BlackPlanet, now the number one site for African-Americans, was launched with the intentions of unifying the black community via the Net, giving them a cheap, easy and powerful way to network, says Wasow. "I always thought African-Americans were not being served adequately in
BlackPlanet provides members with a personal webpage, an e-mail address, chat rooms, instant messaging service, job information, and news. For many, the portal serves as a job networking service and a medium for advertising. Naomi Fink, 22, who has been a BP user since 2000, used BlackPlanet to promote college parties. "I would post the information and people from BP would show up." Chris Collier, 20, a member since 2003, says, "I used BP to look up an [architecture] internship last summer. It’s a great way to network." But Jay Sabur , 24, who has been a member since 2000, has become disenchanted with BP, "Back in the day you could meet a lot of business savvy-people in the chat rooms. Now," he claims, "it’s only good for sex." BP member since 1999, Nicole Prussia, 20, also believes that the site was once more "respectable," but has "become more raunchy." Prussia may be referring to uses some members make of BP. As Wasow says, "the site should be driven by the users." BP users, such as mr_freaky_bi, who describes himself as a 15-year-old whose hobbies include "giving head and being freaky," or eastside_boner, whose page is adorned with pornographic cartoons and a 69-dollar bill with Bill Clinton's face on it, labeled "sex dollars," encourage Prussia’s perception that the site has grown raunchier, over time. A BP member since 1999, José Monzón, 21, says, "Some people actually post real porn pictures and advertise porn sites, and then mass e-mail the link to everybody. So [the site] does get abused. But to their credit, BP is good about monitoring their pages." Wasow is aware of the "inappropriate behavior on the site,", he says, and assures that BP has "a staff around the clock that check on that, and people will be shut down if they are found." But these controversies exist on any community-based site, he stresses. Furthermore, some members disagree that the site has grown less professional with age. "It used to be worse than it is now," says Andre Nunely, 28, who joined for the dating service. “There used to be not that much more to the site than meeting people. Now there’s news, information.” Nonetheless, all BP members interviewed for this story agree that dating is now the online community’s most popular activity. "Dating is what we’ve become most well-known for," admits Wasow. But he also notes that he receives e-mails from users who have benefited from BP in other ways. One user had moved to a new city and signed onto BP saying she wanted to go out on a Friday night. "She ended up finding friends through BP," Wasow recalls. Creators of BlackPlanet have succeeded in creating a social space on the Net where young blacks can meet, network, swap information, troll for soul mates (or one-night stands). "The number of members is ridiculous,” says Nunley. “I’m signed on and there are over 30 thousand members online right now." In contrast, there were only about 8,000 signed on at AsianAvenue and 7,000 at MiGente (another Community Connect sites, launched in 2000 and targeted at the Latino community), at that moment. Why has BlackPlanet more successful than Community Connect’s other ethnically identified websites? Wasow attributes it to the "much longer history of a tight, cohesive community
Assistant Dean Rafael Zapata, of Swarthmore College, agrees with Wasow’s theory, "Black organizations like the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) were founded in the early 1900’s." Latino groups such as the Young Lords or the Brown Berets didn't form until the 1960’s and Asian groups such as the NAAAP (National Association of Asian American Professionals) didn’t form until 1982. Zapata, the director of Swarthmore’s Intercultural Center and co-teacher of a course entitled "Visualizing Latino Culture," also acknowledges that Latinos are, "to some extent, much more fractured ethnically [than blacks]. They have different levels of assimilation." As Wasow points out, "Within the Hispanics, you have English dominant and Spanish dominant, etc." Zapata also notes that some Latinos identify more so with the black community than with the Latino community. A perfect example of that is Monzón: he is of Dominican and Puerto Rican descent but joined BlackPlanet rather than MiGente. For some members, BlackPlanet is a business networking forum that has lost its influence, among professionals. Others prefer to think of BlackPlanet as a dating haven. For all of its members, BlackPlanet is "a space for people of color to link up online, which up until recently was a very white space," says Monzón. "Almost everybody and their mother is on BP. One time I was riding the ‘J’ train home and these two young women were talking about their BP pages. I was like, wow, they've come a long way." Related Links Black Sites making a difference on the Web Top 100 African-American Sites BlackPlanet’s partnership with Time, Inc., an EarthWeb News article BlackPlanet’s profits, a RecordOnline article Just how strict do websites like BlackPlanet get to protect their users, a NetFreedom article Vanessa Díaz is the managing editor of ReadMe, issue 4.3. A junior majoring in Latin American studies and politics at New York University, she is also a freelance journalist. Her first-hand accounts of 9/11, filed from New York, appeared in the daily newspaper The Press Enterprise and the FM radio station, 99.1 KGGI, both based in Riverside, California. |
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