The State of Black Twitter Adress (SOBTA 2020) took place on Monday evening and as expected, the affair was full of viral moments.
This Twitter event is a parody of South Africa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) which is often led by the head of state.
What is Black Twitter?
To understand the humour behind this trending hashtag that took over Twitter timelines, you would need to know what Black Twitter is.
The online culture of Black Twitter has gotten so big that it has its own Wikipedia page. Based on the description found on the page, this is what Black Twitter represents:
“A cultural identity consisting of Black Twitter users on the Twitter social network focused on issues of interest to the black community.” Black Twitter, Wikipedia
The culture was born in the United States (US) but its relevance resonated with black Twitter users across the world. South Africa has its own Black Twitter culture and unlike others, they celebrate an important annual event, the SOBTA 2020.
SOBTA 2020 highlights: Black Twitter comrades oust Advovo
This year, Twitter user “@UmalambaneZN” was elected as the president of Mzansi’s Black Twitter and with the title came the responsibility to lead the address which took place at 20:00 on Monday.
Part of the parodic agenda was to elect 10 ministers who represent facets of the Black Twitter movement. However, things quickly got awry for @AdvBarryRoux, one of South Africa’s most popular Twitter users, renowned for exposès and his celebrity trolling.
Some of the SOBTA 2020 attendees thought it was the perfect time to exact revenge on Advovo’s reign of tyranny. While UmalambaneZN only called for Advovo’s ‘removal’ from proceedings, tweeps went ahead and reported the account.
This spurred a #AdvovoHasFallen trend that spilled over to Tuesday’s trending topics. These are some of the reactions we picked out from the trending hashtag.