When the meme first emerged, I belonged to several WhatsApp groups (classmates, football team, etc.), in which I was usually the only non-Spaniard, and always the only person who claimed any Black ancestry. It began as a Bait and Switch prank you receive an innocent URL pertaining to something of interest (the bait), then as soon you bite, the link redirects you to El Negro de WhatsApp (the switch). The bait could also be an image, cropped in such a way that he is hidden until you scroll down. In the original prank, he stands before a dirt road in front of several crumbling cinder block structures. His wiry frame supports only three articles of clothing: a plaid bucket hat that shadows his eyes, a blue towel draped over his shoulders and a green fishnet tank top. His left hand is supporting his 18-inch, flaccid, veiny penis. In fact, the penis is not his at all, it was created thanks to photoshop, a quality of the image that is often overlooked. Like so many other Senegalese men, he sent money home to his family, whom he only saw once every several years.įrom coffee mug to Christmas cheer, El Negro de WhatsApp outgrew the category of prank before its first birthday to become “ the biggest meme produced by social media culture in our country”.
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