Lil Nas X calls Blackout Tuesday ‘worst idea ever’ and calls on Black Lives Matter supporters to ‘be as loud as ever’
Lil Nas X at the Tom Ford AW20 Show at Milk Studios on February 7, 2020. (Mike Coppola/FilmMagic/Getty)
Lil Nas X criticised the Blackout Tuesday initiative which has seen social media engulfed with black squares, clogging vital hashtags used by Black Lives Matter protesters.
On Tuesday (June 2) millions of users across the world disrupted their once steady social media streams with simple black squares.
Many announced they were staging a “blackout” to “silence” themselves for the day in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
An unintended side effect of the project, however, is that black squares have dimmed crucial hashtags once filled with infographics, footage of riots gripping major cities and more.
Tiled black squares shrouded the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag in darkness, with many reporting that the Blackout Tuesday initiative had brought key information routes and access to resources to a juddering halt.
Lil Nas X, 21, acknowledged the good intentions of the blackout, but dubbed it “the worst idea ever”.
i just really think this is the time to push as hard as ever. i don’t think the movement has ever been this powerful. we don’t need to slow it down by posting nothing. we need to spread info and be as loud as ever. https://t.co/9nvy3HodjD
— ☆ (@LilNasX) June 2, 2020
Lil Nas X: ‘People need to see what’s going on.’
“I just really think this is the time to push as hard as ever,” the “Old Town Road” hitmaker added.
“I don’t think the movement has ever been this powerful. We don’t need to slow it down by posting nothing.
“We need to spread info and be as loud as ever.”
it’s information that needs to be spread! the movement needs to be pushed forward! not silenced for a day.— ☆ (@LilNasX) June 2, 2020
Illustrating his point, he shared a screenshot of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag page on Instagram, now a listless parquet of posts.
this is not helping us. bro who the hell thought of this?? ppl need to see what’s going on https://t.co/fN492qsxaa— ☆ (@LilNasX) June 2, 2020
Many have urged users not to tag hashtags relevant to the resistance and effectively pad-lock them for the day, but rather add #BlackOutTuesday instead. Nearly 16 million black squares were uploaded by users to the tag at the time of writing.
The Blackout Tuesday trend was spun from a separate #TheShowMustBePaused initiative, created by Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang, two Black female music executives.
Thomas and Agyemang had called on other members of the music industry to pause their usual workflows to concentrate on activism in the wake of George Floyd’s killing.
The death of Floyd, a Black man who was pinned to the ground by a white Minneapolis officer’s knee on his throat until he passed away, has prompted global protests, bringing to the foreground anger over racial injustice that has simmered for centuries.
