Social media users are blocking celebrities and influencers to support Palestine

Every Met Gala has some kind of controversy, whether it’s about the dress code and theme, the guest listor one now infamous brawl in an elevator at an afterparty. Since it’s 2024, it’s only fitting that the outrage started this year over a TikTok audio track.

In a now-deleted video, an influencer named Haley Kalil shows off her elaborate floral dress and headpiece as she prepares to host a pre-Met Gala red carpet event. Her mistake was using a snippet of background audio taken from the 2006 film Marie Antoinette, in which the titular character smiles and delivers one of the most famous (and spurious) lines in history: “Let them eat cake.” The sound has been circulating on TikTok for months, being used mainly in makeup tutorials, fashion videos and things of that nature.

O retaliation it was fast and brutal. The public compared the event to O Hunger Games, a dystopia where the rich sit back while everyone else fights to the death. TikTok users flooded Kalil’s comments saying she was ignorant, insensitive or purposefully trying to manufacture outrage. Kalil insisted it was an honest mistake, but the optics were bad: As thousands of people die, starve and are displaced in Gaza, reveling in opulence will inevitably harm some.

For seven months, social media audiences watched violence descend on Palestinians in Gaza following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. Instagram feeds have been flooded with infographics, charts and horrific images of death and destruction. TikTok — once an app known primarily for silly dances — has become a battleground for shaping the public narrative around the long-running conflict between Israel and Palestine. For many — especially younger people — all their exposure to the conflict has been through social media, rather than learning about it on a university campus, through family or through traditional media. It makes sense, then, that these same platforms have become an outlet for their responses, whether in the form of frustration, activism or some combination of these.

At the same time that Kalil’s video was debated and discussed, an apparently unplanned popular movement, dubbed “Blockout 2024”, was gaining strength. Last week, a TikTok user shared a video about blocking celebrities on social media platforms in order to prevent their reach and, by extension, their earnings from advertisements or sponsored content. The video was a response to Met Gala clips interspersed with news footage from Gaza, and the intended message was clear: celebrities don’t care what happens to everyone else. The least normal people could do is try to isolate the powerful however they can.

Since then, a litany of “block lists” have circulated, created by different people for different reasons. Targets vary, but Kim Kardashian, Tom Brady, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez are frequently listed, along with many others. (Kalil, unsurprisingly, was also mentioned.) It’s a diffuse movement, with no established leadership or stated goals, but it has clear repercussions: Tens of thousands of posts have been made on TikTok and Instagram using related hashtags, and the comments sections are full of “#blockout” and pro-Palestine messages.

The Lockdown coincides with more direct forms of mutual aid, with pressure directed at celebrities and influencers to promote these efforts. Sending funds and other resources to Gaza has been difficult in recent months due to Israel’s legal system, collapsing infrastructure and physical situation. help lock going to Gaza. Some content creators have publicly called on celebrities to support organizations like Operation Olive Branch, a grassroots effort to raise funds directly for Palestinian families. Artists and creators like Lizzo It is Hank Green posted in support of the organizations, spurred in part by comedian Erin Hattamer’s fundraising request.

Social media-based activism can be fleeting: followers lose interest; thrust decreases; and the range of movements is limited by algorithms. To be fair, the lockdown is still in its early days and it is unclear whether it will have a measurable impact. But for a conflict that’s been unfolding through short videos, selfie-style live updates, and Instagram posts, this probably won’t be the last we hear of it.