A quick thematic capture of the emergent vernacular responses to the attacks in Brussels on Instagram, via the #Brussels and #Bruxelles hashtags, at 8 hours post-attacks. Screengrabs captured on March 22, 2016, 2220hrs, GMT+8.
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1) Tin Tin as a “symbol of solidarity“.
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2) The Manneken Pis responds with “piss and love”.
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3) Other grieving geographies respond with empathy.
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4) National colours are on display.
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5) Artworks abound.
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6) And in usual ‘grief hype-jacking’* fashion, spam and commercial advertising creep in.
*conceptual paper on ‘grief hype-jacking’ in progress.
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See also Instagram during
#JakartaBlasts,
#SanBernardino,
#PorteOuverte,
#JeSuisAhmed and #CharlieHedbo,
and #OccupyCentral.
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Over and out,
wishcrys.
WISHCRYS 
Dearest Crystal, Thank you so much for collecting and thematically organising this visual response. Up till now Facebook hasn’t launched its Belgian Flag profile filter, but it is interesting to see how Tintin became a symbol of solidarity so quickly. From what I have observed in the French Twittersphere, this morning, the Tintin caricatures by the illustartor Joan Sfar were one of the first to circulate and maybe inspire others to use Tintin symbolically in this context.