A Menace To Society, Or Not?
Tiktok account @blackmenaces quickly rose to fame as they have begun to confront the conservative Brigham Young University campus with “complicated and loaded” questions.
Recently, a group known as the Black Menaces, a group of 5 BYU students, have found their voice on tiktok, leaving other BYU students to question their own beliefs and opinions, or stand even more firm in what they believe.
The Black Menaces started as a twist on the “what song are you listening to” trend, made very popular on college campuses. The Menaces ask BYU students political and opinion based questions and with 629,700 followers, many of the controversial answers have gone viral. Some of these questions include, “do you think white privilege exists?”, “should queer students be allowed to date at BYU?”, and “do you support gay marriage?”.
These viral videos have had a clear impact on BYU campus and students, and the students have a lot to say about how these videos are effecting their campus.
One BYU Sophmore, Mali Lopez, said, “A lot of students are uneducated about important social topics like feminism or black history. I think it’s helpful in spreading awareness of the black BYU student experience”.
However, other BYU students feel like The Black Menaces are hurting the BYU campus. Kate Opager, BYU Junior, said, “Putting people on social media to portray them in a certain way or paint the extreme doesn’t really help anyone and makes the church and the school look worse than I feel like it actually is”.
Opager continues, “I think the intentions behind the account are to help minorities on campus and awareness about different topics, but I feel like there is a better way to go about that.”
The Black Menaces, although creating and operating for a good cause, has created divisive feelings on BYU campus. However, the Black Menaces have not only received mixed reviews from the students on campus, but from people around the world.
The tiktok algorithm has picked up on the spiking popularity of The Black Menace’s videos, sharing these videos to thousands of tiktok feeds. Many famous tiktokers, such as @zzzachariah, @jfam.ily and @brooklynandbailey, have seen and commented on these videos, pushing the algorithm to continue to share these videos to more users.
However, when it comes to the world’s opinion, they are not as supportive or understanding as those who go to BYU.
One of their most recent videos features one of the Black Menaces, Sebastian James, asking BYU students “if they are a feminist”. This video has 7.9 million views, 29,100 comments and 1.4 million likes. Due to the answers given by BYU students, women and men, some of the comments on this video include:
“What do they teach at BYU? Shapes and colors?”
“These BYU kids always are needing to “do more research”. Do y’all not have a library???”
“How can people just straight up say they don’t believe in equality?”
Rachel Kuykendall, from Virginia, is not a BYU student and said this when asked about the impact of The Black Menaces videos, “It’s no secret that The Black Menaces ask questions that will likely reap a problematic response from their mostly white, highly conservative peers. Outside of BYU, the impact is that more people.. are now learning about the school and its student base.”
Some people watch their videos for entertainment and some for educational purposes. Kuykendall states, “I watch their videos because they are painfully entertaining. It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion.”
Annalee Taylor, a Vegas resident, feels the same. When asked about the videos, Ross said, “It gives byu a bad rep but it addresses important issues and some of the messed up things about the student culture. It’s important to recognize that the results are not to be used to stereotype, they are to be used to recognize some issues culturally that a portion of the population is experiencing”.
Although BYU students and the rest of the world have a lot to say about these videos, The Black Menaces have clearly stated what their purpose and mission are in one of their very first tiktoks.
“The Black Menaces do not support any form of racism, sexism, homophobia, hate speech, cyberbullying or anything like that. The point of our page is to highlight the reality of Black students and other marginalized communities.”
Their bio on all social media platforms reads, “The revolution will be televised”. It also includes links to donate to their cause in many different ways.
One way to donate is their Patreon, a popular website used to create a subscription service for social media creators. Their “about” section on Patreon states, “The Black Menaces Movement was created to facilitate difficult conversations, inspire change, and promote social progress.”.
While unable to receive a quote from one of The Black Menaces, the quotes from their social media show what they believe and where they stand. These Menaces are on a mission to show the world their opinions and what needs to be changed.
