Welcome back, everyone! Today, we're diving into the latest buzzword in the world of pop culture: "digitine," or "digital guillotine." This new term is being used to call out influencers and celebrities who aren't leveraging their platforms to raise social and political awareness. If they fail to step up, they face the "digitine"—essentially, being blocked. But how did one influencer start this whole movement with her controversial Tiktok? And why is Taylor Swift and the Kardashians being brought into the conversation leading to millions of followers being lost?
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This controversy started with the influencer HaleyyBaylee. You may have not heard of her, but controversial Tiktok video has led to a movement of hundreds of thousands of people blocking celebrities like the Kardiashians, Beyonce, and more. Let’s discuss.
HaleyyBaylee hit 10 million followers herself just a few hours before her controversial video dropped: a video from the Met Gala, where she attended as a correspondent for E!News dressed as Marie Antoinette, complete with the infamous "let them eat cake" audio. (Spoiler: she is no longer at 10 million followers) Now if you don’t know this phrase, it was supposedly said by Marie Antoinette when her people were starving (though there’s no evidence she actually said it, but it’s been popularized by the 2014 movie ‘Let Them Eat Cake’), and it was used by Haley in a context that many found incredibly tone-deaf, especially at such a lavish event. It didn’t help that there were a bunch of people behind barriers in the back of the video.
Met Gala Theme - “The Garden of Time” 🤔
This year's 2024 Met Gala dress code was “The Garden of Time.” Inspired by J.G. Ballard's short story of the same title, written in 1962. This story is about an aristocratic couple living in a beautiful estate facing an advancing mob of people. In their garden, they have special flowers called time flowers that, when plucked, turn back time and push the mob away. As the mob continues to approach, the couple keeps using the flowers to delay them. Eventually, they use the last time flower, and their estate turns into a ruin just as the mob arrives. The story is a critique of the aristocracy, showing how they hoard and destroy everything to prevent others from having it, leaving only ruins behind. A very interesting choice by Anna Wintour this year. 🤔
The backlash was swift, and Haylee responded with an eight-minute apology video that now has over 31 million views. I’ll save you the 8 minutes of your life, here’s the summary of what she said:
About a week and a half before the Met Gala, E!News contacted her to be a pre-Met Gala host at the Mark Hotel, where she was supposed to create content with celebrities before they left for the gala. She clarifies that she wasn’t invited to the Met Gala by Anna Wintour and didn’t attend the event; instead, she watched the coverage from home with friends. (Side note: the emphasis here really felt like she was trying to divert the criticisms she was getting about being invited to the Met Gala where you pay $75k per ticket to attend, and the internet was quick to point out that being invited by E!News is still quite the privilege).
She addresses the controversy about the audio she used in the Tiktok, again diverting blame. HayleyyBaylee apologizes sincerely for choosing a sound that could be perceived as malicious. She explains, and emphasizes, that the audio was trending and had been used in over 110,000 videos without negative feedback. She emphasizes that there was no deeper meaning behind her choice, and she never intended to highlight wealth disparity or elitism. (In short, she didn’t research the theme of the Met Gala and didn’t think about the parallels to Marie Antoinette in her outfit and video.)
HayleyyBaylee also talks about her friend Mark, who handmakes all her dresses for events out of kindness, without any payment involved. (What was she thinking sharing this, omg) She highlights that her content creation journey started with comedy, and she doesn’t always know the right things to say about complex world issues. (This was in response to her not acknowledging the Israel/Palestine war) She acknowledges her responsibility to use her platform positively and apologizes for any harm her video may have caused.
She hopes this situation opens up important discussions about wealth inequality and world crises, and she is committed to bettering herself and being a good example for her audience.
Now, after her apology video went up on Tiktok she posted a story to Instagram asking for resources to learn and GoFundMe links to help. But it seems like her participation in that discussion ended there.
Her video has led to the #Blockout2024 movement, or Block Out Party.
This movement focuses on blocking celebrities who remain silent on critical issues like Palestinian liberation. Blocking celebrities affects their brand presence and earnings because their content won't populate your feed, reducing their visibility and impacting their financial bottom line on social media. Many celebrities are now scrambling to address these issues, like Lizzo who shared GoFundMe links to Palestians who need financial support to cross the border out of Gaza. This, too, has generated criticisms because many people point out that Lizzo could fully pay for many of these GoFundMe campaigns. But, I digress.
Now, let’s talk data. What impact has this blocking movement actually had?
📊 Well, HaleyyBaylee hit 10 million followers and made a video celebrating the night of the Met Gala. She quickly lost the 10m number on her profile in the following days. The lowest number her TikTok dropped to was 9,864,784 on 5/14/2024. Today she is at 9,867,449 (up 2,665) which seems to indicate that she is trending back up post controversy but slowly.
Next, let’s look at some data for the celebrities targeted. Note: there are A LOT of celebrities on this list. I’m selecting a handful for this analysis but I’ll be updating the post with top requests I get in the comments section tomorrow.
Before we sign off for this episode, I want to remind you that while most of us don’t have the platforms and influence that these celebrities and influencers have, your voice matters. Be sure you’re registered to vote this fall. You can check your registration status and register here.
Do you think these celebrities deserve the digitine? Let me know in the comments below. And if you liked this preview episode of my paid subscription to Pop Culture Data Deep Dives, consider subscribing to support my work! You’ll get exclusive data posts, like tomorrow’s episode on Harrison Butker and all podcast episodes (which are only for paid subscribers). I’m offering a special 25% off your subscription FOR LIFE! You have to subscribe before June 1st so sign up before it’s gone. I’ll see you tomorrow.
The Met Gala was messy AF this year. But why are celebrities losing millions of followers from it?