Social Media Activism: Accessible or Performative?
Sandrine Jacquot, Staff Writer
January 20, 2022
Social media allows for widespread sharing of information. With users being able to connect and amplify their voices, social media undoubtedly has the potential to be a powerful tool for activism. Various platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, and YouTube have shaped how younger generations advocate for change. However, the accessibility allowing anybody to advocate for issues they are passionate about is accompanied by the risk of superficiality, or performative activism. In a time when many feel the moral obligation to speak out about social issues, social media presents the perfect tool for people to share their views. But activism on social media has become mainstream. With people’s lives on display, there is an urge to ‘look good by doing good.’ Activism is now simply another ‘trend’ for users to follow.
Performative activism is activism with the purpose of increasing personal gain or popularity as opposed to showing genuine support for an issue, cause, or movement. Because users hide behind a screen, it is virtually impossible to know the intent behind re-posting a widely circulating post. With this unique activism space created on social media comes another term coined ‘slacktivism’: The passive and simplistic support for a cause without genuine engagement or dedication to making change. The immediacy and facility of social media makes users prone to performative activism and ‘slacktivism.’ Many simply want to maintain an appearance of caring or involvement. The consequence of this superficiality is the inability to create significant, long-term, and sustainable change.
Needless to say, social media does present the potential for being a successful activism tool. These apps show promise as a means to organize campaigns and generate exposure and support for global movements. Social media has a sense of immediacy and urgency. It allows for swift action, all at your fingertips.
While in theory social media can be a good tool for activism, in reality it rarely results in meaningful action or long-term change. Public support does not necessarily lead to private action. In this dynamic, fast-paced world, support for evolving movements is short-lived and easily forgotten by the next ‘re-post’.
Consider the #BlackLivesMatter movement that peaked on social media between May and June of 2020. A movement defined by thousands of protests and an outcry against police brutality after the murder of George Floyd led to much significant progress in criminal charges and general awareness about systemic racism. BLM’s online presence has certainly led to positive changes, but was riddled with performative activism. ‘Black Out Tuesday’ was arguably the pinnacle of performative activism during the BLM movement of 2020. What began as a campaign to amplify Black voices, creators, stories, and educational information on Instagram, was instead being drowned out by roughly 24 million black square posts under #BlackOutTuesday. Amidst the movement’s peak, many influencers attended protests simply for the sake of posting about the fact that they attended — over a year later and these same influencers remain silent on the movement: #BlackLivesMatter was another trend to them. Between the months of June and September of 2020, support for the BLM movement dropped from 67% to 55%, particularly in White and Hispanic communities, evidence that for many the #BlackLivesMatter movement was just a phase.
Performative activism is problematic. Treating social justice movements as ‘trends’ strips them of their significance, simplifying the complex and serious issues they are trying to address. Performative activism harms activists’ genuine efforts for progress. Yet, these patterns persist and did not end with #BlackLivesMatter.
In November of 2021, a trend on Instagram went viral after an unknown organization pledged to plant a tree for every pet picture reposted through an ‘Add Yours’ sticker. The trend quickly blew up, and over 4.1 million posts had been shared, including those from celebrities. The company Plant A Tree Co. came forward as being behind the post, stating that they deleted it after realizing that it had grown beyond their capacity to plant that many trees, and that the continued circulation was a bug on Instagram’s end. Unsurprisingly, there are also many questions of the campaign’s legitimacy in the first place. Upon further investigation, one would find that there is no background information about the company and that in all their previous campaigns for Australian bush fires or Black Lives Matter, there is no evidence that they have planted a single tree. Not to mention that during this ‘activism,’ the company encouraged users to repost their content, which is often viewed as a branding strategy. The company asks consumers to purchase products at ridiculous markups that they would match by planting a tree. This scam and corporate performative activism reflects how seemingly simple actions, such as a repost, are too often intended for follower growth and attention. By nature, slacktivism relies on the lowest and easiest amount of engagement — a repost, to feel as though one’s contributed. The consequences of which impacts how users may view future activism campaigns towards suspicion, even if they are beneficial to the public.
While social media may be beneficial to quickly raising awareness and urgency about issues, that is often where the line is drawn. This is not to say that all activism on social media is inherently ineffective, pointless, and performative. Ultimately however, if movements want to see progress, they cannot rely on social media activism as it currently is, dominated by performative action and slacktivism.