Let Them Eat Cake: The Insidious Backlash
The disparity surrounding 2024 Met Gala’s looks and the Gaza war
In the 18th century, when people were angry at someone, they demanded their head be chopped off. In the 21st century, we cancel people.
Few events in the world demonstrate elitism, wealth, and opulence like the Met Gala. To participate in this event without being invited, you’d have to spend a small $75,000.
I had a quick look at the lavish gowns and felt like I was watching some Capitol residents from “The Hunger Games.” However, my attention was more captured by the recent “Let them eat cake” controversy.
Haley “Baylee” Kalil, a TikTok influencer, posted a video dancing while being surrounded by fans waiting to see other celebrities. She was lip-syncing the infamous quote “Let them eat cake” while wearing an extravagant dress in the style of the phrase’s author, Marie-Antoinette, the last queen of France.
It caused an instant backlash.
Why?
In the 18th century, Marie-Antoinette allegedly said, “Let them eat cake” when being told peasants had no bread. Although it wasn’t clear if the real-life Marie-Antoinette suggested cake or brioche, this statement represented everything wrong with the monarchy.
This type of mockery reflected the disparity in social classes. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem so different today.
Last May 6th, all eyes and cameras were on glamorous clothing designs. The world was surely looking, but it seems that we were looking in the wrong direction.
While pro-Palestinian protestors were manifesting in the streets surrounding the Met, it appeared ironic to post a video quoting “Let them eat cake.” Let’s remember that more than 15,000 children were killed by bombing and starvation.
Many viewers denounced Kahlil’s lack of empathy toward the actual context and her poor understanding of the critical conditions.
Following the backlash, Haley apologized for the controversial clip. She claimed to use a trending TikTok sound. To prove that she wasn’t a bad person, she clarified that she wasn’t “elite enough” to even be invited to the Met Gala itself.
In fact, Haley attended a pre-Met Gala party with celebrities as an E! News host. If that’s not being “elite.”
As she claimed to be a “normal person” just as we are, I won’t mention that she rent a $17K/month Manhattan apartment.
During her apology, the influencer declared that she wasn’t going to address world issues on her platforms because she sensed she wasn’t informed enough to talk about war context “in a meaningful and educational way”.
Like a lot of “Sorry videos," her apology ended in a debacle. People were furious against Haley, a self-proclaimed “normal person,” saying she didn’t know enough about the Gaza war, although there are various ways to become informed. Viewers criticized the fact that she had a 10M following base without raising awareness about serious world concerns.
I’m not her, but if I made such a big mistake in front of that many people, I would do everything I could to make it right. You have all the news sites of the world waiting for your response. Maybe it would have been a good idea to spend a couple bucks and try to learn about the situation (and maybe give to charities).
Our role
As many know, Marie-Antoinette was executed by guillotine. Ironically, TikTok users started to block celebrities after this “Let them eat cake” controversy as part of the so-called “digital guillotine” movement.
This motion attempts to reduce the insane amount of money celebrities could get out of video ads and posts from our endless scrolling.
Between the Met’s luxurious looks and the Gaza war, it seems like we’ve been allowing economic disparity just as we did in the 18th century.
In this digital world, our attention generates money and has significant value. We are the ones allowing celebrities to be as wealthy as they are. How many hours of viewing are we granting them each day as a whole?
We are literally watching hours of frivolous content per day, which enriches people like Haley.
We have to question ourselves about whether we are comfortable with that or if we’d prefer to give our time to celebrities who are actually informed enough to talk “in a meaningful way” about real people-centered issues.
The comparison to the French Revolution seems strangely accurate. Through views, watch time, and scrolling, we concede power over celebrities. If we take back our attention, their power vanishes.
Fear of missing out
My sociological interpretation of this scandal is that it is caused by the all-too-famous FOMO.
In reality, no one really cares about Haley. With all due respect, she was a model who reinvented herself as a TikTok personality. If she stopped posting content tomorrow, I’m pretty sure that not many tears would be shed.
But everyone is talking about her, so we must follow her. It’s a vicious spiral. There’s a new wave of scientific research on FOMO and social media abuse.
FoMO includes two processes; firstly, perception of missing out, followed up with a compulsive behavior to maintain these social connections. (Gupta and Sharma, 2021)
And more compulsive behavior leads to more perception of missing out. No wonder why social media is creating such agony in younger generations.
A meta-analysis showed that the more someone has FOMO, the more they’re inclined to abuse social media (Fioravanti et al. 2021).
And in case you’re asking, some research is showing that abusing social media is also associated with deteriorating mental health (Ulvi et al. 2022).
I have to admit that the impact of social media on mental health is still the subject of debate in the scientific literature. It is suggested that social media use for networking can improve mental health when it builds on offline social capital but can lead to internet addiction if connections are unrelated to offline social life (Glaser et al. 2018).
To break this vicious circle, we must take conscious action. We can unfollow or even block users that we find irrelevant but that we can’t stop watching.
Short content is designed to be addictive. Engineers are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to make you spend the most time on it. We must use the tools that we have to stop them.
In the 18th century, the peasants marched down the streets with scythes and axes. Today, we can mute, block or give our attention to someone else.
What’s stopping us from doing this very simple act of rebellion?
A warm thank you to my girlfriend who wrote most of this article.
Je t’aime ❤
About me
Thank you for reading and commenting!
I’m a master’s student in epidemiology at the Université de Montréal and a part-time counselor at a suicide hotline. My research focuses on suicide, mental health, and cannabis.
Here’s another one of my stories:
