Blackout Tuesday began on June 2, 2020, as a collective action organized by music industry executives to protest police brutality and racial inequality following the death of George Floyd. Millions of social media users participated by posting a simple black square, intended to 'black out' the noise of self-promotion and make space for information regarding the Black Lives Matter movement. While it was a massive display of digital solidarity, it also faced criticism for potentially clogging essential hashtags with empty images. In the years since, the black square template has been repurposed in meme culture to represent silence, technical difficulties, or as a minimalist canvas for ironic commentary and serious messages alike.