Protesting is not a “trend”

Kaiya Lakes | The Chronicle

It is commonly understood that there has been a rise in political opinions and activism in the younger generations recently; every few posts you see on Instagram, every time you scroll on TikTok and every couple of stories you click through on Snapchat, you are bound to see some kind of political post. A repost of a news article, a picture of someone holding a sign at a protest, climate change, DEI, international affairs, the education department — but where does this newfound urgency for action stem from? In an interview for my article about the recent UC protests, I had the opportunity to speak with a very politically active student here at MHS, who brought up the topic of performative activism, something I had not considered much before. In direct relation with the topic of my article, political protests, we began to discuss the idea that within the younger generations, as well as the rise of social media’s political presence, to some people, protesting has started to become a “trend”. First, I would like to define performative activism — it is not as self-exploitative as you might imagine; it is a rather loosely defined term. Performative activism could be someone inherently active on social media who feels pressure to show followers they “care,” it could be someone attending a protest or reposting a movement because their friends are and they don’t want to feel out of place, it could be someone who wants to appear “woke,” even if they don’t understand what it is they are representing. I do not think this is a hard thing to be guilty of — I myself can recognize times I have stood up for a cause in exchange for some kind of praise, if you will, from other people around me. I do think that most of the time, this kind of activism is not ill-intended but rather stems from a lack of understanding. I believe many people support causes and inject themselves into influential movements without truly understanding what it is they’re fighting for, who exactly they are going against, and the true intentions of the people fighting by their side. I think the rise in attendance to local and national protests and the publication and proof of attendance shown on social media is the most recent and relevant example of what could be classified as performative activism. I think that while the number of people taking part in movements and protests has risen, the merit and the initiative of the people participating have declined. While greater engagement assists these movements and the traction they gain, I cannot help but discern the difference between those who are there to demand change and those who are there so they can claim they tried, they showed up, they did something. This is not an attempt to discredit any activist or any one person who attends protests or displays their beliefs and morals for people to see- this is simply an attempt to shed light on a term that is slowly gaining more and more meaning in wake of the age of social media, the rise of “influencers” and the popularity of publicly protesting. In a way, all activism is putting on a show to get a point across — the difference between what is considered socially acceptable and what is looked upon as performative is the intention, the ethics, the allegiance of the person — something that truly cannot be fully known by anyone other than themselves.