The Digital Plantation: Influencer Culture and the Illusion of Representation

Scroll through your feed. You’ll see polished Black influencers, Afrocentric aesthetics, “diverse” brand partnerships. It looks like progress. It feels like equity.

But Fanon would warn: visibility is not liberation—especially when it’s managed by systems built for extraction.

The Plantation Has Gone Digital

On plantations, Black bodies were commodified for labor and entertainment. In 2025, that model lives on in algorithms.

Today’s digital economy rewards performance—not power. It monetizes Black culture, stylizes Black pain, and rebrands resistance into digestible content—but only if it’s safe, profitable, and platform-friendly.

Performing Culture, Not Living It

Many influencers are forced to choose between authenticity and algorithm. Speak out—and risk demonetization. Comply—and watch your reach grow.

The result? Performative activism. Branded “resistance.” Culture as content. The plantation still pays—but it owns the terms of your voice.

Fanon’s Warning: Beware of Fame Without Power

Fanon knew that the colonized are often seduced by mirrors. Recognition becomes reward. But when platforms only uplift you to extract your value, it’s not recognition—it’s recruitment.

We don’t need more representation inside exploitative ecosystems. We need to build new ones. Systems that aren’t designed to flatten nuance, tokenize suffering, or profit from our proximity to pain.