Hey, New York Times, Why Don’t You Take ‘Action’ on Performative Activism?
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Social media users are quick to blindly comment, like, and repost information as a means of advocating, but who will tell them that they have crossed into performative territory?
Jessica Lappin | Dec 13, 2020
Let me begin by stating that performative activism calls for a thorough investigation and warrants a proper education for Instagrammers, and all social media users, so they can avoid acting performatively and instead act with purposeful intent. So, New York Times, I propose it must be you who formerly brings this issue to light in which no large news outlet has yet done.
Brace yourselves, I am going to explain to you why you should care to stop this plague.
The Jest Of Performative Activism
Once upon a time, Instagram appeared to be a simple photo-sharing platform meant to encompass entertaining media. However, the global increase of social injustices has interrupted people’s feeds, replacing filtered selfies and photos of their fun-filled lives with political content. Peformativity has not left Instagram, rather it remains ever present in the minds of its users. Now it is no longer appropriate to not actively be aware or vocal on current social events — no matter if you are a celebrity, influencer, or with a low following count. Herein lies the question: what happens when you combine the original performative nature of Instagram with its shift in being an advocacy-driven platform? The answer is you get a vast amount of users taking part in the selfish, damaging act of performative activism.
The very definition of social media is to be performative. It is a platform to share what we want, what represents us, and on topics that we choose. Do you get what I am alluding to? Instagram profiles reflect each person individually, and for that reason, anything addressed on there will inherently encompass a performative component because it is rooted in individualist desires. I believe more research is needed to better understand this overlap and the unforeseen consequences that has come out of it.
So what is performative activism exactly, your journalistic minds wonder? To ‘perform’ is to engage in advocating for social justice, not because someone genuinely cares about producing real change, but wanting to advance their social image — posting an educational illustration with a simple hashtag, signing a petition and advertising that they have done so, or sharing a post with a broken-heart emoji to stand in solidarity — as a morally good person. The idea of doing the bare minimum in a highly visible way promotes likes, followers, and validation, more than the cause itself.
It is worth saying that majority of people who are vocal on progressive movements do so with good intentions, and we are all, including you, guilty of falling into a performative trap. However, without further committing to the cause in tangible ways like donating, volunteering, protesting, and/or planning events, etc., solely sharing an informative slideshow with bold graphics and fancy font, for instance, and going about your lives afterwards does nothing except broadcast that you want to be ‘down with the cause’ for selfish reasons. People need to know that digital activism is a start, but not an end to their advocacy.
Being Politically Responsible On Instagram
According to professor John D. Trybus of Georgetown University, “social media is the new currency of influence [and the simple effort of clicking means] the cause is forgotten and is where the activism ends.” On a platform like Instagram which is frequently used for bringing forward conversations of social injustices, its power and easy to use functions for ‘clicktivists’ can create an apolitically responsible platform because people’s actions harmfully replace the intentions of a movement.
How does this apply to performative activism? Well, brands have co-opted movements to commodify selling social justice messages for their own benefit, while promoting it on Instagram; chain posts act as a way to guilt trip people into reposting about an issue, sending the message that ‘hi, yes, I am not a bad person,’ and tagging others who are not as well; and people have trivialized the murder of Breonna Taylor into a slogan and other related memes, turning the conversation around what justice looks like for her into an insensitive fad to garner attention. It is clear that creating worthwhile change requires a level of political understanding in how to properly use a platform.
One of the most important parts of being an ally is continual self-education, however, Instagram users need an expert figure to understand the dynamics of taking political responsibility to prevent acting performatively and establish a credible footing to base their self-learning on, all of which you can provide. As a news outlet that positions yourselves as an advocator for social justice, you should understand from a press’ standpoint that if you want a story, or in this case a cause, to be meaningful, we must strive to prevent the harmful consequences of political irresponsibility.
The ‘Trend’ of Black Lives Matter on Instagram
During a time of racial unrest in the United States in June of this year, coupled with living in the midst of a pandemic, an unprecedented amount of engagement for the Black Lives Matter Movement happened online —a period that saw a rise in performative activists. The infamous Blackout Tuesday became a trend where people posted black squares in support of taking a day off to learn, listen, and educate oneself about the systematics of anti-Black racism, however, people returned to their strictly curated feeds hours later. More so, negative effects came out of this where it filtered out important resources under the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter that was integral to the movement, such as where to protest and donate, and documented evidence of police brutality. One unhelpful act, helpfully destroyed a movement:
“That’s when I realized they’re erasing everything off of #BlackLivesMatter,” Jones says. [On Monday night, she says, there were about 11.9 million posts under the hashtag.] It took seven years to get 11.9 million posts, and within seven hours, there were already a million more of them, mostly black boxes.”
— Feminista Jones; author, speaker, and longtime organizer of the Black Lives Matter Movement
After the murder of George Floyd, those who had little to say were now die-hard allies of Black Lives Matter overnight. The problem is, being an ally transcends into the real world, requiring taking active actions to challenge systemic racism — beyond a solidarity post lies what many do not want to put in: effort. It is too easy to post a black square and call it a day, showing how the movement was a way for people to capitalize on fake performances. Social media is meant to be a tool for communication, not a replacement for action, but it has become that and more. People fear to be called out as racist. People want to boost their social reputation to appear ‘woke.’ People want to care about Black lives, but not deeply enough to be committed to advocating for long-lasting systemic changes for the Black community. I believe if closing off an app is the endpoint to advocacy, it can cause an entire movement to lose momentum.
