There is an influencer whose face, in recent days, has invaded the homepages of the main social networks. She is dressed in flowers from head to toe, she can be seen repeating the famous phrase attributed to Queen Marie Antoinette: «Let them eat brioches!». The reaction reawakened the revolutionary inclinations dormant in many users, and these modern Jacobins decided to cut off their heads. Metaphorically, she means. «Digitine» is the neologism that arises from the fusion of the words «digital» and «guillotines»: a practice that the world of the web invokes with increasing frequency against some influencers accused of remaining silent on important social issues, first of all the Palestinian issue . And which consists in clearly amputating the reason for their fame: their followers. Having become intolerant towards the inaccessible and luxurious lifestyle of the stars, and above all their insensitivity, social media users have drawn up and shared real lists of names to be destroyed.
The Met Gala
In the beginning it was the Met Gala. That is, the annual fundraising event to benefit the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which for decades has represented the social occasion par excellence. The latest edition, however, took place in a particular year. The daily images of suffering and destruction that arrive from the front, especially from Gaza, Ukraine and Congo, and which for several months have been the mainstay of our online diet, have been abruptly replaced by those full of glamor and glitz taken on the red carpet of the Big Apple. A single entrance ticket costs 75 thousand dollars. This year’s theme, The Garden Of Time, was translated into a riot of flowers, trains and corsets. Leading to inevitable and drastic comparisons.
@sacredrosestudio real life hunger games #themetgala #hungergames #thehungergames #themet #zendaya #demimoore #arianagrande #lanadelrey #met ♬ WHAT. – ⭐️
Hailey Baylee’s gaffe
Clips immediately went viral comparing the guests of the event to the citizens of the Capitol City, the fictional location of the film trilogy. Hunger Games in which a small circle of the rich and powerful prospered while the poor were forced to fight for survival. And with bad timing, the model Haley Baylee (whose real name is Haley Kalil) saw fit to publish the video quoting the historic sovereign of France. Unleashing the storm: the very long video of apologies that she published the following day, displaying a contrite air, was of no use. Although only a few days earlier she had celebrated exceeding ten million followers, a real hemorrhage of followers began. Which doesn’t seem about to stop.
@historywithkayleigh #aanhechting met @haleyybaylee how about we let the rich starve? how about we eat them? we are not gonna eat cake, I am Dutch, my ancestors ate their prime minister. have you heard about the time the Dutch ate their Prime Minister? #letthemeatcake #eattherich #starvetherich #stitch #haileybailey #marieantoinette #Dutch #disasteryear ♬ Let Them Eat Cake – vibeyvidz
The guillotine
But his is not the only head that the inhabitants of social media are calling for. The list of names to block is long, and it includes famous names: Zendaya, Kim Kardashian, Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift. Just to name a few. «It’s time for people to direct what I want to call a digital guillotine – a “digitina”, if you like. It’s time to block all the celebrities, influencers and wealthy socialites who aren’t using their resources to help those in desperate need. We gave them their platforms. It’s time to take them back, to take away our opinions, our likes, our comments, our money.” The speech was launched on TikTok by the creator @ladyfromtheoutside. And it seems that the appeal was willingly accepted.
@ladyfromtheoutside #greenscreen #greenscreenvideo #digitine #digitalguillotine #haleyybaylee ♬ original sound – Meagan
The effects
According to data from the analysis company Social Blade, since the beginning of the “digitine” many names on the blocked lists have lost tens or hundreds of thousands of followers per day. The protest is not an end in itself: before deciding whether to rely on a public figure, as is known, brands analyze his image, the number of followers and the level of interactions. Unlike the haters, which can paradoxically benefit the object of their hatred by increasing the views of its contents, those who decide to block someone silence them. And therefore it distances him from business. The online debate is open. The concrete effectiveness of these actions has already been criticized by those who believe that this is an ephemeral outburst of anger destined to recede. However, there are those who, on the contrary, interpret all this as the symptom of a growing intolerance towards influencers: the end of a way of inhabiting and suffering from social media.
