Chloe Veltman, a correspondent on National Public Radio’s “Culture Desk” who last year celebrated the “Nation's first 'drag laureate,'" is still guarding the far-left ramparts of U.S. culture for NPR with Saturday’s “The Met Gala has fueled backlash against stars who are silent about the Gaza conflict.”
She demonstrated, as if any more evidence was needed, the tax-supported network’s rigid adherence to a left-wing worldview that offends at least half its intended audience. Even as other outlets are trying to rein in the woke left and open public debate back up with more tolerance of opposing views, Veltman went all-in in support of anti-Israel (i.e. pro-Hamas) social media-fueled cancel culture targeting the outlandish Met Gala in NYC.
A collective effort on TikTok and other social media platforms to push celebrities to speak publicly about the conflict in Gaza went into overdrive this week after The Met Gala.
Creators on TikTok have earned millions of views for videos they've made linked to hashtags like #celebrityblocklist, #letthemeatcake and #blockout.
Many of these posts list the names of actors, musicians and other high-profile figures whom the video creators say had not yet spoken out against Israel's attacks on the region -- or hadn't spoken out sufficiently -- and therefore should be blocked.
And there's been a special push in recent days to name those who attended the opulent, star-studded annual Met Gala on Monday.
They're not punishing celebrities speaking out for Israel. They're for punishing celebrities who say nothing about Israel or Gaza. This doesn’t sound sinister at all:
"I made a Google Doc of every celebrity that attended the Met Gala, and now I'm going through and writing if they've been silent, or if they've been using their platform to speak up about the genocide in Gaza," said one TikTok user in a video displaying a long list of celebrity names against a black background with the word "SILENT" in red next to some, including Zendaya, Nicki Minaj, Keith Urban and Andrew Scott….
(There’s an unrelated “Zionist authors” version of this sort of hate-list as well.)
Veltman the NPR culture journalist sounded precisely like Veltman the far-left activist:
Calls on social media to boycott celebrity silences have been on a slow burn for months.
But the fact the New York event, with its unchecked display of privilege and wealth, took place at around the same time as thousands of Palestinians were being forced to flee Rafah at less than 24 hours notice as Israeli troops took control of the Gaza territory's border crossing with Egypt, fanned the glowing embers into full-on flames.
….
The rationale behind the calls on social media to block celebrities, thereby negatively impacting their advertising revenue, is to put pressure on them to use their massive influence to try to stop the violence in Gaza.
The journalist concluded her taxpayer-supported segment celebrating the destructive, ultra-online temper tantrums for somehow helping “Gaza” (though calling for Israel to stop its war on Hamas would benefit the terrorists who run Gaza).
And even if the many, much-viewed videos aimed at canceling celebrities don't help to bring about a change for the people of Gaza, there's at least an emotional reward for those doing the canceling.
"It does provide some sense of agency," said the University of Michigan's Collins. "A sense that I've done something to influence other people to do something that perhaps maybe might make a difference. Because in the minds of those folks, it's better than doing nothing."
