Blackout Tuesday
You might remember it as the black squares
The archive has not found a surviving copy.
Millions of black squares that buried the information the hashtags were carrying.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- the black squares
- Spread in
- 2020
- Began as
- A social-media post
- Format
- Event
- Made by
- Brianna Agyemang and Jamila Thomas, two music executives
- Original title
- #TheShowMustBePaused
- Origin
- Not an upload originally
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
On 2 June 2020 people posted a plain black square to Instagram in protest at the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. Many tagged it #blacklivesmatter, and organisers who had been using that tag to move information about protests found it filled with black images instead. A gesture of support worked as a denial of service against the thing it supported.
Why it matteredWhat changed
Millions of people posted a plain black square on one day. Tagged with the movement’s own hashtag, the squares buried the information protesters were using it to share.
What people misrememberSet straight
Commonly remembered asIt was a prank started on 4chan.
ActuallyResearch found that claim false. It was started by two women in the music industry, for their own industry.1
Commonly remembered asIt was called Blackout Tuesday from the start.
ActuallyIt began as #TheShowMustBePaused.1
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later · the upload that made its maker known
This first circulated as a social-media post, not as a video upload.
Where it came fromWhat we know
There is no original upload to identify: this did not begin as one. There is no copy of it here either — what it was, when it appeared and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first publication of this Moment, because the first publication was not an upload. This first circulated as a social-media post, not as a video upload.
Created by Brianna Agyemang. Established by research, not by who posted the copy shown here.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things