Freaknik’s Hulu Documentary Is Freaking Out Formerly Freaky Aunties

The unveiling of a Hulu documentary examining the rise and fall of Freaknik is scaring some Black women who were wild in their heyday.

Freaknik was a series of annual street parties in the 1990s similar to Mardi Gras, but instead of New Orleans, the freaky extravaganza took place in Atlanta and featured Black men as hustlers and women as sexual objects.

Before the invention of social media and the convention of uploading videos online, Freaknik was “a small Atlanta HBCU picnic that exploded into an influential street party and spotlighted ATL as a major cultural stage,” as Hulu described it.

Freaknik, which began as an annual spring break event in the 1980s by historically black colleges Morehouse College, Clark University, Spelman College, Morehouse Medical School and the Interdenominational Theological Center, was eventually banned in 1996, citing public safety concerns and the cost of policing the event, The New York Times reported 

Since then, there have been occasional attempts to revive the freak event, but they have been met with resistance from city officials and law enforcement. 

The freak events were recorded on camcorders, and some of the footage was used in a documentary said to be from 1994 and produced by Jermaine Dupri and Uncle Luke.

The first Freaknik event was held in 1993, and 20 years later, the surviving women who freaked out at the events are believed to be mothers, aunts, and grandmothers who now regret their earlier decision.

On Good Friday before Easter Sunday, one of the 1994 freak participants, anticipating the worst from being featured in the film, insists that if she is seen on camera, her defense is that at least she was fully clothed in her participation, suggesting that some people may have been naked and sexually engaged. 

“That’s my prayer. I will say this, though, I will say this… like when they would bring out those video cameras and start recording, I immediately removed myself from that situation. If you see ya girl in the documentary, hey, man, at least I’m fully clothed. At least all my clothes is on. That’s all I got. That’s the best I got. But yeah, y’all, they ‘bout to put our business out in the street. Some of us might be on TV, so get your parental controls together,” a woman named Tina said on TikTok, whose video was reuploaded on Twitter on Easter.