You only meant to watch a video of an influencer sharing a funny story, but a puzzling collection of comments sent you down a news rabbit hole — one where you incidentally learned about the starving children of Northern Gaza. The comments on an Usher dance video unexpectedly got you fired up to decry the systemic bombing of a Palestinian refugee camp. Influencer clips about pregnancy soon necessitate follow-ups in which those same posters speak out about the harsh reality of pregnant women in Gaza.
That’s the version of TikTok that online activists, specifically those associating with a movement known as Operation Watermelon, are trying to create with the help of the platform’s algorithm-based blue comments.
TikTok was seemingly not built with activism in mind, despite its present invocation as the digital voice of the revolution. Following its Musical.ly origins, ByteDance re-envisioned the app as a trendsetter and money-maker — a renaissance app for users of all ages (entertainment behemoth, trend curator, and new age Google). In its efforts, TikTok’s algorithm has become a character of its own. As both the app’s Big Evil but also the purveyor of taste, even celebrities and politicians have made their issues with the algorithm known.
But as TikTok adds more and more customizable features intended to keep users glued to the app, those same users are becoming more savvy about the algorithm’s tactics — including how to co-opt them for their own means.
Turning TikTok comments into SEO hubs
It all started out innocuously. Timed with the initial launch of suggested searches, and quietly introduced in 2022, TikTok rolled out blue, clickable highlights to specific keywords or phrases within user comments. These keyword suggestions take the user to a page of related videos that match the highlighted search term. A variety of blue comments may also trigger a more general suggested search term at the top of a comment section. As its expanded, the feature has been advertised as an enhancement of the app’s search capabilities and an extension of the company’s efforts to be Gen Z’s go-to search engine.
Simply, suggested searches are just a new type of algorithmic recommendation. In a comment to Business Insider, a TikTok spokesperson explained the searches are not human-influenced, and that they’re sorted by user relevance and engagement. “To make recommendations, the company uses artificial intelligence to identify conversations around a video, such as by scanning user comments or looking at what other people type into the search bar after watching a video. The search results reflect what users are saying about the TikTok video,” the publication reported.
The feature was, of course, quickly noticed by TikTok advertising strategists and creator tips accounts.
One, known as @jera.bean or “Jera Bean TikTok Expert”, spotted comment searchability for celebrity names and quickly theorized it would start applying to more phrases and keywords — she was proved right soon after. Another TikTok strategist, @LikeLaurenTaylor (“Lauren Taylor, TikTok Growth”), drew follower attention to TikTok’s video-specific search bar and “hyperlinks” as the new foundation for TikTok SEO strategies, claiming it could increase discoverability for brands.
A June 2022 blog from Sprout Social called TikTok’s comment sections the “best part of the app” or the “playground for internet lore, themed threads, and belly laugh-evoking jokes.” According to the blog, the most important goal for a brand (or influencer) is to build “comment-generated reach,” and that is done by feeding into what the algorithm likes: highly engaged comment sections with tons of likes per comment. To gain the top-liked comment is to hit TikTok gold.
But the blue comment algorithm — which started with seemingly random assignments of blue links — evolved, and users soon found that they could influence what shows up as a suggested search through the strategic use of certain phrases or keywords in comments. It didn’t take long for users to transform this into an attention-grabbing exploit, turning suggested searches into cogs in the app’s rumor mill. Months after launch, users began gaming the system to get their least liked creators trending, using blue comments to suggest the account was the center of an unnamed controversy. As awareness of the feature and its quirks grew, creators used it to enhance viewer curiosity, posting videos replying to their previous posts with captions like “Why did TikTok make that the suggested search?!” in order to draw attention back to their original post.
Even now you’ll still see users attempting to pull attention to their comments by “stealing” the blue search term. “Did I get the blue comment?” users will ask, an evolution of the “first comment” or “first like” game. And, much like “First!” comments, they’re often successful, populating the suggested search and claiming prime real estate at the top of the comment section. But even if they’re unsuccessful, the question itself — and the obsession with blue comment baiting — is enough to garner the likes and replies needed to redirect the spotlight anyway.
Credit: TikTok screengrab / @ElijahNelsonn
The automatic suggested searches have also been criticized, and treated as a microcosm for TikTok’s broader media literacy problem. Users flocked to the site last year to call out the algorithm’s problematic lack of moderation for blue comments, allowing for the spread of tabloid-like drama and misinformation. Celebrities like Ariana Grande and Bebe Rexha have been the target of blue search suggestions focused on the size of their bodies, while famous TikTok couples fall victim to breakup rumors. LGBTQ influencers and creators of color have had to navigate an entirely new form of targeted hate.
Users can report suggested searches for potential removal — and the platform occasionally turns off the feature entirely for certain videos — but the apparent hands-off approach leaves most search curation in the hands of users themselves, for better or for worse.
Blue comments as the new protest sigil
With its ingrained connection to virality, engagement, and branding, suggested comment searches are now part of the bedrock of platform usability. Users attempt to research the brand name of a popular designer handbag, where to snag a trending food item, or find out more about a creator’s political stances, for example, via blue comments. And if the blue comments don’t lead them to the information they seek, many appear eager to abandon the mission.
