Help me put on a gallery exhibition event for my senior thesis, Divesting from the Algorithms: A #BlackDirectory Showcase!

Hello! My name is Mo Wisdom, and I am a rising senior at Emory University studying Interdisciplinary studies with a focus on African-American studies and algorithmic bias on social media platforms. As a part of my major, I am pursuing a capstone project into Black content creators on YouTube, content curation, and algorithmic bias.

Part of my research project is entitled, Divesting from the Algorithms: Content Curation and Exhibition as Resistance to Algorithmic Oppression. Black content creators face unique challenges when using social media websites like YouTube. This includes things like racial violence and harassment from other netizens. My research focuses on the kind of discrimination that comes from platforms themselves, that is waged through algorithmic moderation and recommendation systems that further structurally marginalize already socially marginalized communities online. As a way to combat this structural bias, I am producing an exhibition of my curated creator directory, The #BlackDirectory YouTube Index. The #BlackDirectory YouTube Index is a directory of content creators on YouTube that features a predominantly Black collection of independent artists and scholars on the platform, creating videos that serve the populations of people within their digital audiences. The exhibition will feature a curation of videos from the directory as well as the opportunity for content creators to lead a discussion panel about the challenges they face creating content online.

This semester I've spent so much time contacting creators, venues, and audiovisual technicians. I've put myself into a deep study of algorithmic bias across the internet, compiling reflections from creators, and studying critical internet scholarship. I put on a proto-exhibition this past summer as a way of testing the concept and received some early feedback from some of the lovely people on my campus. I'm so incredibly excited to have connected with some brilliant creators like Thinkpiece Tribe and Harriyanna Hook, and I can't wait to see it all come to life. Here's a video from the proto-exhibition to give you a greater sense of what this project is.

I have a total fundraising goal of $2,000 which would cover the cost of technology needs, installation cost and labor, catering, compensation for invited creators, a videographer, and social media promotion. It's important to me to be able to provide compensation for each of the creators invited to participate. Black content creators are rarely given the same kind of monetization and sponsorship opportunities as their non-black counterparts, and I want to model what it means to value their work and time.

If this event sound worthwhile and important to you, please consider donating to my campaign or sharing this campaign with someone who may be able to contribute! You can donate on my Ko-Fi page. Thank you in advance, and I'm excited to see you at the exhibition in January!

Donation page: https://ko-fi.com/post/Divesting-from-the-Algorithms-A-BlackDirectory-S-J3J11PQUDW

- Mo Wisdom