Black Folks Deserve Better: Lemuel Plummer’s Zeus Network Is Everything That Is Wrong With Portrayals Of Blackness On Television

Some might find the Zeus Network highly entertaining, but we are more than anger, violence, and twerking half-naked. Do better.

Lemuel ‘Lemmie’ Plummer has made history as the CEO of Zeus Network. Being raised by parents who owned and operated multiple television stations in Detroit, it was natural that Plummer would follow in his parents’ footsteps to create his own multi-media dynasty. When Plummer started the subscription video-on-demand streaming network in 2018, he was praised for being an innovator — breaking barriers as a Black millennial. However, more recently, Plummer has been criticized for what some are saying is exploitative content toward Black people through perpetuating negative tropes and stereotyped images of Blackness on his network, and I could not agree more.

Zeus Network was launched by Lemuel Plummer in 2018 and is a subscription video-on-demand network that charges subscribers $5.99 monthly or $59.99 annually to tune into a variety of shows, most of which fall within the reality television genre. The network has taken off and is currently wildly popular, which is not surprising, as television and…