The Day the Hashtag Died
Where were you when it happened? I was at work. And by “at work” I of course mean “at home, working.” And by “working” I of course mean “on Slack.”
On Tuesday, June 2, 2020, the topic several people were typing about instead of working was the Great Posting of the black square on Instagram. #blackouttuesday
A panic had set in. Our company had not posted a black square yet. We had made no statement on George Floyd or systemic racism. Other agencies had. Our favorite brands had. Many of our friends had.
We were doing something that terrifies advertising agency people more than anything else: falling behind. Missing out. Being left out of the conversation.
Though that, of course, would not be the reason anyone would dare say was the concern. We needed to take a stand and show solidarity. We needed to demonstrate to current and future employees, potential clients, and to our respected contemporaries “who we are” as an agency. We needed to show that those who enact or support (via complicity), systemic oppression? It couldn’t be us.
A flurry of Slacks in the company #social channel began discussing when and how and with what caption we would post our black square on Instagram. We now had VP approval to post.
I expressed concern we might be posting something for maybe? a teensie weensie bit the wrong reason. But people don’t much like being questioned when they’re being very good.
“Do people really want to hear companies coming out with moral statements regarding national crises?” I wondered. I am told that yes, people look to their favorite brands and companies to take stands and weigh in on topics that matter. “You vote with your wallet,” they probably say.
Just as I was accepting we were about to post a doomed-to-be-cringe panic-post that did and meant nothing: a new development! I admit I wasn’t at all expecting what happened next.
First, for context, it’s important to understand the 4 Tiers of 2020 Slack Enlightenment:
- The Oblivious. These folks spend their time heads-down, working, and don’t really use Slack. They never have any idea what the latest work gossip is, smdh.
- Just above them are the Lurkers. They see all, but aren’t jumping into the fray. “Noooop,” they say. They assume it’ll blow over. They may even enjoy the drama, as long as it doesn’t involve them.
- Right above the Lurkers, are the Reformed Lurkers, bless their hearts. These folks have been recently animated by a current event. The carefree Pumpkin Spice of yesterday has spilled, and they are literally crying/screaming rn. There simply aren’t enough anger face emojis in the world to express their outrage, the poor things.
- The crème de la crème of the Enlightened Slack Regime are the Ringleaders. They run this place, and they are reading PDFs, bitch. They know the jargon, and they are about to devastate the less informed in a thread with MORE than a few links. Sure, you don’t really understand what they’re saying but that’s part of the problem, isn’t it, KAREN?! Best to start listening and learning (from them) or face the consequences.
And so, the Reformed Lurkers kicked off the day with their quaint little squares and emoji reactions. But what they didn’t know was that this wasn’t their place. They flew too close to the sun. These normies fucked up. Big time. They thought they could just wake up one morning and be an online activist? No, sweetie.
One of the Ringleaders caught word our agency was about to post The Square. The “We haven’t posted!” panic that had ensued earlier was nothing compared to the hammer she was about to drop. You see, she said, the black squares were not good. In fact –plot twist! — they were bad! They were drowning out Black voices (on Instagram) using the #blackouttuesday hashtag.
For those that don’t remember, or live in a beautiful state of not being very online, it went like this: If you clicked on the hashtag on Instagram that day, instead of seeing only relevant content by Black creators, info on protests, ways to help, donate, etc. you would instead find a sea of the color black posted by panicky companies and white people. The hours-long and feverish attempt to get approval and direction on posting the black square on behalf of our company was immediately shut down. A real check-mate of social media proportions. And it all happened before lunch.
I was surprised by this one-upmanship, but I was also relieved we got to avoid making a regrettable, completely hollow gesture on our company Instagram. It’s not the way I’d have gone about it, but you can’t argue with results.
Once this narrative took hold (“Ummm, posting the black square is problematic, actually.”) the real Work could begin. The Ringleaders were never going to allow the n00bs to encroach on their moral superiority. People needed to be called out. They needed to do better.
The Work at work (on Slack) then began by undoing the misguided online activism of the morning. Anyone who posted a black square on Instagram, who somehow hadn’t been keeping up with the emerging and furiously-Slacked opinions of the last few hours was dutifully informed to delete it. “We are all learning ❤️” they’d say. Yes, we certainly are.
This situation is the sort of thing (likely the actual thing) Bo Burnham was talking about when he wrote, “the backlash to the backlash to the thing that’s just begun,” for the song That Funny Feeling (2021).
I’m sure Bo and I are not the only ones who felt a shift that day. You didn’t know what it was. You didn’t know if it was about George Floyd or a racial reckoning. You didn’t know if it was partly about people being on edge because of Covid lockdown. You didn’t know if you were crazy, or the world was. But what you did know is that none of this seemed good or healthy or productive or helpful. To anyone.
And uh, we certainly weren’t working. At work.
As the pendulum swings further away from the chaos and confusion of 2020, I wonder if we can ever see things clearly. Not for what we told ourselves we were doing, but for the real reasons we did it. Perhaps many of us would do well to examine our own motivations for the choices we made when public displays of morality were involved.
Regardless, this did all manage to (I hope) kill the viral hashtag.
It’s not the way I’d have gone about it, but you can’t argue with results 🤝
