On March 6 and April 3 Twitter, Tumblr and other social media platforms were inundated by pictures of people of color for a much needed #BlackoutDay to finally celebrate people who are generally unrepresented in media by encouraging those with darker skin tones to post selfies.

I was thrilled to see celebrities such as Russell Simmons and his daughters, and actress Amandla Stenberg take part, showing that they are more than just famous faces and connecting their own struggles to those of so many other Americans who struggle with not seeing many people like them in the media.

And even better, according to a public post by Expect-the-greatest, #BlackOutDay’s creator, the social media is now a tradition on every first Friday of every month because “celebrating the beauty of blackness is important.”

I believe that #BlackOutDay is very important and came about at the correct time. In recent media, the focus on the black community has been all about death, crime, and violence and #BlackOutDay is a really positive opportunity to our distinct and unique features as well as our commonalities.

Sadly, as people of color were posting amazing selfies and videos to reiterate that black is indeed beautiful, many people took offense to #BlackOutDay.

As I was scrolling through Tumblr I was disappointed to see comments that said things like didn’t you know that Black people, like everyone else, have 365 days to post selfies. Yes, just like everyone else we do have 365 days to take pictures, but #BlackOutDay is a day to embrace the beauty of individuals in the black community, whose beauty often goes unnoticed.

As an African-American female, I thought it would be great to take part in #BlackOutDay. I took a selfie and posted it on twitter, placing the hashtag #BlackOut, and was surprised at the number of favorites I received on my picture from people that I did not know or follow. On a daily basis I see selfies that popular people take and post and see how many likes, favorites and retweets they receive. The amount of likes that they receive on their photos make me wonder what I have to do to receive that type of praise.

The numerous amount of pictures of beautiful people of color made me realize how used I am to seeing the European standard of beauty. The European standard of beauty places a lot of emphasis on hair types, skin colors, and other features, that are not common among African-Americans. In African-American culture there tends to be an array of different hair types and skin color.

In many pictures I saw on different platforms of social media, I saw people embracing characteristics about themselves that defy this European standard. Many of the pictures that I saw included natural hair and darker complexions. It is good that these things are being embraced and that as an African-American community we are moving away from the idea that lighter skin is ‘better’ and that natural hair is ‘bad’.

The youth of today are influenced strongly by media. They are led to believe that unless you look a certain way you are not beautiful or important. #BlackOutDay is a day to prove media wrong and let everyone know that they are beautiful regardless of skin color.

After reading many tweets from individuals of other races, I realized #BlackOutDay was taken by some as ‘a day to bash other races’. It was assumed that embracing beauty of one culture was implying that others are not beautiful, but that is not the case. This campaign is to celebrate beauty across all races and the sharing of selfies has quickly moved through social media to make an impact un-imaged.