I don't know if you have noticed that in the past two days, many top streamers in Europe and the United States are collectively losing fans.
Today Beyoncé, Mildew, Pod Cat, Kardashians, Pear...... They all dropped 10,000 or even more than 100,000.
(Data of some of today's fans of celebrities)
Could it be that a top vote collectively collapsed?
In fact, now the Internet is setting off a wave of "black-star" operations, which they call "Digitine", Digital+Guillotine, or, electronic guillotine.
Such a ruthless name, of course, cannot happen without a cause.
And it all started with the Met Gala in early May.
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What set off the storm was a big Internet celebrity @heleyybaylee with tens of millions of followers on TikTok, formerly known as Haley Kalil.
（@heleyybaylee）
In this era, the boundaries between celebrities and Internet celebrities are gradually blurring.
Although the Met Gala is known as the fashionable Spring Festival Gala, it has also begun to be grounded in recent years, and Internet celebrities have also been able to participate, including Haley.
Originally, it was nothing, but it shouldn't be, she had the intention of showing off.
After dressing up, she took a lip-syncing video:
(Haley's lip-syncing video)
她对口型的原话是，“让他们吃蛋糕（Let them eat cake）”。
("Let Them Eat Cake")
This quote comes from Sofia Coppola's 2006 biopic "Cleopatra", which tells the story of Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France before the French Revolution.
It is said that the historical Antoinette replied when he learned that the French peasants had no bread to eat and could only go hungry:
"Let them eat the cake."
(Stills from "The Peerless Cleopatra")
Whether she said this sentence or not is quite controversial in the historical circles. But still, this allusion and China's "why not eat minced meat" complement each other, and can be called the two major "types of people when the stars shine".
After picking out the background of Haley's words, netizens were collectively angry.
Because obviously, the Met Gala is nothing more than another game of the upper echelons, and one of its tickets costs 75,000 US dollars (about 540,000 yuan), and you can't go with money - even Bezos's fiancée was almost turned away because of "poor clothing", isn't it......
(Tickets for the Met Gala are as high as $75,000)
Most crucially, on the day of the Met Gala in Haley, a crowd of pro-Palestinian protesters was gathering at the door of the venue in an attempt to interrupt the Met Gala and get attention......
(Footage sent back by an NBC reporter shows uniformed security guards behind him)
Not to mention the fact that on the far side of the world, there are innocent people who have been displaced by the war and even lost loved ones......
This is similar to the background of "let them eat cake".
Although Haley claimed that she lip-synced with this sentence only because her dress was Marie Antoinette-themed and had no other meaning, let alone malicious intent, at this time, the anger of netizens could not be extinguished.
(Haley's original justification, "The skirt is a Marie Antoinette theme")
The Hunger Games comes to mind: the residents of District 1 see luxury goods every day, while the residents of District 12 ......
At present, Haley has deleted the original video and released an apology video, explaining that she did not actually attend the Met Gala, but was invited by Entertainment Television (E!) to make a cameo appearance as the host of the Met Gala rehearsal session and so on.
But the comment section of her apology video is still full of various Hunger Games memes:
"We don't have a cake in District 12, cry."
"I'm sorry, I was busy eating cake, I didn't hear you say."
"We're all from District 12, aren't we?"
(The above are all from the netizens who scolded her in Haley's apology video)
What Haley didn't expect was that the next wave of the whole thing completely exceeded the scale of the Internet celebrity overturn.
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On May 9th, a TT blogger with the ID @Ladyfromtheoutside listed Haley (I don't know her original name, but she calls herself Rae in her bio, so we'll call her Rae).
Rae, on the other hand, is the inventor of the "electronic guillotine".
（@Ladyfromtheoutside，Rae）
In the video, Rae explains why Haley doesn't eat minced meat, accusing her of having tens of millions of followers and not using her influence to help those in need.
Here, she called on netizens to launch an "electronic guillotine" against celebrities like Haley.
Because the income of these celebrity Internet celebrities actually depends on ordinary netizens who "can't afford to eat cake", once they are blocked, they will get back all their attention, views, likes, forwards, and money.......
