By Deborah Aderinkomi, GIPHY Social Team
In honor of Black History Month, GIPHY made company-wide efforts to celebrate the contributions of Black people past and present.
On GIPHY
Every year, our Editorial team collaborates on GIPHY’s Black History Month channel (which is available all year long). Here is some insight from Director of Editorial, Tiffany Vazquez, on what the team worked on this year:
GIPHY’s editorial team utilized our many products to celebrate Black History Month. One of those products was GIPHY Stories, which enables users to editorialize GIFs to tell a narrative. Each day in February, at least one GIPHY Story was created to celebrate Black History Month. The stories ranged in subject. Some were about Black historic figures and activists; some were about trailblazing figures in entertainment; and some were just about celebrating Black Boy Joy and Black Girl Magic. While it is impossible to cover every way Black culture has shaped and influenced the World’s culture, we tried to highlight a few of those ways through GIPHY Stories.
It’s The AAVE for Me
GIPHY invited Dr. Jamie Thomas, a professor at Santa Monica College to speak to us about African American Language and how it’s used on the internet. Dr. Thomas’s PhD is in applied linguistics and the African Diaspora with a focus on how Black people find identity and meaning in language in the U.S. and around the world. Here are some amazing quotes from Dr. Thomas herself:
Black Is Borderless
Isaiah Lawrence, an Operations Manager at GIPHY, spoke on the “Black is Borderless” panel hosted by Black@Facebook, an employee ERG. The event featured brilliant Black individuals that work at top tech and digital companies around the world. Featured panelists spoke on how they push the culture and advocate for inclusivity at their respective companies. Here’s a great takeaway from Isaiah:
There are so many subcultures of Black culture and there are so many ways Black culture and Back people can be celebrated….You can’t sum up the Black experience and Black culture in one month. I believe that it’s a month to really voice your opinion and be unapologetic about it. While we do have BHM, and I rep it, I think it’s important to note that throughout the year there are so many more opportunities and ways Black culture can be celebrated,
Black Women Talk Tech
To end the month, we had Black Women Talk Tech (BWTT) take over GIPHY Identity’s Instagram account. BWTT is a new partner at GIPHY that wants to help Black women build future billion dollar start-ups. Check out our Instagram Story Highlights to view the takeover.
