Bulky headpiece. A beautifully made gown. The eyes of the world are on the Big Apple.
The Met Gala is home to fashion's biggest night, and on the first Monday of every May, the world's biggest stars strut the steps of New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art in an event curated by Vogue's editor-in-chief. Anna Wintour.
But this year, like so many other events, the annual fundraising event for the museum's Costume Institute has become a battleground in America's class and culture wars. Amid a deadly international conflict that coincides with the cost of live balloons, the reported $75,000 price tag for tickets to the festival is already having a negative impact on some people on social media. Then came his viral TikTok.
Influencer and model Hayley Kalil used a TikTok sound tweeting “Let them eat cake,” a slogan often associated with Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, who was a central figure in the social unrest of the French Revolution in the 1700s. The video attracted attention.
Just like Antoinette, the internet went after Khalil's head and a slew of other influencers and A-list celebrities, from Kim Kardashian to Taylor Swift.
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The now-deleted video sparked a digital movement called Digitine, a digital guillotine urging social media users to block celebrities in the modern-day “eat the rich” social movement. Here's how it started and why.
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The “Digitin” movement appears to be the brainchild of one user, @ladyfromtheoutside, who responded to Khalil's “Let them eat cake” comment with a message of her own. The video received 2.5 million views and approximately 600,000 likes on the platform.
“It's time for people to do what I like to call a digital guillotine, a 'digitine' if you will. All the celebrity flu who don't use their resources to help those in desperate need. It’s time to block Enthusiasts and wealthy socialites,” @ladyfromtheoutside said.
The Met Gala has long been a lightning rod for social media users for its “outrageous” extravaganza, but this year's complaints center around the war between Israel and Hamas and the ongoing news cycle.
“We gave them a platform and it’s time to take it back and take away our opinions, likes, comments and money by blocking them on all social media and digital platforms. And I think the first person we should all be looking at is 'Hailey is here,' added @ladyfromtheoutside.
Khalil addressed the controversy in an apology video, stating that Wintour did not invite him to attend the Met Gala. Instead, she said she was stationed at the celebrity hotbed The Mark Hotel as host for entertainment outlet E! ahead of the evening's red carpet festivities. Cover hotel exits and create content.
Online 'Digitine' activist explains why social media users want to 'rip off the rich'
Karen Fragoso, an online activist who specializes in influencer marketing and “grew up idolizing the Met Gala,” first joined the digital guillotine movement after Khalil's video went viral. Fragoso's own video about Kardashian, who has lost 3 million Instagram followers in recent weeks, has received more than 1 million views so far.
“We were all like, 'Oh, you're an influencer, but you're not like us. You pretend to be an influencer, but you're going to the Met Gala.' We thought, 'Okay, we as influencers.'” People need to come together, and we know we're all in different parts of the world, so we said, 'Come together virtually. 'I'm here,''' Fragoso complained to USA TODAY.
While the movement gains momentum, some users are pushing back against the digital guillotine effort, calling it a second wind of “cancel culture.”
“It's going to take a lot longer than this to change the world around you. You can't just do something that's inconvenient or unpleasant. You're going to have to do something that's downright painful,” one TikTok user said. Ta.
Another TikTok user added, “Nobody owes you anything. That's my point. Just because someone isn't talking about a topic and you're upset about it, that's cancel culture 2.0.” .
But Fragoso argues that blocking celebrities is critical to social change because of the economic implications.
She added that it's important to block influencers and celebrities because brands look at their follower counts and engagement data before choosing to partner with them to promote their products. She added that people need to “eat the rich” and “tax the rich” because “the elites need to know they can't get away with everything.”
The Met Gala has a history of controversy over class differences.
The Met Gala has a history of controversy related to its intersection with the night's classes. One recent example arrived in 2021 after the first post-pandemic celebrations. New York State Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore a controversial gown and the criticism became a burden.
The Bronx-based Democratic congresswoman attended the gala wearing a white Brother Vellies dress with “Tax the Rich” written in red on the back and accompanied by the brand's designer Aurora James. .
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“The medium is the message,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Instagram at the time, alongside a photo of the gown. “Now is the time for child care, health care and climate action for all. Tax the rich.”
It was not well received by the general public. Social media users reacted with anger, as one person wrote, “While the voters she lost are being evicted and wondering how they're going to eat tonight, @AOC is here making a big deal at the #MetGala. I live in a dress that says #TaxTheRich and I'll still do it.'' Nothing makes it real. ”
Last year's Met Gala was controversial because of its theme honoring the late Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld, who himself was controversial. In a 2018 interview with French fashion magazine Numéro, Lagerfeld criticized the #MeToo movement and its impact on the fashion and modeling industries.
During the same interview, Lagerfeld called the model “stupid,” “toxic,” and overall “a vile creature.” He once described supermodel Heidi Klum as “insignificant” in the fashion world because she was “too attractive.” In 2012, he criticized singer Adele for being “a little overweight”. And later that year, he criticized Pippa Middleton for her face, suggesting she was only showing her back.
In 2015, the Met Gala's theme, originally called “Chinese Whispers: Stories of the East in Art, Film, and Fashion,” was renamed “China: Through the Looking Glass.” , was criticized for cultural insensitivity. The planning committee also faced criticism in 2018 for its Roman Catholic theme.
“This shows the power of social media,” says media expert
Paromita Payne, an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Reno who specializes in news editing in a global context, says it's too early to know the impact of the movement.
In an email to USA TODAY, Payne said it's unclear whether this will have the same impact online as the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements that ushered in a new era of social change in the late 2010s. .
“What is definitely to be celebrated at this time is that people are free to use these mechanisms to register their voices, register their protests, and in the process keep issues of human rights violations in the public domain. The fact is that there are,” Payne said. Say.
“This shows the power of social media platforms and how they can be a force for positive change when users use them in such powerful and positive ways.” she said, also noting that the Met Gala typically provokes strong reactions and reactions from the public each year.
she's right. The Met Gala only appears on the calendar once a year, but its controversy never seems to go out of style.
Contributions: Charles Trepany, Edward Segarra
