Naturally Social: Coming Home

The best way to describe this panel was a diamond in the rough. While a majority of SXSWers are non-black, this panel would only seem outwardly appealing to a very small fraction of the festival's audience. On top of the tiny demographic the Blacks in Technology (BiT) serves, this panel interestingly divided that market by almost half; this panel was about natural hair.

Even more so, this panel discussed the pros/cons, gave advice on, lectured about, and expanded upon the steadily rising presence of natural hair blogs and vlogs by black women on the internet. It was as much about natural har as it was about black female entrepreneurship. Panelists Franchesca Ramsey(@chescaleigh), Kristin Braswell(@carols_daughter), Jamala Jones(@lecoil), Myliek Teele(@myleik), and Patrice Yursik(@afrobella) all discussed their personal journeys through the interwebs with one facet in common: their hair.

 This panel was made up a great mixture of natural hair web personalities. Patrice, the hair vlogger veteran, and Kristin, the businesswoman, gave sound advice on the monetary aspect of turning a hobby into a business and zeroing in on the analytical side of the emerging culture. Myliek, the self-proclaimed "edgy" one, spoke on her admiration of instagram for its ability to more tangibly connect with her audience and cliental than the written word of Twitter and Facebook. Jamala's insight was much appreciated by me especially because I am an avid tumblr user and her experience in that corner of social media spoke more to me. Franchesca, also a vlogger, moderated the panel, but oft interjected with tidbits from the video side of social networking.

This panel was just about perfect. It contained the insight of many women who are all so different, but bound by one common purpose: compiling an online network and database of black women with natural hair.

Naturally Social panel SXSW 2013
© Cheyenne Matthews-Hoffman

One core thing that spoke to me was Myliek's affirmation that there should be more natural hair blogs by black women who aren't always perfect and feature the struggles involved behind the scenes before the final polished product could be reached. This was particularly interesting to me because it's a tiny facet of what I hope this blog to be for me. I have always had my hair natural and normally wear it in braids or just out and curly. My hair is ridiculously fuzzy 99% of the time and these are the only two styles I really wear it in because 1) they're easily manageable with my texture of hair 2) I'm a very lazy person and don't really put much effort into my personal aesthetics and 3) I have no idea how to do my own hair other than out and curly. While I often complain about the naps and fuzziness, I keep it as is because at the end of the day, it's just hair and I don't care about it that much. It's always been interesting to me to see such a great, organic, lengthy discussion go into the appearance of black women's hair, only because I don't really see it's necessity.

At the end of the Q&A, a stylist asked a question that I can't really remembered, although one thing she said that stuck with me is "I never call it 'natural', I call it 'coming home'" in relation to a black woman's natural hair. I understand her reasoning behind this vernacular, however I can see already how problematic the language could be in spheres of discussion of black hair.

However, this entry is already absurdly long. This is a subject I will definitely return to, but for now, I bid you adieu!