(Rae invents the "electronic guillotine")
A tiny revolt, but when put together, enough to overwhelm any creature that feeds on the flow.
"@heleyybaylee, given your arrogant decision to go to the $75,000 Met Gala and the recitation of 'Let Them Eat the Cake.'" We hereby pronounce you an electronic guillotine! ”
(Rae sentences Haley to electronic guillotine)
Given that Marie Antoinette was eventually guillotined during the French Revolution, Rae's sentence is quite historical......
All in all, Rae's videos garnered more than 2.5 million views on TT, and after her, more and more similar voices began to emerge,
For example, an account called "Blockout2024" simply appeared on TT,
He gives three celebrities every day to blackout, if you are too lazy to think about it, just copy his "homework" directly.......
（@Blockout2024）
Yesterday's three were Will Smith, Sam Smith, and Pod Cat......
(Yesterday's "homework")
Similarly, someone on the push has sorted out a series of accounts that need to be blocked, and the top of the list is Sister A and the Kardashian family.......
(Push the list compiled by netizens)
At the same time, many netizens also spoke out on the platform, announcing the celebrities they had blocked, and reminding everyone not to block not only the celebrities themselves, but also their brands.....
(TT netizens share their "homework")
Now, searching for "#Blockout2024" on Twitter or TikTok can find quite a lot of content, especially on TT, which has nearly 40,000 items......
(Nearly 40,000 pieces of content on TT)
With the cooperation of many netizens, the blacklist is getting longer and longer, and there are already 90 people in the latest version.
At a glance, there are many familiar names: Beyoncé, Rihanna, Megan Fox.......
(Latest version of blacklist)
But at this point, the whole thing is a little sour.
Because these celebrities were blacklisted, not simply because they were celebrities, but more because they did not speak out for the fighting in Gaza (or pro-Israel.......
On the push, the "blackout star" has gradually evolved into "the star who has not talked about Palestine......
(Push on the blackmail campaign poster, pay attention to the white text below)
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Not surprisingly, such actions by netizens have attracted some criticism.
For example, writer Kate Lindsay believes that the kind of "perfect Internet celebrity" that "Operation Blocking 2024" is looking forward to does not actually exist:
"Not only has this campaign failed to effectively target the people it should have targeted; It also cracks down on the alienation of public figures who are doing their part. ”
There is a real example of what she said - five days ago, the well-known singer Lizzo called on netizens on IG to donate money to hospitals in Gaza, and the comments were full of all kinds of discordant voices:
"It's too late. Blocked. ”
"The performance traces are too heavy."
"Oooo Interesting. ”
(Lizzo's comment section)
A TT blogger with an ID named @Donidarkowitz believes that the campaign is "losing its mind."
"There are too many people who are staring at celebrities, picking on bones in their eggs, just to find a slightly plausible reason to block them."
"You'll never hear me say, 'Celebrities have so much to deal with, they shouldn't do more,' but that's out of scope."
"It's gone too far from where it was supposed to be, and it's just too fast."
(Hiroshi @Donidarkowitz)
But the people who started the movement don't seem to think so.
Time magazine contacted the aforementioned @Blockout2024 through IG, and he said:
"I agree with the criticism of the movement, but I feel like the message we're sending is right."
"After all, the purpose of this movement is to wake people up and make people aware of our ability to change, and that's what really matters."
To this day, the blackout campaign has caused stars such as Zendaya, Kardashian, and Beyoncé to lose hundreds of thousands of fans, ranging from hundreds of thousands to hundreds of thousands, and the most serious Selena and Bili have lost more than one million fans, and the momentum has not weakened.
(Some celebrities who have lost serious fans according to the statistics of the Internet)
Influencer Haley's butterfly wings eventually caused a huge tsunami that no one expected.
Probably, those who don't have cake to eat are hungry, and those who have cake to eat will go to the guillotine.
It's just that whether it is reasonable for the electronic guillotine to behead so many people is still up for debate.......