By Maya Prasad and Maggie Robbins
In clicking past the plethora of stories on Instagram, one is bound to see graphics depicting crises across the world. While many people are trying to spread information about topics otherwise unknown to the reader, these posts can be perceived as only following a trend. The increased reliance on social media outlets—such as Instagram and Snapchat—for information has paved the way for a new form of “activism”: performative activism. Individuals and companies attempt to portray themselves as self-aware of issues through posting on social media, evidenced during pride month when companies add LGBTQ+ brandings but do not raise awareness on issues. This form of advocacy of subjects by individuals, while guided by selfish reasons, can be a positive influence, especially on today's youth.
Defined as activism to increase one's social “wealth” rather than for the benefit of those around them, performance activism has taken the online world by storm, especially during the past year with the rise of anti-semetic, racist, sexist, homophobic, and xenaphobic incedents. Take for example the death of George Floyd last year. After his murder, coupled with many other cases of police brutality, Black influencers wanted to push towards equality, mobilizing voices from all races. With the initial goal of allyship for the Black community, the Blackout Tuesday Movement was created to spread awareness of police violence; however, rather than researching the meaning behind #blackouttuesday, people began to mass post images of black squares, burying the valuable information in the hashtag. Despite the call from numerous activists to remove the black square posts, individuals continued to post to demonstrate that they supported the movement, even as they hindered it by blocking key informational posts made by activists. While these users surely did not have malice intent in their posting, many people posted the square only because everyone else was instead of paying attention to the needs of the movement. This need to be seen as socially aware by peers drives society into a competition over who can post the most graphics over societal issues. As a result, those who don't actively post are seen as uncaring about issues.
Upon interviewing multiple students on the topic of performative activism, many expressed that the recent influx of informative posts in circulation has seemed somewhat superficial and “doesn’t contribute a lot,” as one junior even stated; however, all of the interviewees later admitted their political consciousness has been increased because of the posts. Often, performative activism boasts a negative connotation, but there is much to be said about the benefits of this political action.
With performative activism, though the motivation to post about various issues on social media may be driven by an ulterior motive, such as appearing more socially aware to the public, the rise of these current-event posts has increased the political awareness—and, thus, political efficacy—of many young people. Tufts University found that a whopping 11% increase in youth voter turnout was seen between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, the 2020 election coming directly after the initiation of these politically-informative posts. The shift of social media platforms to be a source of information about politics and current events has clearly had a favorable effect on developing the younger part of the constituency’s political knowledge and awareness.
Though the rising performative activism seen throughout social media platforms may create obstacles to finding important information, as could be seen with the Blackout Tuesday Movement, the advantages of performative activism cannot be overlooked. Despite the possibility that the intentions behind posting a black square or an infographic may be inherently selfish, the ability of these posts to mobilize younger Americans may serve as an advantageous aid to embracing and preserving democratic values ingrained into our country’s roots.
Comments