#GoBaldForBLM

About

#GoBaldForBLM is a hoax perpetuated by 4chan that encourages people to shave their heads in solidarity for the Black Lives Matter movement. The campaign recalls a similar hoax in 2012, #baldforbieber. The campaign was quickly identified as a hoax and the hashtag was spammed on Twitter with fancams.

Origin

On June 4th, 2020, an anonymous 4chan^[1] user posted, "#goBaldforBLM." Over time, the object of the campaign was defined as, "Get #goBaldForBLM trending on Twitter and Instagram. The idea is to get women, particularly white women, to shave their heads for BLM. Guilt them into getting rid of their straight "white" hair to show "solidarity" with black women."^[2]

Precursor

#BaldForBieber was a similar hoax which encouraged Justin Bieber fans to shave their heads due to a false rumor that Bieber had cancer. On October 23rd, 2012, rumors began circulating that Justin Bieber had been diagnosed with cancer and that fans were shaving their heads to show support for the pop star. That same day, YouTuber Advancedhackss uploaded a video titled “Justin Bieber has cancer, support him! #baldforbieber,” which featured a slideshow of people who purportedly shaved their heads in support of Bieber (shown below, left). Later that day, YouTuber Lexie Turner uploaded a video urging viewers to support Bieber by shaving their heads (shown below, right).

On October 25th, the news site Gather published a post titled “Does Justin Bieber Have Cancer?”, which speculated that the rumor appeared to be a hoax. On October 26th, the technology news blog TechCrunch^[9]published an article titled “Bald Beliebers Remind Us: Just Because You Read it on Twitter, Doesn’t Make it True,” citing a faked Entertainment Tonight tweet as the origin of the rumor (shown below).

Spread

Shortly after the idea was posted to 4chan, pictures of white women with shaved heads began appearing on 4chan, though it appears none of the images posted were sincere examples of the hashtag. For example, Twitter user @libert_forster^[3] posted a picture of a stock image of a woman with a shaved head in support of the hashtag (shown below, left). User @sociopathincel^[4] posted an image of a girl with a shaved head as well, though the profile's description reads "just a guy in his 20s."

The hashtag was quickly identified as a 4chan hoax, which led to users spamming the hashtag with fancam replies and various unrelated media. For example, user @cayeelouis^[5] posted, "so some 4chan losers created this… who tf still uses that shit?? #goBaldForBLM," gaining over 220 retweets and 3,000 likes (shown below, left). User @kthpupp^[6] posted a fancam reply, gaining over 1,000 retweets and 3,900 likes (shown below, left).

Paul Joseph Watson wrote an article attempting to mock women who had followed through with the hashtag despite it being a troll.^[7] However, the example he used was a deliberate counter-troll by user @LaineyBot20k^[8] that features a picture of herself with hair and a completely different woman with a shaved head.

Search Interest

External References