Credit: TikTok screengrab / @Warrenit4Love
Credit: TikTok screengrab / @isheep_pro
But over the last few months, blue comments have also become a large part of a social justice organizing strategy. They’re a deceptively simple way to use an influencer’s already established platform, and their priority within the app’s algorithm, to get around shadowbans, raise awareness, and, hopefully, push the creator into speaking out about issues. As one of the internet’s preferred hubs for pro-Palestinian sentiment gathering, it’s now being used to call attention to mass violence and humanitarian crises in Gaza.
The strategy, stated by TikTok’s participants, is simple:
Target an influencer that has stayed silent on the crisis.
Flood the comment section in order to create a wave of blue, linked comments that will also change the suggested search bar to a Gaza-related term.
Increase engagement on the video and use the now-viral video to educate the influencer’s followers via comments.
The most common way this is accomplished is by nestling the calls for attention inside normal looking comments or eye-grabbing sentiments. During coverage of the 2024 Super Bowl halftime show, comments like “Bisan and Motaz would absolutely crush this!!!” and “Usher should’ve had Motaz or Bisan as guest performer” attempted to draw eyes back to the accounts of Palestinian citizen journalists Bisan Owda and Motaz Azaiza.” Others flooded videos with “All eyes on Rafah.” The repeated comments led to multiple suggested searches of “Bisan and Motaz NFL” across videos. Blue comments have since been removed from the videos.
These comments aren’t just a trend, but an official TikTok movement organically coined “Operation Watermelon,” a riff on names of grassroots pro-Palestinian movements like Operation Olive Branch (not to be confused with the Turkish military operation of the same name). Operation Olive Branch’s purpose is to amplify the voices of Palestinian creators, activists, and families on the ground, led by a network of grassroots volunteers trying to connect families with aid. Operation Watermelon, meanwhile, is less officially organized, with a few creators continuously swapping leadership.
The original organizer is user @Angie__Mariie, who asked her followers to flood comments with watermelon emojis and called the effort “Operation Flip the Rhythm.” Angie has since left the app, passing along Operation Watermelon’s reins to user @TooMeanToBean, known for videos on revolutionary organizing and political activism. Targets appear to happen organically, with comments from just a few users snowballing into entire comment section takeovers.
Ahead of the primetime broadcast of the Academy Awards ceremony, @TooMeanToBean and Operation Watermelon organizers flooded the comment sections of the official Oscars, Entertainment Tonight, and Vogue profiles with mentions of Yazan al-Kafarna, a 10-year-old Palestinian boy who died from malnourishment during the ongoing famine in North Gaza. “First! Yazan Kafarnah deserved better ❤” wrote one user.
Efforts like these do sometimes have a direct impact on popular influencers. Following Operation Watermelon comments flooding her profile, popular labor and delivery nurse Jen Hamilton posted a video ruminating on her own ignorance about lost Palestinian lives.
“Yesterday I started getting comments about things I had never heard before,” Hamilton said to camera in a Jan. 22 post. “Things like ‘Did you know that women in Gaza are having C-Sections without anesthesia? Did you know that the miscarriage rate has gone up 300 percent?’ These are all things that I care deeply about, and no. I did not know that. I did not know why there were watermelons in my comment section. Today was the very first day, moment, time, that I intentionally looked at what is happening.”
Other efforts have spammed comment sections of major accounts like Alix Earle, MrBeast, Dixie D’Amelio, and Hank Green — a group with a cumulative 161 million followers. In March, popular TikTok creator Elyse Meyers officially departed the platform following an announcement that she was taking time to focus on the health of one of her children. Users, however, felt it was in response to her being a recent target of Operation Watermelon, following months of her own followers attempting to get the creator to speak out for the cause.
While Hamilton’s video was celebrated by many as a victory for the cause, it would be a stretch to call an event like Meyers’ departure a resounding success — especially with Meyers’ loyal fan base calling the blue comments and subsequent stitches directed at Meyers a form of online harassment. Some organizers in Palestinian liberation spaces questioned how targets were decided, or wondered why commenters didn’t also direct attention to political targets, like the recently created TikTok account for President Joe Biden. Others view Operation Watermelon as the “schoolyard bullies” of TikTok, asking why the cause doesn’t just share “thoughts and prayers” for those affected.
In a recent case, Operation Watermelon targeted lifestyle influencer Abbie Herbert, a creator with more than 15 million followers. In the call to action, organizers asked users to flood her comments with mentions of al-Kafarna once again, which effectively got the attention of the popular creator. But follow-up posts accused Herbert of deleting Operation Watermelon comments and silencing the calls to action. A clarification was posted by @TooMeantoBean shortly after, alleging that TikTok was actually removing the comments for “bullying and harassment.” TikTok’s automatic cyberbullying warning has appeared on other videos filled with Operation Watermelon comments, as well.
The blue comment strategy is clearly churning up the TikTok waters, which is something disruptive political organizing aims to do. And Operation Watermelon’s problems, while thorny, reflect the deeper problems facing digital organizing at large. How can organizers and supporters create centralized, thoughtful movements in inherently impersonal spaces? How can they do so effectively and with nuance, without facilitating trolls or wider backlash?
TikTok organizers deal with an additional digital question: Should you hedge your movement’s bets on an algorithm that arguably works against you by keeping users glued to screens and out of the streets?
As TikTok continues evolving, so too do creators, brands, and, now, social movements who use the platform to make a living, garner attention, and attempt to make tangible change. Blue comments may be a timely symbol for failed digital organizing — or they may be just the beginning.
