On Tuesday, BuzzFeed launched new Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts called Cocoa Butter. In a staff memo shared with Poynter, BuzzFeed’s Heben Nigatu, co-host of the podcast “Another Round,” wrote about Cocoa Butter’s start and focus:
Hey y’all!
I wanted to let you know about a new distributed project called Cocoa Butter. As you may know, Cocoa Butter is already an internal lab started by Tracy Clayton that focuses on making fun stuff for and about brown folks. Or as I’ve been explaining to people, it’s for anyone who feels a ~spiritual~ connection to cocoa butter 🙂 We have a lot of fun talking about everything and nothing together, and we want to extend that conversation to the public.
Under the umbrella of the social and distributed teams, Cocoa Butter’s accounts will be where you can catch up on everything from Beyonce’s latest wig snatch to Uncle Denzel to #BlackLivesMatter. We’ll be sharing and re-promoting relevant material from every division of BuzzFeed.com (including News, Life, Buzz, and BFMP) and from all over the internet. Our goal is to inform and delight an underrepresented audience through social channels, and to be an additional place where amazing work being done across editorial can be enjoyed. We’ll also be making our own original distributed-first content in the same playful vein as the great work BFF has been doing, and would love to work with folks across teams on that as well.
For now, we’re focusing on on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (follow us!). Our core social team consists of me, Tracy Clayton, Kevin Smith and Sylvia Obell. If you’ve made or see any cool stuff on BuzzFeed or elsewhere on the internet that you think would be a good fit, please feel free to send it to CocoaButterQueue@ for consideration.
And as a reminder, everyone is invited to join the cocoa butter lab (the open slack is ‘cocoabutterops’) or the listerv (CocoaButterOps@) if you’re interested in making or sharing Cocoa Butter relevant stuff!
BuzzFeed’s Tracy Clayton, also a co-host of “Another Round,” tweeted more about the account.
so! some folks have noticed a new buzzfeed thing called @cocoabutterbf. id like to explain what it is by first explaining what it isnt
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
it is NOT "black buzzfeed" or buzzfeed for black people. when i interviewed with jonah he asked if he thought we needed a separate +
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
vertical for black content and we both agreed that that isn't the answer. sectioning off black content causes more probs than it solves
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
my biggest thing has always been the integration of black content into the whole of the site rather than throwing us in a corner
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
and leaving us to entertain ourselves. so that is emphatically not what this is. i wldnt be a part of that.
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
what this IS is an extension of a group of dope ass ppl who got together of their own volition to create content relevant to their interests
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
as most of those people are black, the content we create has to do with black things, blackness, black issues, etc.
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
we called ourselves cocoa butter bc it was the one thing that we all universally loved. lol who doesnt like cocoa butter? who wants ash?
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
so we got together and we've been making super dope shit and laughing and having fun and being our natural black ass selves
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
bc we wanted to, not bc we were asked, not bc it's a good business model, not bc its a great way to increase profits, nunna that
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
now the thing is, buzzfeed, as diverse as it is, is still a white ass site. no one here will disagree with that
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
and our audience is oooooooooooverwhelmingly white which means that the dope ass shit we do make is tough to circulate and get seen
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
which is mad frustrating! we wanted a way to distribute the dope shit, fun memes, and deep/funny/important convos we have behind the scenes
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
enter @yrbff! BFF is a very successful method of distributing content without it living on the website. things behave differently via social
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
so we decided to follow their model in hopes of exposing more folks to our dopeness, which is hard to do via buzzfeed dot com the website
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
so many of us are making and writing great things, like @HinsonMike who did our art, and @KelleyLCarter who gives AMAZE blk celeb coverage
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
and we just get swallowed up on the website. we're not cordoning ourselves off, we're creating another avenue to get our stuff out there
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
bc we deserve to be seen and read and enjoyed as a part of buzzfeed as much as the other immense talents we have
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
& i love that buzzfeed is supporting us as we do this. i know that not a lot of brown ppl trust BF and I GET IT. believe me i do
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
all we can do is be true to ourselves as creators and what we do & if youd like to rock with us we'd love it. if not i understand 🙁
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
im v proud to see what cocoabutter has become bc i never imagined it would grow the way it has when i started it
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
so to recap: buzzfeed stays the same. we will do what we've been doing. cocoabutter is a way to distribute our stuff via social.
— Tracy LaFway Clayton (@brokeymcpoverty) July 14, 2015
Previously: 5 times journalists should have been listening to BuzzFeed’s podcast ‘Another Round’
