Stephanie Ilodi747 live, a 37-year-old nurse practitioner from Cleveland, arrived in New York on Thursday. By Friday night, she was strutting through a crowd of revelers on the second floor of Our Wicked Lady, a bar in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where a dance party centering Black love was underway.

She had texted her cousin about the event shortly after seeing it advertised on social media. “I’m like, ‘Yo, you want to go to New York for the weekend?’ And she was like, ‘Say less,’” Ms. Ilodi recalled.

In all likelihood, she saw the event, “A Black Love Party,” on the Instagram page MeAndSomebodySon, a meme account dedicated to highlighting images of attractive Black couples in aspirational settings and, one imagines, in healthy relationships. Like many attendees, Ms. Ilodi was searching for a long-term partner, and it was all or nothing.

“I want a Black man. I want a Black king,” she said. “That’s what I’m attracted to.”

Both MeAndSomebodySon and its offline offshoot, “A Black Love Party,” were created by Zemirah Moffett, a 27-year-old copywriter on Long Island. Since the first “Black Love” party, held in May, Ms. Moffett has hosted eight more in cities including Chicago and Washington, D.C.

ImageZemirah Moffett started the Instagram account MeAndSomebodySon to be a cheerleader for Black love. Her parties are based on a related premise: “I know that Black men and women want each other,” she said.Credit...Nicky Quamina-Woo for The New York Times

The name of Ms. Moffett’s account nods to a familiar term of endearment. By identifying a man as “somebody’s son,” you are explicitly positioning him in the context of a family — representing not only himself, but also a mother or a father. For women, it can be an optimistic label: With more on the line than his own self-respect, the thinking goes, a man will be less likely to play in your face. The term, which is often used in jest, has become so popular that the Nigerian singer Tiwa Savage released a song in 2021 of the same name.

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