What is Blackfishing?

Blackfishing is a slang term for a white person, usually a social media influencer, who uses tanning and makeup to appear Black or mixed-race.

Where did Blackfishing come from?

The viral callout came from Toronto writer Wanna Thompson's November 2018 Twitter thread, which asked followers to name "white girls cosplaying as black women on Instagram".

What does Blackfishing mean?

Blackfishing is a portmanteau of "Black" and "catfishing," implying that someone is deceiving others about their race through their physical presentation online.

How do you use Blackfishing?

People typically apply the term by posting side-by-side photos of an influencer's earlier pale self next to a current darker-skinned post, calling it blackfishing.

Is Blackfishing still popular?

Blackfishing had its viral peak in late 2018, with BBC, Slate, ABC and The Independent all covering the Emma Hallberg case within weeks of the original thread.

Who is Emma Hallberg?

Emma Hallberg is a Swedish Instagram model with over 260,000 followers who became the face of the 2018 blackfishing controversy after before-and-after photos of her went viral.

What did Emma Hallberg say about the accusations?

Hallberg told ABC's Good Morning America, "I've never claimed to be black or biracial or anything else than white," and said she tans deeply in the sun.

Is blackfishing the same as blackface?

Some critics called it "modern day blackface" because it borrows looks from a historically oppressed group, though Slate distinguished it from the Rachel Dolezal case because blackfishers rarely claim Black identity.

Who else was accused of blackfishing?

BBC Newsbeat interviewed University of Birmingham student Aga Brzostowska, who asked to be called Alicja and admitted to tanning while rejecting the blackfishing label.

Was "blackfishing" the original word?

No. Slate reported that Thompson's original thread used "niggerfishing," and mainstream outlets softened it to "blackfishing" when covering the story.

Blackfishing

2018slang / controversysemi-active

Published November 6, 2026

Blackfishing describes white social media users, mostly Instagram influencers, who tan, contour and style themselves to look Black or mixed-race. The term went viral in November 2018 after Toronto writer Wanna Thompson's Twitter thread catalogued "white girls cosplaying as black women on Instagram," and Swedish influencer Emma Hallberg became the face of the controversy. By late November 2018, BBC Newsbeat, Slate and ABC's Good Morning America were covering blackfishing as a mainstream appropriation debate.

race and identity memes instagram memes culture war memes influencer mockery memes 2018 memes

Overview

Accused blackfishers typically rely on heavy spray tans, bronzer contouring, overlined glossy lips, curly or braided hair styled through wet-and-wavy wigs, box braids or Bantu knots, plus streetwear and hip-hop aesthetics in their shoots1. The signature evidence in viral callouts is a side-by-side pairing: an earlier photo showing a pale, light-haired teenager next to a recent post where the same person looks ambiguously Black, Latina or North African1. Writers covering the pattern pointed to 3c curls, dreadlocks and hood fashions that followers read as a racial performance, not a tan1.

Unlike the Rachel Dolezal case, people called out for blackfishing rarely identify themselves as another race. Their defense tends to be that their skin darkens through sun exposure or spray tanning and that their hair and features are natural3. Critics counter that the practice lets white women capitalize on Black aesthetics for brand deals and follower growth without facing racism, a point BBC Newsbeat's interviewees pushed against2. Lauren Jackson, a University of Chicago PhD student writing on race and cultural appropriation, told ABC that when a large group tells someone their look takes advantage of a racist legacy, they should listen3.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Twitter / Instagram (viral spread)

Creator

Wanna Thompson

Date

2018

Blackfishing as a label grew out of Toronto writer Wanna Thompson's Twitter thread in early November 2018, which asked followers to submit "the white girls cosplaying as black women on Instagram"1. Slate noted that the original term in that thread was actually "niggerfishing," a direct play on catfishing that mainstream outlets softened to "blackfishing" when picking the story up1. Before the thread, a YouTuber posting as Everybody Hates Angel had already dissected the trend of white women styling themselves to look like women of color in a video that gathered over 192,000 views6.

The viral catalyst arrived on November 6, 2018, when Twitter user @yeahboutella posted screenshots of Instagram posts and direct messages tied to Emma Hallberg, a white Swedish model whose photos had drawn accusations of blackfishing4. Later that same day, @fratis_first tweeted a photo of Hallberg's response, in which she wrote, "I'm white and I've never claimed to be anything else," attributing her darker skin to a deep natural tan after a summer in the sun5.

How It Spread

Following Thompson's thread, Twitter contributors piled on compilations of before-and-after photos of Instagram models with follower counts sometimes above 100,000, letting the contrasts stand on their own1. Hallberg, who had more than 260,000 Instagram followers, became the face of the controversy2. Her same defense was quoted in Buzzfeed and then aired on ABC's Good Morning America on November 28, 2018, where she denied doing anything to darken her skin and insisted her hair, lips and nose were natural3.

Urban Dictionary user Lebanese Bebe added a definition on November 18, 2018, describing blackfishing as spray tanning and makeup contouring used by women of European descent to appear of Black African, Arab or Hispanic ancestry7. BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat then interviewed Aga Brzostowska, a 20-year-old University of Birmingham student who asked to be called Alicja, after she was accused of the same practice2. Brzostowska rejected the label but admitted to tanning, saying she saw no reason to stop a habit she enjoyed2.

Coverage then ran through The Independent, Slate, BBC and ABC across late November and into December 20188. Slate's piece connected the Hallberg callouts to Rachel Dolezal while distinguishing the two, pointing out that blackfishers usually do not claim a Black identity the way Dolezal did1.

Timeline

2018-11

Toronto writer Wanna Thompson starts a Twitter thread crowdsourcing examples of "white girls cosplaying as black women on Instagram," originally using the term "niggerfishing."

2018-11-06

Twitter user @yeahboutella posts screenshots of Emma Hallberg's Instagram posts and DMs, drawing more than 11,000 retweets within a month.

2018-11-06

@fratis_first tweets Hallberg's written response, in which she insists she is white and tans naturally.

2018-11-18

Urban Dictionary user Lebanese Bebe posts a definition of blackfishing centered on spray tanning and makeup contouring.

2018-11-28

Hallberg appears on ABC's Good Morning America to deny altering her skin, hair or features.

2018-12

BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat publishes an interview with University of Birmingham student Aga Brzostowska, who denies intentional blackfishing but admits to tanning.

How to Use This Meme

Blackfishing works as a callout label rather than a template format. Users typically deploy it on Twitter or Instagram by posting a side-by-side of an earlier pale photo and a recent darker-skinned post of the same influencer, tagged with the accusation that the subject is capitalizing on Black beauty aesthetics for follower growth or brand deals1. Thompson's original crowdsourced thread established the practice of letting the paired photos speak for themselves without heavy commentary, a style later copied in subsequent callouts of other influencers1.