A new TikTok trend uses a creative way to punish celebrities for not speaking out about Gaza

When a protester loudly accosted Alec Baldwin in a coffee shop last month—for not speaking out on behalf of Palestinians—she did so in such a hostile fashion that even people inclined to support her cause could only take Baldwin’s side. It wasn’t much of a surprise when it later turned out this particular protest was more about performance art than personal convictions. Some observers seem to unfairly accuse all young pro-Palestine protesters of being performative , however, no matter what shape their activism takes. But the latest form of protest targeting celebrities is designed not to be seen at all—and instead to leave celebrities widely unseen: a Celebrity Blockout.



Anyone who has scrolled through TikTok or Twitter in the past week may have glimpsed some trending hashtags, like #Blockout2024 and #NoBuyOut. They’re part of a burgeoning movement among protesters to quietly inflict damage on celebrities for not using their platforms to help Gazans caught in the middle of the Israel-Hamas war. Tactics range from mass-blocking a laundry list of celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Jimmy Fallon, Selena Gomez, Drake, Justin Bieber, and The Rock on all social media accounts—to starve them of promotional attention and ad revenue—and jamming up the digital shopping carts on their merch sites, to send a monetary message. Although the latter approach marks an innovative turn for online protest, according to an e-commerce expert, it may not bring about the impact protesters are hoping for.



While activists have targeted celebrities since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas War, their ire ramped up significantly last week after the annual Met Gala . The juxtaposition of the world’s most glamorous affair, with a $75,000 entry fee, taking place amid the imminent invasion of Rafah , with protesters walled off just outside the glitzy event, sparked agitation among onlookers. When TikTok influencer Hayley Bayley filmed herself outside the gala, lip syncing, “Let them eat cake,” while wearing an elaborate gown, it amounted to pouring gasoline on an already raging fire. The response on social media was so pronounced, not only did Bayley later release a nine-minute apology video , Harper’s Bazaar promptly took down a Marie Antoinette-themed photo shoot with Kylie Jenner that the magazine had commissioned for Mother’s Day .



Not long after the Met Gala, a TikToker with the handle Blockout2024 began posting videos encouraging others to start the Celebrity Blockout. “We have full control over news outlets, celebrities, and artists,” he says in one of them . “They make money off our hate, they make money off our praise, they do not make money when we block them and forget their names.” Rather than yell at actors in coffee shops, the Celebrity Blockout advocated the silent treatment. His videos targeting specific celebrities, such as Taylor Swift , quickly began to bring in millions of views, and inspired many others , including aTikToker named LadyFromThe Outside , who coined the now-popular hashtag, “digital guillotine.” The protest quickly migrated to other social media outlets, and by Saturday, Taylor Swift had lost 300,000 TikTok followers, according to NPR .



While the efficacy of blocking massive celebrities is debatable—Taylor Swift has 33.2 million remaining TikTok followers —the protest soon evolved beyond the Celebrity Blockout. A TikToker who goes by Adammadanat started to release videos calling for “Operation #NoBuyOut,” a form of activism more sophisticated than its predecessor. It involves loading up on items from a celebrity’s online store, getting to the last step before purchasing them, and then abandoning the shopping cart altogether. 



Of course, this describes the way many people shop already after a couple glasses of wine and too many Instagram ads. (It can even be an effective way to score discounts. ) But in this case, the idea, as Adammadanat puts it, is that mass-abandoning full shopping carts will limit product availability, confuse store algorithms around demand, and drain marketing dollars put toward sending follow-up emails and buying retargeted ads that follow users around the Internet. Operation #No Buy Out picked up steam on social outlets , and was endorsed by other TikTokers claiming insider knowledge about marketing. But could it actually hurt financially if a loose group of users racks up shopping cart items in Kim Kardashian’s store without cashing out?



According to Sucharita Kodali , principal analyst at Forrester and an expert in ecommerce and consumer behavior: Probably not.



For one thing, digital shopping carts don’t work the way that Operation #No Buy Out suggests.



“I don’t know of any sites that will [decrease] inventory availability to others for very long if all you do is just add the item to the cart,” Kodali says. Instead, she suggests that most sites—especially those with flash sales—will hold items for 10 to 15 minutes once they’re added to a cart, and release them back into general inventory if the purchase is not completed.



Kodali similarly casts doubt on the draining of marketing dollars from an unfulfilled purchase attempt. While some marketing service providers trigger shopping cart abandonment emails for high-value items, prompting users to follow through on the order, she disputes the impact that would result from triggering a flurry of such emails.  



“There is some cost to that for the brand,” she says, but it’s not much, and there’s no guarantee that any of these celebrities are working with these sorts of email marketing service providers.



Retargeting ads, on the other hand, are a more popular tactic, and could potentially cost a brand some extra money. Or at least it could, if not for the fatal flaw of Operation #No Buy Out: If it caught on enough, the suspicious activity would most likely attract attention internally. Once a critical mass of shoppers keep repeating the same aberrant pattern of behavior, site managers would know to take any algorithm-derived data with a grain of salt. 



“Most brands would quickly figure it out, and there are often kill switches to avoid overspending,” says Kodali. “That would just shut off a marketing campaign entirely.”



Especially if the person in charge of a website’s marketing campaigns had just read something in the news about a boycott of celebrities.



“The most satisfaction you might get from this is that some IT person from that company will complain about it online,” Kodali adds.



Only time will tell whether the Celebrity Blockout and No Buy Out protests have any real financial impact on the celebrities protesters are targeting. Whether or not it does, though, all the negative social media attention alone may cause some celebrities to fulfill protesters’ hopes. Over the weekend, for instance, Lizzo, a fixture on circulating block-lists, released an Instagram Reel promoting various causes, including help for families in Gaza. It was the first time she had publicly spoken out about the Israel-Hamas War. In the video, she said her support was “long overdue.”