• Slate, Wednesday, August 11, 2010 2:06 PM

Ever wonder how black people use Twitter? Slate's got you covered. For one, black people are apparently prone to appending hashtags to categorize their messages, which makes it easier to search for posts on a certain topic, and can sometimes lead to worldwide "call-and-response" conversations in which they compete to outdo each other. Appending hashtags to particular topics isn't exclusively a black pastime, but there are a growing number of black-centric memes -- which Slate calls a "blacktag" -- circulating via Twitter.

"The prevalence of these tags has long puzzled nonblack observers and sparked lots of sometimes uncomfortable questions about 'how black people use Twitter,'" Slate reports. After consulting with some "experts," Slate concludes that: "Black people--specifically, young black people -- do seem to use Twitter differently from everyone else on the service. They form tighter clusters on the network -- they follow one another more readily, they retweet each other more often, and more of their posts are @-replies -- posts directed at other users. It's this behavior, intentional or not, that gives black people -- and in particular, black teenagers -- the means to dominate the conversation on Twitter."

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