I am in no way against using Instagram for activism. In fact, social media is one of the most accessible ways to bring in the masses to have a cause heard, to stay informed, educate people with a magnitude of resources, and make an actual change. The police officers involved with Floyd’s death were arrested and charged in part to many flooding their feeds with demands for justice, highlighting the significant power that social media wields when collectively harnessed for the right reasons. However, there is a lack of knowledge in well-minded people with how to post and what to do after a post that leads to exercising performance.
In my opinion, Instagram has evolved past the days of harmless, fun usage and has adopted a more serious tone. Effective communication skills are now an unspoken requirement and there is no better group of individuals than New York Times journalists who understand the power of information and are dedicated to helping people understand the world better — by teaching others how to properly communicate on social media and contribute beyond taking part of a trend, you can change the future of digital advocacy.
I want you to think about the cycle of news. When a trending story reaches its peak, what happens afterwards? I am sure we can both agree it slowly fades away. In the case of allyship, it has to move past the hashtags and past the posts and past the ‘BLM’ in an Instagram bio — people must sensibly follow up on what they stand for to see an effect.
Simply put, performative activism equates to silence because it does nothing to the cause. Why is this detrimental? Because it jeopardizes real societal change that is currently costing people their livelihood. While black squares were uploaded, believing it will contribute to ending police brutality, a disproportionate rate of Black people were still being killed months later. What did a black square do to prevent that? I am forcing you to think about how dire the consequences are in which the very fabric of dismantling racial oppression now seem to rest in the hands of posts that take seconds to create.
Silence is known to be equated with violence and to speak volumes of ones character. If you choose to remain silent on performative activism, you are allowing this issue to continue. Hold people accountable, New York Times, but facilitate a conversation to be had and create a learning environment for people to understand the dynamics of being an activist in a time when every Instagram user will inevitably face the pressure of being one.
The Plague’s Victims
As is with all actions, unintended consequences can arise. It is not so much the act of taking part in performative activism that makes it hurtful, but who it harms in the process. So, let me explain it to you:
On the performance of white tears when people post themselves crying in pain for Black people on social media and calling it activism, and who it truly harms:
“Those tears are a way for you to appear as if you’re ‘one of the good ones’. It’s like, ‘look at me, I all of [a] sudden care so much about Black lives that I’m even crying about it.’ But we’ve been Black all this time, we’ve been suffering, speaking out and calling y’all in to this work all this time. And y’all have remained unbothered. And now you want to cry. No, your tears are for you. Those tears are your guilt, shame and embarrassment streaming down your face as you begin to see just how harmful and complicit you’ve been in upholding white supremacy.”
— Monique Melton, anti-racism educator, published author, podcast host, and international speaker|@meomotivate, June 1. 2020
It Harms Protests and Protestors
The circulation of performative Black Lives Matter posts on Instagram reached the screens of millions of people, influencing many to show up to protests to be an ally with the self-centered mentality of looting instead of remaining peaceful, with the impression it was helping the cause. This is an extension of performative activism because their actions perpetuated a false narrative to the media that the protests condemn people to raid, steal, and damage private property, affecting any progress from happening in the movement. In turn, this harmed protestors because it made it increasingly dangerous to participate in rallying for justice, as law enforcement was readily equipped for the protests to turn violent and used excessive force when it was not needed. Also, people gave the faces of protestors away when using images to promote their advocacy on social media, making it easier for them to be identified and face retaliation by law enforcement or white supremacy groups.
It Harms Marginalized Groups
As a mixed-race person, I find those being advocated for often face the brunt of performative activism because nothing beneficial is being done for us, while those taking part in performance get most of the attention. They benefit from our oppression to get the likes, followers, and praise from others, as we continue fighting against our oppression, just waiting for some smallness of it to change.
More so, the spread of sensitive images or videos that comes from being performative can arguably play a massive role in raising awareness for a cause, but in the case of Black violence, for example, it can also mentally harm the Black community. Further, triggering their trauma or influencing others not to take their experiences seriously because the overexposure of Black death normalizes the problem and invalidates its legitimacy.
It Harms The Movement and Producing Actual Change
You cannot change the world with a post. Okay, maybe it is possible, but you sure can bring down a movement with one. Performative activism diverts attention away from the real, underlying issues of a movement because people are sabotaging causes from producing long-term meaningful, systemic change which is the whole purpose of advocating, but it gets lost in translation when people improperly advocate online. It further fuels the very concepts they are supposed to be critical of, as is the notable example of racism — it can make a movement move backwards instead of pushing forward.
What you should take from this is that performative activism may not seem like the most problematic issue on the outside, but looking more closely at it shows just how damaging it is. I did my research and now I want you to do yours; do you not think people deserve to be informed about the harm they may be unknowingly inflicting? Think about it, because you can give that.
Yes, YOU Have A Place In The Conversation
I am not asking you to make a change. I want you to absorb everything from this piece and pull in your resources to create a story that everyone will read; utilize your well-renounced journalists, talk to people and conduct more thorough research to attach a sense of professionalism to it, and use your access in delivering news to a global audience to spread knowledge.
Ultimately, use your platform to educate others about performative activism. I believe a deeper look into the impact of social media, like Instagram, has on social movements is needed to change the conversation around advocacy. After all, it is not up to you, but up to the people who are everyday social media users to individually want to become purposeful, politically responsible activists; you have to leave it up to the people to make a change. Alter their mindset so they re-evaluate themselves as advocators in the digital world. Only then will widespread change happen, but someone has to give the people something to spark that change.
Your mission is to ‘make each reader’s life richer and more fulfilling, and all of society stronger and more just.’ Take your own words to understand why you have to be the start in compelling people to question their own authenticity as digital activists, if not, you are going against your very values.
This is your mission whether you like it or not, New York Times, so do something about it.
Jessica Lappin is a student at York University currently completing her undergraduate degree in Professional Writing, with a passion in fighting for social justice.
