Cosmopolitan UK – September 2019

76 ·^ COSMOPOLITAN

thisa milliondifferentways,butI just

wentwithwhatfeltthemostnatural

tome.WouldI everhavewantedthis

tohappen?Never.Butshithappens.

Andintheend,I neverwanttosee

anyonehurt;I wouldhatetobethe

reasonforanyone’spain.Weallhave

togotosleepwithourselvesat night.”

Thetemptationtoseewhatpeople

weresayingaboutherwasveryreal.

“Itbecomesaddictivetolookonthe

internet,tolookatyourname.When

I would look at my name and see all

of the things that people were saying,

it became like a tumour. It became

cancerous to me.” From “homewrecker”

and “snake”, right through to death

threats, Woods saw it all.

Growing up in California, in a

close-knit family with two brothers

(26 and 19) and a younger sister (12)

who looks like she could

be her twin, Woods was a

self-professed tomboy. She’s

been big on social media

since the age of 15 when she

started cashing cheques for

her work as an influencer,

after initially making videos

for fun with friends. Raised

in a predominantly white

area, Oak Park, Woods

recalls being one of only

two black girls in her

school. “I never really looked at

people’s colour or noticed that I was

different to anyone else, besides the

time one of my teachers called me

Leah [the other black girl], and Leah

and I look nothing alike. She was

short and dark-skinned, and I’m tall

and light-skinned.”

Although Woods doesn’t believe the

outpouring of hate she received this

year was entirely to do with her race,

she pinpoints specific instances where

online abuse was definitely targeted at

her because she’s a black woman. “The

first picture I posted on Instagram

afterwards was a photo of me with

short hair, which was a weave. I cut it;

I just wanted short hair. I posted it and

allthememesgoingaroundwere,‘Oh,

Jordyncan’taffordhairextensionsany

more,she’ssobroke’.”Aftera recent

triptoNigeria,a 47-secondclip

surfacedofWoodsspeakingaboutthe

onlinebullyingshe’dfacedandhow

it illuminatedwhatit meanttobe

demonisedasa blackwomanexisting

ina publicspace.Theinternetlatched

ontoit,professingthatWoodshadjust

discoveredwhatit meanttobeblack

• somethingsheis particularlykeen
  to clear up. She references an article
  she read on gal-dem, the publication
  I founded, about schoolgirls being
  sent home for having what the school
  deemed “inappropriate hair”. “I’ve had
  the privilege of not having to face it
  as hard as the girls in [that] school
  because of my surroundings, but now
  I have a clearer understanding of how
  this game works, and how people feel
  like it’s OK to say whatever
  they want. I know that I’m
  a black woman and I love
  being a black woman.”
  She is, she says, a private
  person, despite her
  following of 9.8 million
  on Instagram. “I don’t really
  care to share my whole
  life on social media,
  because certain things are
  special and once you
  share it, you open
  yourself up to people’s
  opinions.” This became
  a double-edged sword:
  “People got to see me
  at my most vulnerable
  moment without even really
  knowing me, because I don’t
  showcase who I am, really.” We
  go on to discuss the universal,
  perpetual fear of “being cancelled”
  and the disconnect between people
  online and in real life. “The internet
  feels so entitled to have opinions
  about everything, but a lot of it is
  bullshit. These are real people, with
  real lives. People are so detached that
  they don’t feel empathy, they don’t feel
  bad, theydon’t realise that theone i

“It became

addictive

to look at

what people

were saying”

CELEBRITY

No time

for trolls

CARDIGAN AND TOP, AS BEFORE. EARRINGS AND COLOURED RINGS, LARK & BERRY. OTHER RINGS, PANDORA