#HereWeAre

Submission 8,409

Part of a series on Twitter / X. [View Related Entries]

About

#HereWeAre is a Twitter hashtag used to promote gender equality and leverage female voices on Twitter.

Origin

The earliest known usage of the hashtag #HereWeAre in the context of Twitter's promotions was posted on December 11th, 2017 by Twitter's chief marketing officer Leslie Berland. That day, she tweeted,^[1] "I’m thrilled to announce this lineup of amazing women in tech who will be hitting the Twitter stage during CES on Jan 10th! We’ll also livestream on Twitter via @twitterwomen. #HereWeAre #ChangeTheRatio." The tweet (shown below) received more than 440 retweeted and 1,200 likes in less than three months.

Spread

On March 4th, 2018, Twitter broadcasted a commercial for #HereWeAre during the 2018 Academy Awards. The video (shown below) features poet Denice Frohman reading a poem, as the words of the poem overlay different women, including film directors Ava DuVernay and Julie Dash, looking at the camera.^[2]

[This video has been removed]

The response to the commercial was mixed. A Wrinkle In Time directore Ava DuVernay tweeted,^[3] "Happy to join fellow women of color storytellers @IssaRae @JenBrea and the legendary @JulieDash. Fierce poem by @DeniceFrohman. #HereWeAre." The post (shown below, left) received more than 4,800 retweets and 11,000 likes.

Twitter user @eugenegu tweeted,^[4] "Twitter aired the best #Oscars commercial ever. Poetic and stunning. Beautiful. #HereWeAre." The post (shown below, center) received more than 1,000 retweets and 2,800 likes in 24 hours.

However, others found the ad hypocritical and criticized Twitter for not taking enough action to respond to user complaints on the platform. Many women have expressed that Twitter has not reprimanded those who have threatened them swiftly enough.

Twitter^[5] user @brosandprose responded to tweet made by Twitter about the ad with, "How about you spend the money you used on this ad to hire moderators to kick accounts that terrorize women off your platform? How about you hire more engineers who aren’t men to build your platform so that you don’t have giant blind spots putting users at risk? #HereWeAre." The tweet (shown below, right) received more than 690 retweets and 2,100 likes in 24 hours.

That night, Twitter^[8] user @dianelyssa tweeted, "twitter: 'we stand with women and support making their voices and presence heard and known' also twitter: *refuses to suspend people harassing women, threatening women, creating parody accounts to mock women, and suspends women who are mass-reported by trolls* #hereweare." The tweet (shown below) received more than 1,100 retweets and 2,760 likes in 24 hours.

Several media outlet reported on the ad and the reaction, including The Washington Post,^[2] Variety,^[6] HuffPost^[7] and more.