The dangers of performative activism

I’ve written a blog post about activism before and how through things like social media, it is becoming more widespread, and movements are gaining more traction as social media allows people to share ideas, educate themselves and talk to people from all over the world with different perspectives. Like all good things, activism can also be dangerous. Performative activism is a term you may have heard thrown around, and is essentially the idea that people share posts on social media in order to gain attention or for reasons that are other than genuinely supporting the cause.

You may think ‘well, as long as it's bringing awareness to an issue, why does it matter why someone posts something?’ and for the most part, you are correct. Awareness is one of the biggest catalysts for action, but the issue arises in large scale events or with companies or people with massive audiences taking part in performative activism, it can be dangerous. It provides a facade of ‘wokeness’ for corporations or people to hide behind and allows them to not admit their mistakes. An example is during the George Floyd protests, many streets in America were painted with ‘Black Lives Matter’. Whilst a good sentiment, this does absolutely nothing to help black people in these areas or those affected by racially motivated police brutality. Another example is brands coming out in support of the LGTBQIA+ community in June (which is Pride Month) for the sole reason of increasing their sales or target audience. Not many of these companies actually do anything to support the community like donating to charities, or effectively campaigning and creating awareness all year round. It takes the focus away from the issues and the people affected, and instead becomes a money ploy and trivialises the work done by activists and campaigners. 

It is also dangerous because it creates this mentality of it being a social obligation to post on social media about the latest social issue, and therefore means people are less likely to actually do things to help like sign petitions or donate. It also means that those who fight quietly are seen as doing less than their peers - it's the whole mentality of ‘proof, or it didn’t happen’. 

So how can you change your behaviour and be a better ally? The first is to make sure you do your research. Spreading awareness about a topic is only effective when you are spreading accurate information, so do your research and find out what’s actually happening. Make sure that with every social media post, you are also signing petitions which are free or doing something to help the cause, and that you support the cause all the time, not only when its convenient eg don’t only campaign for queer rights during Pride month. Most importantly, be aware of performative activism and its dangers.