Blackfishing, a recently coined term has been explained as females of European descent that are involving artificial tanning and makeup to manipulate facial features to appear as if they have some relation to Black African ancestry. This is similar, but not the same, as blackface: when someone of European descent tries to portray themselves as a different race. This idea of blackfishing began to blow up in November, when a twitter user made a thread dedicated to calling out “all of the white girls cosplaying as black women on Instagram”. Since the post was made, it has received over 22,000 retweets and more than 45,000 likes. This new topic has sparked the interest of many, and gotten people curious as to whether or not blackfishing is the modern version of blackface.

Online, social media influencers have taken on a growing trend within the past couple of years: lip injections, fake tans, and cornrows. Those things aren’t necessarily evil, but when adding more things, such as makeup to alter facial features, and wearing hair pieces to texturize the hair, it becomes a problem. White social media influencers seem to be doing this more and more often, misleading people to believing that the white model on their phone screen is actually black. Some of these popular Instagram users, such as Emma Hallberg, did not address their race until they were being called out. This seemed to be one of the biggest issues people had with the models, they thought they were being ingenuine and also brought up the phrase, “everyone wants to be black until it is time to be black.”

Something else that was deemed as problematic was the profit off of black culture and appropriating it. Cultural appropriation isn’t new and has always been an issue, but people were especially upset when these influencers were using it to their advantage. They were darkening their skin, texturizing their hair, and even wearing braids that aren’t necessarily created for white people. They were profiting off of the appearance of being black, but they weren’t mentioning the fact that they were white. Many commenters came into defence when cultural appropriation was brought up, saying that they were appreciating it. The women being accused of blackfishing were picking out certain aspects and qualities, but ignoring the other significant parts of the culture, including stereotypes and oppression.

Though people were only beginning to figure this term out and understand the trouble with it, it is not a recent issue nor is it a recent trend. One of the most notorious people that have been known to blackfish is Nkechi Amare Diallo, also more commonly known as Rachel Dolezal. Former NAACP chapter president is a white American woman who has been identifying as black back in 2015, but was changing her appearance a few years prior. She self identifies as black, despite the fact that both of her biological parents are white. When this was first gaining attention it caused a lot of tension, from both black and white people. The reactions she received were vastly different; some thought that she was commiting fraud and cultural appropriation while others tried to stand up for her and say that her identity should be respected.

Towards the end of last year, attention was drawn to white women that were trying to portray themselves as black. This has proven to become an issue due to the fact that these women were not only profiting off of lies, but they were appropriating a culture that didn’t belong to them. There is a difference between cultural appreciation vs cultural appropriation: one is admiring what a culture has to offer while the other is stealing from hundreds of thousands of people who aren’t getting the same respect. Blackfishing is primarily happening online and accessible to thousands of people. It it easy to come across it, and even easier to ignore, but that isn’t always the best decision. The idea of stopping it as a whole seems impossible, but there are steps that people can take to prevent it. The easiest and the best thing to do would be recognizing that they are trying to come off as a different race, and call them out. Calling them out online, like the Twitter user did in the form of a thread, draws the most attention and lets people know that the action of blackfishing is wrong. Things will not change unless action is made, black people will never get the full respect that they deserve if white social media influencers are picking and choosing the best qualities of a race that isn’t theirs.