Auschwitz, Nova, and the Hijacking of Grief for the Algorithm

There’s a growing trend that should concern every person who believes in memory, truth, and dignity: influencers treating sites of atrocity like backdrops.

At Auschwitz-Birkenau—where over a million Jews were murdered—social media personalities are showing up with camera crews, filming emotional monologues and striking carefully staged poses. At the Nova Music Festival exhibition in Los Angeles, built to honor the 364 innocent lives brutally taken by Hamas on October 7, it’s happening again. Influencers record slow-motion walkthroughs and stylized clips, speaking to their audiences with expressions of somber sincerity—all while centering themselves in someone else’s trauma. Fashion influencers posting mirror selfies on the way to the exhibits, or worse, highly stylized photos, smiling in designer duds in front of a blood-soaked tent.

They claim to be raising awareness. But who is this really about?

This isn’t remembrance. This is performance.

Let’s be honest. There’s a world of difference between educating and self-branding. When you bring lighting rigs and camera crews into a gas chamber or memorial site, you’re not amplifying a story. You’re inserting yourself into it.

Auschwitz is a mass grave. Nova is a scene of massacre. These aren’t aesthetic experiences, or spaces to “feel inspired.” They are sacred spaces of mourning and warning. They demand reverence, not ring lights, full hair and makeup, and catch phrases.

And yet, in an age where attention is currency, even grief is curated. Social media favors feeling, especially the kind that photographs well. And so these sites, intended for deep reflection, become props in a personal performance. But when you stage your sorrow, you cheapen the truth. You turn genocide into a backdrop, and remembrance into a brand strategy.

This is not just distasteful. It’s dangerous. It is disrespectful to survivors and families of those murdered.

Holocaust denial is rising. Antisemitic conspiracy theories flourish online. The events of October 7 are being minimized or reinterpreted by those with political agendas. In this climate, how we remember—and how we tell these stories—matters deeply. When memory is flattened into a selfie or a soundbite, we risk losing it altogether.

To those with platforms: If you truly care about these stories, step out of the frame. Let Auschwitz speak. Let Nova speak. You don’t need to choreograph your grief to prove you care. Some stories are too sacred to be filtered.

It is possible to document pain without exploiting it. But that takes restraint, humility, and a willingness to not be the center of the story. That’s the kind of awareness we really need.

Because not everything should be content.
Some things should just be remembered.