Performative Activism is Bull

By Bianca Walder

Have you ever opened up Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or any other social media and see your feed flooded with posts in support of a social moment? An example can be the black out in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in June of 2020. This demonstration accomplished nothing, and potentially did more harm than good. The blackout was a demonstration that called for people to post just a black screen with the hashtag, “BlackoutTuesday”. The posts buried black creators and activists, the people who are actually doing productive work in reforming our current systems of racism. Most of the participants in this movement stopped at the square. They didn’t go out and protest, organize for candidates that could fix our system, or donate/ support black organizations. The idea of performative activism is that you look like you are doing something productive by posting a woke quote on your instagram story, but that post does nothing to enhance the conversation surrounding the issue. Retweeting something doesn’t amplify that opinion or cause people to think critically about an issue. No one will ever switch from a Blue Lives Matter supporter to a Black Lives Matter supporter because you retweeted something in support of BLM. These reposts only enflame and enrage those who are against the issue, and make those in support of the issue feel better about themselves. 

Performative activism is not just online, but also in the real world. Yard signs are a perfect example. Yard signs are the bane of every political organizer's existence because they are annoying to assemble, expensive, tedious, and ineffective. I worked on a campaign in 2020, and yard signs were one of the few things that we could do that were not virtual, but they were horrible. Most of the yard signs that went up got taken down by our adversaries, or were not put out all together. All of the hours of work put into the signs did nothing at the end of the day, because yard signs don’t vote, people do. You can have all of the yard signs in the world, but if you don’t have supports, those signs mean nothing. Elections are not won in front yards or on roadsides, but at the polls. The reason why yard signs are still used is because they make the candidates' supporters feel better when they see them around their neighborhood. I can attest to this. Even though I knew that yard signs meant nothing, still when I drove around the district and saw our opponents signs up, I feared that my candidate was going to lose. The power of the yard sign is real, but it isn’t effective in creating real change. The signs are made to evoke a feeling of either joy or hate. People on both sides are hiding behind those plastic signs, and oftentimes not thinking critically about the issues that affect us most.

What can we do to solve the issues that performative activism creates? Well, it is great to repost political material that you like and messages that you think are worth amplifying to your followers. Just post wisely. Repost that graphic showing how climate change is real, but then go out and participate in a park clean up in your neighborhood, donate to a credible charity that works for a cause that you support, or organize for a candidate that supports comprehensive climate change policies. In short, take concrete actions to make real change, even if those actions are small. It’s easy to think nice thoughts about an issue, but the real challenge comes in the implementation of those changes that you and I want to see.