If black Twitter is its own monolith by driving traffic on Twitter, being a force behind what trends and what doesn't, and churning out hilarious and thought-provoking memes about the news of the day, then its counterpart in Snapchat is arguably one man and one man only: hip-hop's very own DJ Khaled.
Posting more than a dozen bite-size videos (snaps) a day, DJ Khaled grew his following on the video app to more than 2 million followers, TechInsider.com reports, by using his "They don't want me to [insert condition], so I [insert condition]" catchphrase and also his "major key alerts" that keep folks motivated and his haters demoralized.
"They don't want me on Jimmy Kimmel," DJ Khaled said in a snap posted on Wednesday. "So Jimmy Kimmel made sure I'm on Jimmy Kimmel," he finished, as Kimmel appeared in the snap.
It's a formula that works and has gone viral. People young and old, celebrity and commoner, are all in on DJ Khaled's Snapchat wave. It's about doing what others (or one's inner voice) say can't be done.
It's about encouraging people to eat healthy, get fresh, water their plants, travel, be supportive of others, be happy, express gratitude, get money and stay fly. It's a motivational, self-help lifestyle brand on Snapchat, and a hip-hop DJ of Palestinian descent is its engineer.
"Major key: Stay away from liars; they're liars," DJ Khaled said in a snap posted Wednesday.
DJ Khaled usually accompanies these lessons, or "major key alerts," with the key emoji, which has caused the use of the emoji to grow by 800 percent, Emojipedia reports. Talk about influence. And get this: Major brands have caught on to the popularity of DJ Khaled's antics on Snapchat. Check out these tweets from Mastercard and Uber making use of his "major key" catchphrase and emoji.
https://twitter.com/Uber/status/684798197068267520?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfwhttps://twitter.com/MasterCard/status/686645932411191296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
All the visibility on social media does have its downside. According to a few outlets, DJ Khaled accidentally snapped a close-up of his American Express card, which prompted a slew of his followers to buy stuff with it. A reported $80,000 worth of expenses were charged on the card within 30 seconds.
Snapchat had to tip its hat to DJ Khaled for all the love and attention his account has brought to the app, so the company invited him to its headquarters to speak to Snapchat's staff in Los Angeles this week.
It's just another example of how urban influencers are driving the technologies that are connecting and informing people all over the world.
For more of black Twitter, check out The Chatterati on The Root and follow The Chatterati on Twitter.
Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele is a staff writer at The Root and the founder and executive producer of Lectures to Beats, a Web series that features video interviews with scarily insightful people. Follow Lectures to Beats on Facebook and Twitter.
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