All Celebrities Are Blockable is my new favourite ACAB*
#Blockout2024 is accelerating celebrity culture downfall. Join the party, it is exhilarating and about time we stop caring about out of touch, rich people
Who would have thought at the height of stan culture that we would suddenly all agree to turn our backs on the very people we made famous and wealthy?
The Met Gala was such a dystopian moment this year, as the celebrities were walking the carpet of a gala they paid $75,000 for a single tickets — already more than what most people in the world earn yearly — simultaneously Israel was greenlighting its ground invasion of Rafah, supposed safe zone, in the southernmost part of Gaza where close to 2 millions are currently trapped. It is the most densely populated area in the world right now. Thank god, some people of conscience were protesting outside the Met about how insane the situation was. I was scrolling through my feed on Instagram and seeing blown up Palestinians and having my explore page full of Met Gala looks. Since the new Instagram policy restricting political content, my explore page is truly on another world from my main feed, you wouldn’t know a genocide was ongoing by the look of it. Met Monday was so baffling to witness that I had to write a piece on the matter letting out why we, as a collective, need to leave celebrities and influencers behind because they are in no way interested in collective liberation and just represent the bourgeoisie who seek to cosy up with the billionaire class to further their own interests. Let me reiterate my stance: celebrities will not save us!
The ‘digitine’, short for digital guillotine
Since October, we have tried so many avenues to get celebrities and influencers to use the platforms and reach we gave them to raise awareness on the situation in Gaza. They either remained silent or made up pathetic excuses such as:
“celebrities do not have as much power as you guys think” - Lizzo
“I am not knowledgeable on the subject and it is quite complex” - pretty much every coward influencers
We all have had enough of the cowardice of those people who claim to be the voice of reason when it fits them but when it comes to raising awareness on some subjects that are not complicated to understand, suddenly they don’t hold any power or influence. This blatantly lie truly showcases that we need to be more meticulous on who we make famous because if they managed to amass a pretty consequent following and been offered opportunities, it means they do hold power and influence. I would rather have them be honest and say that they are too scared to jeopardise their wealth and status, than stay silent and side with genocidal maniacs.
I can assure you that the past 7 months, people have been awakened to the reality of what celebrities stand for and the majority of them stand for nothing, they are just phony frauds who weaponise social issues when those can make them money and uplift their image. Not going to lie, I have dreamed of times like these when people would start to question what celebrities actually bring other than distraction, all while relying on our money to maintain their lavish lifestyles that they would then shove down our throat. I have always found celebrities to be quite ungrateful brats, at the end of the day, they have a platform and success because we granted them that luxury. And just like we granted them celebrity or influencer status, we can take it back as well, and that is exactly what we have decided to do.
A TikTok user, [at]ladyfromtheoutside came up with the term digitine in response to a fellow TikTok creator, [at]haleyybaylee’s out of touch video she did in her Met Gala outfit lip-syncing to the Sofia Coppola’s film Marie Antoinette’s line “let them eat cake”. If you are not familiar with this saying, it is famously attributed to the real Queen Marie Antoinette of France in the 18th century in regard to peasants facing a horrible famine at that time and being rightfully angry at the monarchy for creating this austerity atmosphere. Saying this as Gazans are being maimed, killed and starved is truly insane, and it created a storm on TikTok, calling Haley out. She has since released an unconvincing apology.
#Blockout2024 party
Needless to say, the uproar from the dystopia caused by the Met Gala pushed people who have been risking their livelihoods, opportunities and careers to stop a genocide to have had enough. It has been 7 months of constant gaslighting and despair where people with much more power and influence could actually help change things. I refuse to believe that celebrities have little to no power when we have Taylor Swift boosting the American economy with her Era tour, Harry Styles driving up gen z to register to vote and Beyoncé quite literally amplifying conversations around African American struggles and putting it to the forefront. I would like to note that the three celebrities I mentioned here have vocally expressed caring about social issues, but none of them have talked about Gaza.
You don’t get to use the imagery of black liberation and channelling radical black revolutionaries who were vocally pro-Palestine and anti-imperialism whilst staying completely silent on those very matters and in fact weaponising those radicalities to your own capitalistic and imperialistic gains (yes, I am looking at you, Beyoncé!). This is because of celebrities’ hypocrisy that this celebrity block list took place. It was ignited by a content creator named Pablo — sorry I don’t know his handle as I don’t use TikTok any more — in his TikTok he explained how blocking celebrities and their businesses, disables them from getting ad revenue. Since then, the people of the internet have come together to share their block lists and express the joy of seeing people finally realising the phoniness that celebrities are. On Instagram, some accounts have been created to help you make your blocking party easier, all you need to do is to go on their following list and block everyone on there. Blockout.2024 is a great resource because it also focuses on influencers, businesses and politicians. Bisan has also shared a couple of lists on her stories, just a few minutes ago. Kindly reminder that influencers are micro celebrities, if not full-blown celebrities too, therefore they are as much complicit with their silence.
Are we witnessing a wake of class consciousness?
I have said it for many years and I will keep saying it, the celebrity class is a bourgeois class, they need us more than we need them. As mentioned earlier in this piece, we are the ones granting them that privileged status, in that regard, we are very legitimate to take it away from them!
The idea that some random celebrity loves me has always sounded so awkward and weird… how can you love me when you don’t even know that I exist? Let’s be honest here, celebrities don’t love us, they love our money, they love that they get to live off their dreams and that is about it. It is just not popularly accepted to admit that you love the money, which is such an odd concept in a highly capitalistic society!!! Pretending to not be interested or bothered by money and making money talks a taboo is another way to keep the working class at bay from an uprising, but that is a subject for another piece.
I am always happy to see people getting to do what they love and being supported for it, yet, if you request community solidarity to be behind you to achieve your dreams but then completely detached yourself from the idea of community building as soon as you reached your goal, something is truly wrong with you. I know neoliberalism strives for a very individualistic society because the more disconnected we are from each other, the better we can be politically divided, lose empathy for each other and not rise against the people thriving over our struggles… but I beg, celebritiness is the prime example of the need of community to help one’s success, actually when you think of it all high profile entities, corporations included, need community to survive! Why do you think, with the rise of social media, community managers became a thing? Why do you think they request a whole communication team and magazine coverage and promotion? Because they need to cater to the community that is funnelling the money into their bank accounts. Celebrity culture has been on the declining end since the pandemic with the release of the ever cringeworthy Imagine video but as of now, it is not cringe that they transpire, it is complete disconnect whilst unveiling what they have loved all this time: it is not us, the fans, the stans or the casual supporters but the money we provide them.
In conclusion, to answer my question: yes we are witnessing a wake of class consciousness, more and more people are seeing right through the hypocrisy and have decided to take the matter on their own hands because Palestine liberation will not only free Palestine but us all in the West too. Another world is birthing right before our eyes, so please keep pushing, we are getting there!
*shoutout and all credit to TikTok creator [at]cultbaffboon666 for the new ACAB acronym. I got inspired by her TikTok I saw on a post dumb on Instagram.
Block the apps. Zuckerberg and Musk are evil and they use our content against us. Blocking celebrities doesn't do much if the corporate overlords who plant them will just replace them with new ones who pretend to give a shit about what we care about whole selling us more shit we don't need.
I think the hardest part for us as consumers or audience until now, was letting go of the feeling that we were being represented by these people. They made us visible. Somehow, through their success, they made us count too. We thought they were our spokespeople, amplifying our voices. And then, when it mattered, they disappeared. What a betrayal! It's the trust we put in them, now broken, that makes it soo easy to hit "block".