When thinking about South Africa’s Am I Next? movement, I realized that the protest poster is a tool that feminists use to turn their own bodies into feminist media. Initially a hashtag, the Am I Next? movement began as a digital tool to raise awareness and an online space for feminist expression. With this in mind, I wonder: How do viral hashtags transform when attached to the human body? Does attaching text to the Black female body in protest make Black female pain easier to read? And if so, how does this complicate our understanding of what it means to write and read with the body?

(Content Warning: This article contains references to gender violence)