Blackout Tuesday

2020

Date: 2 June 2020 · Place: Instagram · the music industry · the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter · Figures: Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang, music-industry executives behind the initial #TheShowMustBePaused call · millions of Instagram users · the entire #BLM information feed (collateral damage) · Tags: Hashtag, Solidarity, WellMeaningBackfire 01. A Day Of Pause After George Floyd's killing on 25 May 2020, music-industry executives Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang call for #TheShowMustBePaused, a 2 June industry pause day. Atlantic Records, Sony, Warner all sign on. The call ports to Instagram as Blackout Tuesday: post a single black square, withhold business as usual. Within hours an estimated 28 million black squares are posted to Instagram. Brands, athletes, celebrities, friends, all participate. The action is a sincere gesture of mass solidarity, the largest single coordinated image post in Instagram's history. 02. The Tag Collapses Most posters tag the black square #BlackLivesMatter. Within the day, the hashtag, which has been the central information artery for protest coordination, bail funds, footage of police violence, and mutual aid since 2014, is buried under millions of blank squares. Organizers urgently beg participants to remove or retag the posts. Blackout Tuesday becomes the era's signature case study in well-meaning corporate solidarity overrunning the actual infrastructure of the movement it intends to support. The performance was the post; the cost was the channel. Sources • Ben Sisario, '#TheShowMustBePaused: A Pause Day in the Music Industry,' New York Times, 2 June 2020 • Rachel Kraus, 'Blackout Tuesday hurt Black Lives Matter,' Mashable, 2 June 2020 • Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang, original #TheShowMustBePaused statement, 30 May 2020