When Did You Fall in Love With Tech?
Credit: Brown Sugar, directed by Rick Famuyiwa, Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2002. Still captured Source: https://tinyurl.com/mr2jwp83
🎧 Inspired by the movie, Brown Sugar
In the classic film Brown Sugar, Sanaa Lathan’s character, Sidney, asked a simple yet profound question: “When did you fall in love with hip hop?” For her and childhood friend Dre (played by Taye Diggs), it happened in 1984, on a street corner in New York, watching a young Slick Rick freestyle in the park. That single moment sparked a deep, lifelong connection to the culture, one that would later shape their careers and, eventually, their love story.
Sanaa Lathan and Taye Diggs in Brown Sugar (2002). Credit Fox Searchlight Pictures.
For me, that defining moment didn’t happen at a block party or through a rap freestyle. It happened behind a computer screen, with the dial-up modem buzzing in the background. That’s where my love for tech, storytelling, and strategy first began to take shape.
Growing up, I was always a creative. I sang, drew, designed, played the keyboard and clarinet, and was on dance, step, and auxiliary teams. Whether it was a school talent show or a full-blown living room concert, I was always sharing something I’d created or learned.
As the middle child in a big Southern family full of aunts, uncles, cousins, and beautiful chaos, creativity was encouraged. It was how I made space for myself. While most kids were watching cartoons, I was captivated by talk shows like Oprah, Sally Jessy Raphael, Ricki Lake, and Geraldo. I was drawn to real stories and the psychology behind human behavior. I didn’t have the language for it yet, but I was already practicing empathy, analysis, and storytelling.
Then came tech. And with it, a new layer of creativity and exploration.
In the ’90s, my dad (an entrepreneur) always had the latest gadgets: car phones, pagers, bulky Apple desktops, flip phones, loud printers, and more. I lived through every phase of tech’s evolution: three-way calling, dial-up internet, boomboxes, CD players, floppy disks, LimeWire, and burning CDs. I didn’t know it then, but I was growing up inside the early stages of a digital revolution.
Now? We’ve moved from bulky desktops and mixtape CDs to iPhones, smart homes, generative Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, wearables, and automation. What I experienced as play and curiosity became the foundation of a lifelong passion.
My tech and design journey truly began with Microsoft Publisher and Paint. Later, on BlackPlanet, I taught myself basic HTML and CSS to customize my page. I became obsessed with code, visuals, and user experience. I wasn’t just building a webpage, I was building a story. Designing with intention. Strategizing without knowing that’s what I was doing. That early DIY creativity sparked something deeper. What began as curiosity and self-expression evolved into a career centered on digital storytelling, user-centered strategy, and intentional design. It wasn’t just about making things look good; it was about making them make sense.
Whitney Middlebrooks, MGarris Photography 2024
My relationship with tech has evolved from entertainment journalism to software implementation, platform rollouts, UX design, and full-scale event production. Through it all, I’ve stayed rooted at the intersection of curiosity, communication, and creation.
While my educational path didn’t always seem linear, it laid the foundation for a career that’s uniquely mine. Today, this is what I do. I blend creative intuition with strategic execution, launching products, growing brands, and leading go-to-market strategies from concept to scale.
I develop and lead scalable campaign designs for tech companies, product launches, education initiatives, and community organizations. My work spans CRM automation, lifecycle marketing, journey mapping, and user-centered product development—all grounded in research, data, and purpose-driven design. From multimillion-dollar digital equity SaaS campaigns to immersive brand experiences like the Black Luxe Expo, I manage projects end-to-end: strategy, execution, optimization, and evaluation.
Whether integrating AI workflows, building stakeholder engagement models, or producing UX-centered activations, I keep people at the center and equity at the core, crafting experiences that are as meaningful as they are measurable.
So I’ll ask you: When did you fall in love with tech?
For me, it didn’t start in a classroom or a boardroom. It began in my childhood, and I’ve been chasing that feeling and refining my strategy ever since.
-Whitney Middlebrooks, Creative Design Strategist