You know a movement has reached a tipping point when it becomes smarter for businesses to embrace it than to ignore it, which is what happened on Saturday when multiple big media companies and streaming platforms tweeted out messages of support for Black Lives Matter. Of course, businesses aren’t people and it would be absurd to think otherwise, so it’s worth remembering that anything and everything that comes as an official statement from these social media pages is, at least on some level, tactical. That being said, it would be easier to say nothing and ignore what’s happening, so the fact that they’re not doing that should be worth something.
Then again, if you’re Hulu and Netflix has already tweeted “#BlackLivesMatter,” you don’t have much choice but to do the same. Otherwise you run the risk of letting your silence be taken as a statement of its own and everyone will point out that you’re the streaming service that didn’t say that Black lives matter. So maybe it’s not worth anything that all of these companies tweeted out messages of support? Maybe it’s all just part of the cold and calculating machine that is capitalism? It is, after all, much easier to say these things than it is to actually do anything. Oh well, whatever.
Here are some posts in chronological order, including a few that seem to be happy to make statements like these without acknowledging the problems on their own platforms (we’ll let you decide which ones that applies to). As noted by Variety, no Disney-owned brands other than Hulu joined in on this, meaning no Disney+ (if that matters to you or if it matters at all).
Looking for ways to advocate for black lives? Check out this list of resources by our sister site Lifehacker for ways to get involved.