“Okay, next on the chopping block is J Lo,” declares TikTok user Kimberley Online to her 147,000 followers, encouraging them to block the singer on all social media platforms. It might sound like a strange internet cosplay of the French revolution, and that’s because it is.
The Blockout 2024, also referred to as the “digital guillotine” or “digitine”, is a new initiative targeting celebrities who netizens feel have not been vocal enough about the Israel-Hamas war.
Over the past week, online activists have been creating “block lists” of celebrities deemed to be deserving of being blocked or unfollowed, with the aim of hitting their follower counts en-masse. Each day, celebrities are placed onto the “chopping block” or designated “block of the day”, so that activists can consolidate their efforts to certain individuals.
According to Blockout2024.org, one of the websites dedicated to the cause, today’s celebrity is Hailey Bieber. The website does not detail why Bieber has been chosen, but a quick internet search shows that the model and wife of Justin has previously posted Instagram stories denouncing antisemitism. She also signposted a series of charities related to the conflict, including Palestine’s Children Relief Fund. Since then, the newly-pregnant star seems to have been relatively quiet on the matter, so perhaps that’s why she’s next on the block.
The Blockout began last week, in the wake of the 2024 Met Gala, as netizens squirmed over the vast displays of wealth against a background of global conflict. It was prompted by the backlash against content creator Haley Kalil, who used the viral “let them eat cake” TikTok sound from Marie Antoinette while interviewing celebrities outside the event. Her faux pas caused an uproar, causing people to make comparisons between the guests of the Met Gala and citizens of the Capitol in Suzanne Collins’ dystopian young adult fiction series, The Hunger Games.
In response, TikTok user @ladyfromtheoutside posted a video sentencing Kalil to the “digitine,” saying: “Haley: For your ignorant decision to attend the $75,000 ticket Met Gala and recite ‘Let them eat cake,’ while you have done nothing with your 10 million follower platform as people are starving or dying, we sentence you to the digitine.” Others posted videos of the destruction in Gaza alongside clips of celebrities arriving at the Met Gala, set to the audio of “The Hanging Tree” from “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1.”
Days later, the blade is still swinging. Kimberley Online, who declared Jennifer Lopez next on the chopping block four days ago, is using her personal TikTok to nominate one celebrity at a time to be blocked by her followers. “So many of these celebrities [who] have millions upon millions of followers are actively choosing to stay silent and often help normalise the terrible things happening across the world,” Kimberley tells the Standard. “I want to be a beacon of light and be the complete opposite of that.”
Adding: “I believe people are starting to slowly but surely wake up to the fact that if we are the ones that gave these people that power, then we have absolutely every single right to take it back.”
@kimberleyonline ‼️Part 2 of this Week's Block List of Celebrities for the Blockout 2024 - do it and do it UNPOLOGETICALLY.
♬ original sound - ♡ Kim ♡ | Commentary & Content
In the video where Kimberley prescribes the blocking of J Lo, she explains how her choice is partially fuelled by Lopez’s behaviour at the Met Gala, where she responded dismissively to reporters asking her who made her gown. Kimberley doesn’t address J Lo’s stance on Palestine, even though Lopez and her husband Ben Affleck had previously signed a ceasefire petition.
For Kimberley, this isn’t enough: she wants celebrities to put their money where their mouth is. “If these celebrities have the means, the resources, to make meaningful change, and save hundreds upon thousands of lives, why shouldn’t they do so?” Kimberley says. “It’s especially unfair considering most people are living paycheck to paycheck under the cost of living crisis whereas these celebrities are allowed to go to the Met Gala, spend $75,000 on a ticket, and then effectively do nothing.”
On the one hand, the digitine appears to be working, or so say the Blockout statistics. According to Blockout2024.org, “celebrities such as Kim Kardashian already lost more than 3 million followers overnight.” The website cites Beyoncé as having lost 186,000 followers, Billie Eilish as having lost 137,000, and Selena Gomez as having lost 164,000, despite Gomez having also signed the ceasefire petition. However, these figures are not accompanied with any real data or time frames. It also appears to have encouraged some creators to speak. Blockout supporters are claiming that this is why Lizzo recently spoke out in favour of the Gaza, Sudan and Congo college protests, after her account was targeted by mass blocking.
On the other hand, people have been quick to point out the haphazardness of the Blockout technique. In one TikTok video, user @jordxn.simone says: “Y’all need to pack these celebrity block lists up by tomorrow [...] they’re getting ridiculous.” She calls the movement “completely disorganised,” with the “end goals and intentions varying almost from person to person” and notes that individuals appear to be failing to research their targets. To illustrate this, she notes that one person included the actor Alan Rickman — who is dead — as part of their blocklist.
Meanwhile, people have been questioning the Blockout’s real-world effectiveness. After the artist Shygirl was targeted by a fan seeking to block her, she replied: “Please block me ASAP so I don't have to see messages asking for performative gestures over real compassion and action. I make my opinions clear over this genocide but I'm more than happy for people to get off my page and get outside where real life action matters even more than messages online. If blocking me helps that for you please do it.”
But do celebrities have a duty to act on such issues? “The simple answer is honestly no,” admits Kimberley. “I do not expect celebrities to be academics or to be scholars within politics or international relationships. I fully understand that is not what gave them their platform. With this being said, I wholeheartedly think that you do not have to be an academic or have a degree in international relations for you to show humanity. You don’t have to be the smartest, the most intellectual, the most geopolitically aware for you to have a stance against innocent people being murdered.”
In one online essay from 2020, during the Black Lives Matter movement, the author Lisa V. Betty debated whether we should expect activism from celebrities such as Beyoncé. “I think we, as the public, must realise that Beyoncé is a capitalist enterprise,” she wrote. Continuing: “I think we must invest in artists that centre human rights, not as a catchy anthem, but as an embodiment of their practice and artistry. This does not mean we should not push for Black celebrities and billionaires to do and be better, but it also means that we should lower our expectations and divest from the concept of celebrity all together.”
So maybe expecting Hailey Bieber to go from model and beauty brand founder to staunch activist simply isn’t realistic. And maybe championing actual activists is the way forward. But no one is obliged to follow a celebrity who doesn’t match their values. And so the follower counts continue to drop.
