✨Koya (like Toya with a K)✨

i’m so so excited for everyone to see this. for the record, tyra did NOT produce or have any creative input in this doc whatsoever. and it shows. i largely think a lot of the criticism aimed at tyra banks stemming from this show is underserved — not saying she’s not responsible for some of the harm she caused…but looking at a show from the early 2000s with the cultural lens of the 2020s — a reality tv show about women, at that — is bound to be found problematic. the times were just problematic. the modeling industry as a whole was problematic. reality tv was DEFINITELY problematic. i do think tyra’s intentions were (mostly) good. i think she, at one point, got caught up in and also lost control of the machine she created. her power only went so far. at the end of the day, she was a Black woman in entertainment. she was then and she is now. we know how that goes. i don’t wanna spoil it, but i’ll also say this — it’s a little weird to expect friendship behavior from someone years after it was established (by you, via email) that you were just coworkers. oh yeah…and we’re not about to blame tyra for the standards and practices of the modeling industry back then either. ….and that’s all i got for now.