Racist caricature and impersonation are widely accepted tools of white supremacy, but it’s when minstrelsy’s 19th-century traditional tools of boot polish and a wig are replaced with 21st-century equivalents that the confusion begins.
The online popularity of images of black people – particularly women and femme gay men – is a fact of internet life and, in recent months, an increasingly controversial one. Because, as Beyoncé’s “Beychella” performance proved, you can never have too many gifs of a sassy, confident Beyoncé, right?
A mid the fanfare surrounding the release of Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s surprise joint album and their video for APES**T, one group were paying particularly close attention: the professional gif creators employed by companies such as GIPHY, Tenor and Imgur.
