What is happening with the emergence of fake twitter accounts created by white people pretending to be black could also be described as a form of racial tourism. Racial tourism is a way that people on the Internet can use “various avatars [to] temporarily slip into another skin [that is different from their own]” (Desmond and Emirbayer 2016:342). This racial tourism is a form of virtual racism because the people behind the accounts are using them to spread harmful messages and stereotypes and sow discontent within the black Twitter community. An example of this can be seen in “an account bearing an image of a black woman [who] mentioned she would be okay with her son being subject to police brutality if he misbehaved” (Rashid 2017) or another fake account that posted saying “Emmett Till deserved to die” (Rashid 2017). Messages like these highlight past and present issues regarding race in America and present controversial views in an attempt to pit members of the black Twitter community against each other and prevent cohesion. As Desmond and Emirbayer state in their book, “racial tourism often reinforces racial divides through stereotypes” (2016:324) and many of the fake Twitter accounts often make posts in ways that “someone who has never been engaged with black culture thinks black people talk.” (Rashid 2017). The people behind the accounts try to “sound black” but misuse or overuse African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and “don’t code switch the way black people do” (Rashid 2017). As previously stated, these accounts are also examples of modern day minstrel shows and this example further proves that point. Luckily these fake accounts are often identified and shut down because of the obvious reproductions of stereotypes and the misuse of AAVE. THE RACIST AESTHETIC The racist aesthetic is an “aesthetic that seeks to depict people of color in negative ways” (Desmond and Emirbayer 2016:291). It can be found in almost all aesthetic realms from past to present including: art, media, fashion, and even on Twitter. On Twitter many users talk about their aesthetic and use memes and tweets as a way to show off that aesthetic. The fake Twitter accounts, that depict black people but are actually run by white people, are a way of promoting and portraying the racist aesthetic. The owners of these accounts wish to depict black people in a stereotypical, negative, and dehumanized manner to subtly promote the ideology of whiteness. By intentionally misrepresenting blackness and black culture these accounts are neglecting the humanity of black people and supporting the racist aesthetic. CONCLUSION: The issue of white “trolls” hiding behind black faces on the internet is not a new concept, but an old concept brought to the new age through technology. Racism is still alive in the United States and has entered into the virtual world, creating the possibility for virtual racism. Online communities, like Twitter, are potential hotbeds for this virtual racism as people can use the anonymity of the internet to be “racial tourists” and pretend to be anyone they want to be, including members of racial groups that are different from their own. The type of “racial tourism” that is seen in these fake accounts is better described as modern day minstrel show where the performers put on a digital black face and reproduce age-old stereotypes about black people. The reproduction of these stereotypes can be seen as a means for white supremacists to control how blackness is represented in the same way that the minstrel shows of the nineteenth and twentieth century did. The representations of blackness by white people in the past and present supports the racist aesthetic because it dehumanizes black pe>