Misused by celebrities, hashtags serve the BlackLivesMatter movement

Actress Marion Cotillard, singer Amel Bent and Nabilla. As in the United States, many French celebrities shared a black square on their networks on Tuesday, June 2. If this initiative had the initial objective of denouncing racism and discrimination, its various successive occasions ultimately complicated the communication of activists of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Originally, two employees of the American label Atlantic Records, who created the Theshowmustbepaused Instagram account on June 1. “ In response to the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and countless black citizens committed by the police, #theshowmustbepause is an initiative created by two black women from the musical world, in view of the racism and inequalities that have existed since for a long time, from meeting rooms to boulevards. We will not continue to work as usual without consideration for black lives, "they wrote when they first published, calling on the music industry to cease all activity on Tuesday June 2 to" think about the actions needed to support of the black community . "

Instagram

Communication disrupted

Very quickly, dozens of artists in the community, such as the Rolling Stones, David Guetta, Massive Attack and Quincy Jones announced that they were joining this initiative. They then shared a black square, accompanied by the hashtags #Theshowmustbepaused or #BlackoutTuesday. The millions of followers of these figures wanted to follow this resolution to show that they too supported racial justice. Thinking they were doing well, some added the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, a movement founded in 2013 after the assassination of African-American Trayvon Martin, to the iconic black square.

Unfortunately, inserting this hashtag quickly proved counterproductive. Indeed, many activists of the Black Lives Matter movement use and click on this hashtag to share vital information during the demonstrations. But the latter found themselves drowned in the flood of photos of black squares, thus preventing effective communication within the movement.

Several personalities therefore encouraged their followers to return to the original hashtags #Theshowmustbepaused or #BlackoutTuesday so as not to hamper the efforts of the demonstrators.