Negro Solstice / On December 21st Our Real DNA Will Be Unlocked

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About

Negro Solstice, also known as On December 21st Our Real DNA Will Be Unlocked, refers to a viral tweet espousing the belief that on December 21st, 2020, Black people will receive superpowers. The theory became the subject of numerous jokes on Black Twitter about what will happen on December 21st, primarily showing depictions of Black people flying, exhibiting super strength or growing in size. Online, December 21st has been associated with a Doomsday conspiracy theory regarding December 21st, 2012, which marked the end of a 5,125-year cycle on the Mayan Long Count calendar.

Origin

On December 5th, 2020, in response to an argument about the coronavirus, Twitter^[1] user @lottidot tweeted, "As black people, genetically we are stronger and smarter than everyone else, we are more creative, on December 21 our Real DNA will be unlocked and majority will be able to do things that we thought were fiction. Learn who u are as a people. they wanna make us average." The tweet received more than 15,000 retweets and 13,000 likes in less than one month (shown below).

Spread

Following the post, people on Twitter began posting jokes about December 21st. On December 6th, 2020, Twitter^[2] user @preciousbeyond tweeted one of the first posts to reach major levels of spread. They wrote, "are all my black ppl excited for December 21st?" The tweet received more than 45,000 likes and 7,000 retweets in less than one month (shown below, left).

A December 8th tweet^[3] by @Jani__Gee spread even farther, receiving more than 114,000 likes 14,000 retweets in less than one month (shown below, right). They wrote, "Y’all will owe that girl a very sincere apology if December 21st hits and we all wake up as X-Men."

The following day, Twitter user @kaylamaniM tweeted a video of a boy imagining he has superpowers, with the caption "Us on December 21st." The tweet received more than 4.1 million views, 143,000 likes and 30,000 retweets in less than one week (shown below).

Over the next week, people began posting photos of Black people exhibiting superpowers. On December 13th, Twitter^[4] user @domssmarie tweeted a photograph of a man levitating in a lightning storm with the caption, "the news on December 21st." The tweet received more than 87,000 likes and 16,000 retweets in less than one week (shown below).

Several media outlets covered the meme, including HITC,^[5] StayHipp,^[6] Revolt^[7] and more.

On December 15th, Twitter^[8] user @willtbh tweeted, "December 21st is now and forever known as the Negro Solstice." The tweet received more than 65,000 likes and 14,000 retweets in less than one week (shown below). Following the tweet, the hashtags #NegroSolstice, #NegroSoulstice and #December21 began spreading on Black Twitter.