Ok - How did this happen? The FF community has more Black folks on it than any other web community I've been involved with. That's really neither here nor there, but kind of interesting. How'd that happen?
What I mean is it's not really a good or bad thing, but something I've noticed since I've been here. Or am I being bad for even noticing?
- Internet's Tad
I don't think it's bad you've noticed. I really wouldn't know the answer to that though.
- Shey, Jamaican of FF
most of them are masquerading as black guys :)- There...does that make you happier ? Actually, if you happen to be on twitter too, you will find the same thing. These two spaces have a high degree of mixed bunch of ethnic peeps. Not sure the reasons of "Stickiness"..
- Peter Dawson
Friendfeed feels very multicultural to me (with a heavy emphasis on SF bay area)
- Jason Wehmhoener
Mona's from Japan, me(and some more folks) from India. Yep - diverse. Twitter is more diverse, but that's because there are more folks there.
- Yuvi
In the spirit of Robert Scoble's anti-anonymity stance, I will go completely out of character and admit that I'm a Black female Mississippian in Kentucky (USA). Hi y'all.
- MiniMage TKDteacher of FF
COOL to know...neat!! Hi MiniMage! Of course, I love chatting with Shey, Cordiva and Bwana!
- Susan Beebe
It may come as a shock but I am not a Black folk. ;) I am glad that it is what it is and that you pointed it out. Every ethnicity needs to participate for a community to really transform to the next level. Communication is the key to our species survival and if there is not inclusion and the feeling of being equal and welcome then honest communication never stands a chance against hatred and bigotry.
- Mathew A. Koeneker
@mathew, on FF you will find more Jap /Chinese users then those who communicate in English alone. What we dont see, we dont know- syndrome. If FF had a translate this link beside every post , it would be gr8 way us (english speaking) to actually participate in other lingos and liekwise the other user too.
- Peter Dawson
I know there is a thriving community of people from Iran who speak Farsi who are active friendfeed users. I subscribe to several of them. Mostly for the cool pictures they post. Many users have thousands of likes and comments which means the conversations are alive and well in their little micro-community here on FF. I'm working on an engine that will allow us to better interact with other micro-communities here on FF and across other socnets. Prepare to bridge the language/cultural barrier and go global.
- Brian Daniel Eisenberg
@Peter, I have noticed that as well with many of the FF users from the Middle East. Farsi is rather difficult to pick up. That would be a cool added bit of functionality to add though.
- Mathew A. Koeneker
@Brian - Excellent. We must have been typing at the same moment. Please keep us posted on your work. :)
- Mathew A. Koeneker
Ah I was not aware of that. Although I am black myself of Jamaican heritage, I don't think of my color too much. I am an individual first. Anyway any fellow Jamaicans or Jamericans? hehe
- 2commonsense
I appreciate the fact that I usually have no idea what race or gender a person is on the web. That allows me to size up others based on their expressed ideas and opinions, not their race, gender or age. That's democratization.
- Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)
This is because the community is intelligent and friendly. Keep it up. FF is the anti-Digg.
- Robert Scoble
There shouldn't be any taboo for noticing that. As Scoble said: people here are smart, and generally very friendly :)
- directeur
from NoiseRiver
I'd like to think it's because of the way the "friend" system works here - we've kept a lot of riffraff out of our circle and what's left are the intellectuals who understand that things like race, sex and religion don't define a person as a whole. I'm not saying we're "smarter" - but we think beyond the small. Other communities have a more "open forum" for commenting (see: digg.com) which leads to racism, sexism and intolerance (thanks anonymity!) . That simply will not stand here - and I'm thankful.
- Vince DeGeorge
yes bridging the gap between micro-communities is going to be a BIG Thing. FF will really become the "tower of babel" for the internet community. :)_
- Peter Dawson
Just wanted too observe that this is a cool observation....or something
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
there are lots of people of color on every social network. The difference is equivalent attention and how interesting items get disseminated through the community.
- Jason Toney
Good! All perspectives and facets of humanity are valid and neccesary to contribute online I reckon. To be honest I haven't noticed.
- Mo Kargas
How the hell does anyone know if anyone is black or white on here?
- Sam Pullara
Sam, avatars, flickr streams, conversation, engagement
- Jason Toney
It's something I never noticed..probably attributed to how I grew up. However, since I have a multi-cultural background and, grew up in a multi-cultural area it's a good thing to see that anywhere. :)
- Candace
I had go look at the Tad's post on the CNN special to context. Re: Tad's observation, I think that may be b/c FF serves as a melting pot for communities through aggregation, so you're just more likely to come in contact with people from many other groups than you may not have noticed before. To FF's credit, it's easier to have interactions the cross-cut groups b/c it's a more open forum allowing people to come together based on common interests.
- Cornelius Toole
FWIW I'm a black guy from Mississippi, grew up on Hwy61, about 30mins from the Crossroads where Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul(for the blues fans out there).
- Cornelius Toole
I've been active on the web since '95, and in all that time and outside of personal friends, I followed only a handful of women and precisely one black person: Dare Obasanjo. Since joining FF, my Input Circle has greatly diversified... almost 50% of the people I follow are women, about 10% are black, and so on. I fucking love it.
- Roger Benningfield
It shouldn't be noticed. that's what i enjoy about being here. i can have conversation with anyone (race, religion, etc) without pretense.
- nesman89
Lester, I'm nearly the opposite. I find having interesting, engaged conversations with people is only enhanced by understanding more of who they are. Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation, Upbringing, Industry, etc., in my humble opinion, only serve to enrich and enhance dialogue and relationships.
- Jason Toney
Agreed, Jason. As an aside, my online relationships are definitely more diverse than their real world counterparts and I happen to like that very much.
- Kyle Hebert
+1 for FF being intelligent, engaging and and friendly.
- Tsega Dinka
Topix.com also seems to have an inordinate amount of Black folk in active in their community.
- Hashim Warren