It was 2013 when film and culture critic Zeba Blay became one of the of the first to coin the viral term, #CarefreeBlackGirls. Now, Blay is expanding on the popular hashtag with a deeper dive on what it means to be a carefree Black girl in her book of essays entitled, Carefree Black Girls: A Celebration of Black Women in Popular Culture.
A title like Carefree Black Girls might suggest a book purely about Black girl joy. But Blay’s writing is as multi-dimensional, wide-ranging, and engaging as the Black women she writes about — from Cardi B, Mel B, and Josephine Baker to herself. Blay spoke with Teen Vogue about how she took the viral phrase from a hashtag to a deeper exploration on the totality of depictions on Black womanhood — a process that helped her better understand herself and her own capacity for joy.
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