What is the blue bracelet movement that has sparked backlash?
America is reeling from the results of the 2024 election. According to exit polls from the Washington Post, 45 percent of women voters cast a ballot for Donald Trump in the election on Tuesday. And 53 percent of white women voted red. These numbers have left those who voted for Vice President Kamala Harris hoping to send an outward signal to others that they’re different. That signal, according to TikTok, is a blue friendship bracelet.
What is the blue bracelet movement?
Though multiple blue bracelet videos have gone viral on TikTok in the days since the election, it seems the first one was from a woman named Libby, who posted a video from her car on Wednesday. “Fellow white women, how are we signalling to each other now which side we are on, because I just did school drop off and I don’t trust any of these bitches anymore,” she tells the camera. “Are we gonna... is it, like, blue friendship bracelets, are we keeping that up? Taylor Swift merch in general?” The video now has 4.2 million views—and many viewers clearly took the idea and ran with it.
“We won’t go back. Women are safer together. Blue bracelet movement,” reads the text on another preeminent video, showing a mum going to a craft store to buy materials for bracelets, which now has 4.6 million views. It’s set to the song Labour by Paris Paloma, which addresses gender inequality.
“As a girl born and raised in a red state, I need to find my blue bracelet friends asap,” one supporter commented on the post. Another: “Thank you for the idea! I’m in Delaware too and although we were blue, I still want people to know I’m safe.” Many of the other videos and comments on those videos relay the same message of solidarity and the hope that the bracelets will signal to those around them that people can look to them for safety, knowing they do not stand with Donald Trump and are against his racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and other hateful values.
Backlash against the movement
Some creators, however, are speaking out against the idea, saying that the bracelets are performative, or virtue signalling (when people take actions to make themselves appear good, without necessarily actually doing the work or truly caring about the cause). Some are comparing the idea to the black squares many white women posted on Instagram in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the Black Lives Matter movement. Others have expressed fear that the bracelets might put a target on people’s backs. Many suggested buying a blue bracelet from a Black business owner, if you’re going to participate. And almost everyone remarked that the bracelets must be paired with further action to have any value whatsoever.
“The bracelet can be covered,” a creator says in one video. “You wanna show that you’re one of the good ones? Be one of the good ones. Do the work. Have the difficult conversation with your friends, with your families, with your children.”
“White women, aspire to be the kind of person who does not need a blue bracelet,” urges another. “I want to know that you are a good and safe and progressive person because I have seen you stand up for people. Because I have seen you at the protests, doing the work, going door to door, knocking on doors, being a real activist.”
The feelings of the people impacted by the US election are not a monolith and there’s no consensus on whether or not the blue bracelets are good or bad, though it is clear that some people are comforted by seeing them on strangers.
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