Pray For Paris

Submission 27,911

Part of a series on 2015 Paris Terrorist Attacks. [View Related Entries]

About

#PrayForParis is one of many hashtags, including #parisjetaime and #jesuisparis, that became popular worldwide as a means of supporting for the victims of the 2015 Paris Terrorist Attacks. In addition, the term was used as a collective description of the support offered online.

Origin

Users of Twitter began posting the hashtag immediately after the attacks of November 13th.^[1] It is unknown who the first tweeter was; however, the existence of a clothing line called "Pray For Paris", which pre-dates the attacks, means that it is possible that the hashtag already existed before the attacks.^[2] In the 24 hours after the attacks, the hashtag reached a top rate of use of 64,000 tweets per minute, and was used more than 6 million times.^[3]

Spread

In addition to #PrayforParis, other hashtags took hold. #JeSuisParis,^[4] modeled after the Je Suis Charlie hashtag from the 2-15 Charlie Hebdo Terrorist Attack also came into favor, accruing over 260,000 uses. #ParisJeTaime, which means I Love Paris, was used 23,000 times.^[5]

Facebook introduced the ability to create a profile picture overlaid with the blue, white, and red stripes of the French flag,^[6] while Uber changed their car icons to the same colors.^[7] Facebook does not publish statistics of how many users changed their profile picture to the striped version; however, their original post discussing the ability received more than 300,000 likes, and anyone who looked at a profile picture that had been changed was prompted to change their own.

Criticism

The explosion of the hashtags and the Facebook profile picture overlay prompted criticism from many. Users asked why there was no similar outburst of social media support for Lebanon, who had suffered a similar terrorist attack a day before Paris.^[8] An op-ed from the Washington Post asked if social media support could be considered as narcissism, or at the very least as not helpful to the victims of the attacks.^[9] In addition, many criticized the social media networks for capitalizing on the tragedies to boost use and engagement.^[10]