#AllCountriesMatter

Submission 12,437

Part of a series on Black Lives Matter. [View Related Entries]

About

#AllCountriesMatter, also known as All Countries Matter, is a hashtag meant to parody the "All Lives Matter" reactionary argument to the Black Lives Matter movement. The "All Lives Matter" argument is a criticism of Black Lives Matter that calls BLM exclusionary because it only focuses on Black people. Many believe that some employ this argument in bad faith to distract from the issues BLM focuses on, such as systemic racism and police brutality. Applying that All Lives Matter logic to countries around the world, some online use the #AllCountriesMatter hashtag to joke that the Fourth of July, the United States' Independence Day, excludes other countries.

Origin

On February 11th, 2015, Twitter^[1] user @makkiekay tweeted the earliest known usage of the hashtag in the context of race and Black Lives Matter. They wrote, "when those French guys got shot no one did #allcountriesmatter, even tho they do, bcuz a specific tragedy happened" (shown below).

Spread

Months later, on July 15th, 2015, Twitter^[2] user @fattieart tweeted the earliest known usage of the hashtag in regards to the United States. They wrote, "Hey, next time you hear someone say 'God Bless the USA' remind them that #ALLcountriesmatter #BlackLivesMatter" (shown below, left).

The following year, Twitter^[3] user @ikirigin tweeted a picture of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani wearing a "Make Mexico Great Again" hat. They wrote, "wtf is he saying that Mexico matters more than other countries? #AllCountriesMatter" (shown below, right).

2020 Viral Hashtag

In 2020, people on Twitter began encouraging people to tweet the #AllCountriesMatter hashtag on the Fourth of July. On June 4th, 2020, for example, Twitter^[4] user @waveyemma tweeted, "can we all collectively agree to piss off the republicans and make 'all countries matter' trend on july 4th." The tweet received more than 571,000 likes and 145,000 retweets in less than two months (shown below).

Others shared the hashtag in hopes of making the movement more popular. On July 2nd, Twitter^[5] user @brittany_broski tweeted, "there is nothing to be patriotic about right now in America. the world is laughing at us. y’all better trend TF out of #AllCountriesMatter on the 4th put it into language that THEY’LL understand!" The tweet received more than 6,100 likes and 935 retweets in less than one week (shown below, left).

On July 3rd, Twitter^[6] user @c0urteau tweeted, "a kind reminder that today we celebrate ALL countries because no one country is superior to another." The tweet received more than 15,000 likes and 4,200 retweets in less than one week (shown below, center).

That day, Twitter user @ayoair commented on a tweet asking if people were "celebrating 4th of july." They responded, "No bc all countries matter." The post recieved more than 115,000 likes and 42,000 retweets in less than one week (shown below, right).

The following day, Twitter^[7] user @jdwitherspoon tweeted a series of flag emoji from around the world. They wrote, "Happy #AllCountriesMatter Day!" The tweet received more than 18,000 likes and 5,300 retweets in less than two days (shown below).

On July 4th, Redditor^[8] FaceFuckYouDuck shared a tweet on the /r/BlackPeopleTwitter subreddit. The post received more than 58,000 points (79% upvoted) and 670 comments in less than two days (shown below).

Several media outlets wrote about the trend, including HITC,^[9] Complex,^[10] Heavy^[11] and more.