Instagram

On 14 January 2016 at 1155hrs (GMT+8), the first of several bomb blasts (and later, gun battles on the street) took place in Jakarta outside a Starbucks coffee shop in Sarinah, Thamrin, Jakarta.

(Rolling report from The Guardian here. Timeline of “extremist attacks” in Indonesia here.)

Although international news outlets are now (2300hrs, GMT+8) mainstreaming the “#JakartaBlasts” hashtag on Twitter, in the very earliest hour, vernacular emergence of hashtags on Instagram differed.

I track the initial hashtags that emerged on Instagram from (primarily) Indonesian users (based on brief user bios, language used, and context given) between 1200hrs and 1330hrs, and handcode the earliest Instagram posts.

Screenshots taken from public Instagram hashtag streams on 14 January 2016, 1300hrs, GMT+8.

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Hashtags

The first hashtags that emerged were the usual social movement tropes in the form of #PrayForX and the #Locale of the incident. #PrayForJakarta and #PrayForIndonesia debuted alongside #Sarinah and #SarinahThamrin.

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The next were #JagaJakarta (take care Jakarta), #SaveJakarta, #StaySafeJakarta, and #SaveIndonesia.

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#KamiTidakTakut (I am not afraid), #JakartaUnderAttack, and #DoaUntukJakarta (pray for Jakarta) were the last to emerge in the first hour.

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Several high circulating posts on social media have asserted that Indonesians are primarily using the #KamiTidakTakut tag to express solidarity and their stand during this incident.

However, Instagram posts on this tag predate the Jakarta Blasts by months. In the first hour post-blast, there were only 222 Instagram posts on the #KamiTidakTakut tag, of which only 6 were related to the Jakarta Blasts. Most of the earlier posts were in relation to sporting events.

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PrayForJakarta

There were four main categories of PrayForJakarta posts.

The first was text posts bearing “PrayForJakarta” in various fonts.

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The second was “PrayForJakarta” text against images of the blasts.

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The third was “PrayForJakarta” text against images of the Indonesian landmarks.

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The fourth was “PrayForJakarta” text with artwork or photography.

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Monumen Nasional

Monumen Nasional (Monas) became the iconic Jakarta emblem to circulate during the incident.

Monas was photographed in daylight,

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at night time,

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and beautifully illustrated.

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National Icons

Well-wishes and prayers were captioned under Jakarta’s iconic cityscape,

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the Indonesian flag,

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and tigers.

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Live Media Coverage

Like in recent disasters, a vast majority of posts were reposts from live media coverage.

This included photographic captures of television screens,

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screenshots of news websites,

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and screenshots from Twitter.

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Live Ground Coverage (trigger warning)

Most strikingly, several Instagram posts featured what appeared to be eye-witness accounts at the site of the blast. This included aerial views of the traffic, bloodied victims, damaged concrete, and stray photographers.

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Mixed reactions

Smaller thematic streams presented mixed reactions.

Some of these were anti-terrorist sentiments,

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some were messages of resilience and anger,

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while others were selfies with captions bearing prayers or tributes.

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But perhaps the most troubling were seemingly opportunistic posts jumping onto the hashtag bandwagon, in order to market wares or attract traffic to their Instagram accounts.

A handful of backdated posts, like the following, were even edited to include trending hashtags to increase visibility.

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Emblems

As with most disasters and social movements, reactions to the Jakarta Blasts also borrowed from broader global emblems such as:

The peace sign,

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The ribbon,

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Keep Calm,

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and prayer.

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Curiously, a handful of Instagram posts also featured animations of bombs, akin to the rifles of #CharlieHedbo.

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See also Instagram during
#SanBernardino,
#PorteOuverte,
#JeSuisAhmed and #CharlieHedbo,
and #OccupyCentral.

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Over and out,
wishcrys.