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| AP/LEWIS JOLY |
NEWSLINE PAPER,- On the humanitarian tragedy in the Gaza Strip, Taylor Swift and the world's celebrity are severely criticized by citizens. They are the target of a campaign titled "Block Out 2024". The citizens' action began in Tiktok in response to the outbreak of the super glorious Met Gala event in New York City, USA, which is deemed not sensitive to the tragedy in Gaza.
For months, pro-Palestinian activists have flooded comment columns on social media channels urging rumors to join in demanding a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. The bullying of those celebrities erupted after the Met Gala in New York City, May 6, 2024.
The event was a fundraising and fashion show, attended by actors and actresses, models, and other world-class celebrities. The event went on magnificently. Meanwhile, Israeli attacks continue to devastate the Gaza Strip, massively eating civilian casualties, mostly women and children.
Tickets to attend the Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art building amounted to $75,000 or about Rs.1.2 billion. About 400 guests attended the event. Protests demanding a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip are taking place outside the building.
World Food Programme (WFP) Director Cindy McCain on May 4, 2024, before the Meta Gala, announced that there was a severe famine in the northern Gaza Strip.
Those celebrities are present in luxury beams. Hailey Kalil, an influencer with 9.9 million followers, broadcasts in her account the celebrity party atmosphere as "Let Them Eat the Cake". The term refers to the feast of the French Queen Marie Antoinette who lived in the midst of the poverty of the people of France in the seventeenth century.
That ended with the French Revolution. Marie Antoinette ended her life with a guillotine cut.
Nowadays the guillotine physically no longer exists. However, in the virtual world, citizens have their own version of the guilotine, called the digitine, an abbreviation of the digital guillotin or digital guilotin.
A cyber activist with a ladyfromtheoutside account also launched a digital guillotine campaign, removing the number of comments, followers, and likes from citizens against those celebrities. "Remove our support from their accounts, comments, and our money from the celebrities," the account said.
Some of the celebrities present in the Meta Gala are known to have never given support to a humanitarian message in the Gaza Strip crisis.
The action to withdraw support from those famous people is called the Blockout 2024 movement. The activist of the movement advised citizens to do a search through Google, find the names of the celebrities. Next suggest citizens to click on the celebrity business block, the media network block and the block of their associated business entities.
The digital guillotine action will directly cut the income of the celebrities, the media, and businessmen who ignore the suffering of the Gaza Strip citizens.
Hailey Kalil apologized on May 10, 2024 for her speech, "Let Them Eat Cake", and acknowledged that she did not attend the Meta Gala party. "I don't understand the meaning of the speech 'Let them eat cake'," said Kalil, answering a question about why she was not offended by human suffering in the Gaza Strip.
Taylor Swift and the world famous rely on, among other things, the support and popularity of the cyberspace to continue to exist and accumulate wealth.
The impact of digital guillotine action cannot be underestimated. Reality show star Kim Kardashian has lost hundreds of thousands of followers on her Instagram account, according to Social Blade account analysis.
Taylor Swift, who didn't come to the Met Gala and was more focused on performing on the Eras Tour, wasn't missing the target. Since Thursday (May 9, 2024), he has lost more than 200,000 followers in Tiktok.
The impact is starting to feel, last week NPR, Taylor Swift lost 300,000 followers on Tiktok and 50,000 on Instagram. (AFP) (Newsline Paper Teams)