The 'digital guillotine' and why TikTok is blocking big name celebrities

Bulky headpieces. Brilliantly crafted gowns. The world's gaze upon the Big Apple.

The Met Gala is home to the biggest night in fashion, and on the first Monday of every May, the world's biggest stars strut up the steps of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City at the event curated by Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour.

But this year, like many others, the annual fundraising event for the museum's Costume Institute became a battleground in the American class and culture wars. As the cost of living balloons and simultaneous deadly international conflicts continue, the reported $75,000 price tag for a ticket to the fête already rubbed some on social media the wrong way. Then came the viral TikTok.

Influencer and model Haley Kalil turned heads for a video using a TikTok sound that muttered, "let them eat cake," a slogan commonly associated with French queen Marie Antoinette, who was central during the social unrest of the French Revolution in the 1700s.

Much like Antoinette, the internet wanted off with Kalil'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 kickstarted a digital movement called the "digitine," a digital guillotine urging social media users to block celebrities in a modern-day "eat the rich" social movement. Here's how it started — and why.

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The "digitine" movement appears to have been the brainchild of one user, @ladyfromtheoutside, who responded to Kalil's "let them eat cake" comments with a message of her own. The video has garnered 2.5 million views and nearly 600,000 likes on the platform.

"It's time for the people to conduct what I want to call a digital guillotine, a 'digitine' if you will. It's time to block all the celebrities influencers and wealthy socialites who are not using their resources to help those in dire need," @ladyfromtheoutside said.

While The Met Gala has long been a lightning rod among social media users for its "out of touch" opulence, but this year's frustrations center around the Israel-Hamas war and the ongoing news cycle.

"We gave them their platforms. It's time to take it back, take our views away, our likes, our comments, our money by blocking them on all social media and digital platforms. And I think the first person that we should all focus on is Haley here," @ladyfromtheoutside added.

In an apology video, Kalil addressed the controversy and said she was not invited by Wintour to attend the Met Gala. Instead, she said she was stationed at The Mark Hotel, a hotbed for celebrities ahead of the night's red carpet festivities, as a host for entertainment outlet E! covering hotel exits and creating content.

Online 'digitine' activist explains why social media users want to 'eat the rich'

Karen Fragoso, an online activist who has worked professionally in influencer marketing and "grew up idolizing the Met Gala," first got involved in the digital guillotine movement after Kalil's video went viral. Fragoso's own video about Kardashian losing 3 million followers on Instagram in recent weeks garnered over 1 million views so far.

"It's like, 'Oh, you're an influencer, but you're not like us. You pretend to be, but you're going to the Met Gala,' and that's when we were all like 'OK, we as a people need to unite and I know all of us are in different places of the world. So we said 'we're together virtually,'" Fragoso tells USA TODAY about her frustrations.

While the movement is gaining momentum, some users are pushing back on the digital guillotine efforts as a second wind of "cancel culture."

"It's going to take a lot more than this to change the world around you, you cannot do things that are simply inconvenient or uncomfortable, you're gonna have to do things that are downright painful," one TikTok user said. 

"Nobody owes you anything. That's my point. Just because somebody doesn't speak on a topic and you're upset about it, it's cancel culture 2.0," another TikTok user added. 

But Fragoso says blocking celebrities is crucial for social change because it carries an economic impact.

She added that blocking is important because brands look at an influencer or celebrity's number of followers and engagement data before choosing to partner with them to promote a product. She added that folks need to "eat the rich" and "tax the rich" because "the elite need to know that they can't get away with everything."

Met Gala has history of controversy involving intersection of class

The Met Gala has a history of controversy involved with the night's intersection with class. One recent example arrived in 2021, after the first post-pandemic gala. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore a controversial gown and the criticism was taxing.

The Bronx-based Democratic congresswoman attended the gala donning a white dress by Brother Vellies, accompanied by the brand's designer Aurora James, that said "Tax the Rich" written in red on the backside.

Powerful or hypocritical?AOC's 'Tax the Rich' dress at Met Gala draws mixed reactions

"The medium is the message," Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Instagram at the time alongside a photo of her gown. "The time is now for childcare, healthcare, and climate action for all. Tax the Rich."

It didn't land well with the general public. Social media users responded with anger, as one wrote, "while constituents she failed are being evicted or wondering how they’re gonna eat tonight, @AOC out here living large at the #MetGala. Wearing a dress that says #TaxTheRich but will do nothing to make it a reality."

Last year, the Met Gala courted controversy for its theme honoring the late Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld, who is controversial in his own right. During a 2018 interview with French fashion magazine Numéro, Lagerfeld criticized the #MeToo movement and its impact on the fashion and modeling industries.

In the same interview, Lagerfeld called models "stupid," "toxic" and overall "sordid creatures." He once coined supermodel Heidi Klum "insignificant" in the fashion world because she was "too glamorous"; hecriticized singer Adele as "a little too fat" in 2012; and later that year hedissed Pippa Middleton's face, suggesting she only show her backside.

The Met Gala was also criticized in 2015 for cultural insensitivity for their Met Gala theme which was originally called "Chinese Whispers: Tales of the East in Art, Film and Fashion" before it was renamed to "China: Through the Looking Glass." The planning committee was also criticized in 2018 for its Roman Catholic theme.

'This shows us the power of social media,' media expert says

Paromita Pain, an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, who specializes in newsroom practices in global context, says it's too soon to know the movement's impact.

Pain says in an email to USA TODAY that it's unclear yet whether this will have a similar impact online as the #MeToo movement or Black Lives Matter movement which ushered a new era of social change at the end of the 2010s.

"What is to be certainly celebrated at this point is the fact that people are using these mechanisms at their disposal to register their voice and to register their protest and in the process, keep alive issues of human rights violation in the public domain," Pain says.

"This shows us the power of social media platforms and how it can be a force for positive change when users use it in such powerfully positive ways," she says, while noting that the Met Gala commonly evokes strong reactions and responses from the public every year.

She's right. The Met Gala only lands on the calendar once a year — and its controversy never seems to go out of style.

Contributing: Charles Trepany, Edward Segarra