‘Blockout’ movement on social media targets celebrities in the US

The Met Gala took place at the beginning of the month, in New York, and a video related to the event was the trigger for a wave of criticism of celebrities who did not take a stance on the war between Israel and Hamas and other humanitarian conflicts on social media.

The movement is called Blockout 2024 and aims to block personalities such as Kim Kardashian, Zendaya and even those who did not attend the event, such as Taylor Swift or Selena Gomez, with the intention of reducing their relevance.

On TikTok, there are videos with a list of celebrities who should be blocked.

The objective is to make brands analyze whether it is worth working with such personalities to promote a certain product and that the user does not receive any type of sponsored content from that profile.

The movement began after influencer Haley Kalil, who has almost 10 million followers on TikTok, posted a video of herself at the Met Gala. Wearing a dress and hat adorned with flowers, she reproduces the phrase: “Let them eat cake” (“Que comam brioche”, in Portuguese), using the audio from Sofia Coppola’s film “Maria Antoinette”, released in 2006.

The phrase is attributed to Queen Marie Antoinette of France in the 18th century and became famous for being a representation of indifference to the needs of the people. She reportedly said this when she was told that the French population was suffering from lack of food during the food shortage. However, there is no evidence that she actually responded in this way.

Due to the phrase, the term “Let them eat cake” has never been searched as much on Google in the USA as it is now. Data from Trends shows that the term reached its peak in searches this month, dating back to 2004, the beginning of the platform’s historical series.

In Brazil, the subject also gained popularity and registered searches in May on Trends. Some content creators here started publishing videos explaining the movement to Brazilians.

Kalil’s video triggered a series of debates about the position of celebrities in the face of geopolitical conflicts, especially because outside the Met Gala catwalks there were protests in favor of Palestine.

Furthermore, while the event was taking place, Israel announced that it took full control of the Rafah crossing, while advancing with its tanks towards the city of the same name, which became the last refuge for more than half of the population of the Palestinian territory.

The event was even associated with the film “The Hunger Games” in which in the plot there are those who live in the Capital and have plenty of food, while other districts go hungry and suffer from a lack of resources.

Kalil deleted the video after the negative repercussion and said that she was not invited to go to the Met Gala – only Anna Wintour, head of Vogue magazine and party captain, chooses the celebrities who enter – and was there as presenter of E! News.

She also apologized for using the phrase “Let them eat cake” and highlighted that it was a trend to use it in several videos on TikTok.

The influencer added that she did not want to emphasize elitism by using the phrase, as she was “not elite enough to even be invited to the Met Gala”, and stated that she did not have enough knowledge to speak out about what was happening in Gaza .

Singer Lizzo is one of the personalities who published a video on her networks asking her followers to donate to organizations that help Palestinians affected by war. The content was shared on May 9, three days after the Met Gala.