Blue for Sudan

Submission 15,019

Part of a series on Protesting Sudanese Woman Standing on Car. [View Related Entries]

About

Blue for Sudan is a social media campaign to bring awareness to human rights abuses towards pro-democracy protestors in Sudan, following the ousting of the Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. The color blue was chosen as a tribute to the later activist Mohamed Mattar who was killed in the violence.

Origin

On June 3rd, 2019, activist Mohamed Mattar was killed in the Sudanese Uprising, an ongoing political and humanitarian crisis that began with demonstrations against President al Bashir, who was ousted in April 2019. At the time of his death, Mattar's Instagram avatar was the color blue, his favorite color (shown below).^[1]

Spread

On June 11th, @reresolve_ posted the color on Instagram^[2] with the caption "screenshot and put as your profile pic. let's paint Sudan blue." Additionally, the user explained that the blue is "for Sudan."The post received more than 280,000 likes in one week (shown below, left).

The post was based on a tweet by Mattar, who on May 6th, 2013 tweeted,^[3] "I paint the sky blue." On June 12th, Twitter^[4] retweeted the post and wrote, "He painted the whole world blue." The post received more than 2,400 likes and 1,600 retweets in less than one week (shown below, right).

On June 12th, Twitter user @aneesssaaa tweeted,^[5] "To all those ppl who think changing your avi doesn’t do anything, now big celebs with large following are doing it which will only lead to even more awareness about the situation in Sudan." The user included a photograph of Demi Lovato's profile featuring the blue avatar. The post received more than 8,900 likes and 3,500 retweets (shown below).

On June 16th, Redditor ^[6] Danenel asked the /r/OutOfTheLoop subreddit "What’s up with this blue profile picture?" The post received more than 4,000 points (94% upvoted) and 135 comments in 24 hours.

Fake Accounts

On June 14th, Instagram^[7] user @ramenqwerty posted a series of message on Instagram. They wrote, "Fake charity accounts on Instagram: Why they're bad and how to spot one. Fake charity accounts are accounts which pretend to support a cause by claiming to 'donate money or volunteer' in exchange for likes, follows or reposts. These accounts are bad because they divert attentionaway from organizations that actually help, and perpetuate the exploitation of causes for personal gain." The post received more than 130,000 likes in less than one week.

The following day, The Atlantic^[8] reported that several Instagram accounts had adopted the Blue for Sudan campaign as a means to gain followers under the guise of promoting charitable efforts for the Sudanese people. Accounts such as @SudanMealProjectOfficial, @SudanMealOfficial, @sudan.meals.project and more have promised to donate food to Sudan, but as The Atlantic points out "no one can send meals to Sudan in the way the viral Instagram accounts claim." Getting food to Sudan is "incredibly difficult" according to UNICEF."

@SudanMealProject responded to questions about the campaign "What I am obtaining is followers and exposure[…]I love how the left likes to twist these stories."

In the article, The Atlantic posted an image of groups with similar user names, all variations on Sudan Meal Project (shown below).