Who are we when our desire for activism becomes style over substance?

By Olivia Priddis

We love our reposts of info-graphics on social media, because normally it’s a good thing. These posts often include statistical data, along with helpful links to organisations and support services. The nature of social media has allowed activism to develop in how it is communicated, and how we attach ourselves to viewpoints. However, like every good intention, the roots of selfishness can be planted to battle with the most selfless of desires. 

It would be incorrect to imply that social media has ruined genuine activism, quite the opposite. The international connections we make through social media has allowed for the spread of information and resources that would once be limited. The raising of awareness and growth of organisations online, have brought the everyday person into the role of activist.

However, when we think about social media and its influence on social culture, the use of trends in ideas, fashion and lifestyles, greatly encompasses the allure of social media towards its users. It is impossible for online activism to escape this subtyping with such movements being reduced of nuance and complexity to suit a trend-based algorithm, diminishing the quality of discussions while also justifying the most pointless of discourse. 

Like most people my age, I remember the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement, and how it became a beacon of online activism in which managed to spill over into a culturally defining moment of protests on an international scale. This period of time also saw the Me-Too movement and other revelations about systematic failures at the heights of international governments and systems. 

But eventually I, like many people, began to notice the change in how we talk about activist movements, or to be more precise, how simplified we talk about them. The aesthetic-coloured graphics and links we share on Instagram stories and put in our bios, were not designed to elicit deep thought and genuine discourse, but rather be the starting point to such. It is from this behaviour that the term “slacktivism” was born. While the definition remains self-explanatory, ‘slacktivism” encompasses a complicated sociological theory known as Interactionist Perspective. Though only a micro-sociological theory, this perspective can be traced back to the work of Max Weber, who founded the theories and texts that make up our modern sociology. Weber’s theory was that our human behaviours and actions are directly based on how the individual interprets the world around them according to their personal beliefs and influences, suggesting that our actions, while based on meaning, is thus secondary to genuine meaning. While this theory can be interpreted in many ways, Interactionist Perspective (also known as symbolic-interaction theory), posits that we as humans will take meaning from the world around us and form a social construct through interaction, or in other words, will develop self-identities through the use of symbols and communications. This theory examines how we as humans develop our own versions of reality and how we force ourselves to protect it against contrasting viewpoints. While our society has changed in values and beliefs since Weber’s time, the theory remains evident in how we interact with politics.

Much of our modern political and social culture can be traced back to this theory, but I’ve especially noticed how much it defines our online attitude towards not only activism in the form of “slacktivism” but the rules of morality itself. Such terminology as the “pancake vs waffle phenomenon”, in which oppression/hatred is assumed because of a positive display of one element in compared to another, has become a key factor in how we measure activism morality for those around us in life and social media. 

Something I remember was when an old Instagram mutual reposted an infographic on her story. The infographic was simply a black page with writing, stating that the viewer must repost if they are against sexual assault, and claiming that they see those who simply continued swiping, suggesting that anyone who continued to swipe without reposting was implicitly supporting sexual assault. I had dm her to ask about the infographic and if it was connected with any particular organisation that would receive support through the shared graphic. The response I got was lengthy and defensive and resulted in a mutual unfollowing. Through the Interactionist perspective, we see ourselves forming identities around our own morality, and within online spaces, our morality and activism must be forever performed, even if there is no genuine positive development. We convince ourselves that such strange infographics and online discourse equates to the legitimate change we want to see in the world, or perhaps the type of social change we want ourselves to be associated with. However, we as individuals cannot be every kind of activist in the world, or even the type of activist we see in media, thus we make it easier, we make it simpler.

The oversimplification of activism and current events through social media is designed to act as our own way to capitalize on the morality points of a straightforward and black and white narrative. It is the reason why we love our media about revolutionaries either real or fictional we love to be told a simple morality, something that doesn’t make us think about the complexities of issues and the fact that we as humans can never be truly good or bad. 

This is what we would call binary thinking, and our desire for it has become ever more apparent in both our actions and media. It is our nature for simplicity in the things we do and interact with, for it distances us from our own grey and complicated natures of being human. To be human is to know good and evil, and to want it in ourselves and those around us. If it is in both our nature to care and to be selfish, how are we to continue to make a better world. 

Sources

Slacktivism’: Legitimate Action or Just Lazy Liking?

What is Slacktivism and is it Even Helping? | Nonprofit Blog

Social media activism does more harm than good – The Queen’s Journal

Doomscrolling evokes existential anxiety and fosters pessimism about human nature? Evidence from Iran and the United States – ScienceDirect

Political Context and Social Change | SpringerLink

Olivia Priddis
Olivia Priddis
Articles: 1

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