The Black Pill: (Re)conceptualizing the Black Right in the Era of YouTube Influencers

Political influencers use YouTube to share political media, a practice that has proven integral in the curation of alternative influence networks among the political right. This study examines how Black conservative influencers express Black conservative thought within the broader conservative ecosystem, examining their topics of discussion and comparing these narratives to those of other conservatives within these networks. We employ BERTopic modeling to analyze 17,136 transcripts of YouTube videos produced by Black conservative influencers (N = 70) between 1 January 2013 and 31 December 2023, and 158,833 transcripts of videos algorithmically recommended from this content. In addition, we use a pre-trained encoder-only transformer model to estimate the ideology of these influencers compared to those of other conservative actors in their network. We find that Black conservative influencers conveyed a statistically uniform narrative when discussing race and discrimination, a topic that was not only the most prevalent among them but also received the highest engagement, particularly coinciding with the political rise of Donald Trump. In line with traditional Black conservative thought, these influencers incorporated color-blind narratives discounting anti-Black racism. However, reflecting modern shifts in conservativism, Black conservatives also adopted cultural conservatism, particularly discussing the existence of anti-White racism. We discuss our findings in consideration of micro-celebrity practices that present Black conservatives as “authentic” voices on race, and its implications for legitimizing racial animus and White identity politics.