Tea With Gen Z

Performative Activism

Episode Summary

Have you ever reposted something on Instagram without knowing head or tail about the actual cause? In this episode join Amaan and James as they discuss the phenomenon known as 'Performative Activism" and the dangers it might have on our society!

Episode Notes

Intro Music Credits: composed by Pooja Maniyeri and Joshua Thomas

Editing Credits: Amaan Shad

 

Social Media

https://www.instagram.com/aus_osa

Episode Transcription

Speaker1: [00:00:04] Hey, guys. You're listening to another episode of Tea with Gen Z, the podcast where we discuss the candid student life I'm your host, James, and today we're joined by our very own producer and the author of The Vigilant Mind, a blog catering to the youth. Let's all welcome Aman Siddiqui.

 

Speaker2: [00:00:22] Hi, James. Hey, listeners.

 

Speaker1: [00:00:24] Hey, man, it's great having you here. They were actually going to be talking about an important topic that is almost synonymous with our generation online activism. Nice. As you know, our generation is one of the most globalized and diverse in terms of opinions and viewpoints, and that definitely has led into this era of online activism. For our listeners, can you kind of give us a definition of what online activism is for you?

 

Speaker2: [00:00:57] Well, I think online activism, it's fairly simple yet, but at the same time, it's just activism taken online and that can be done in many ways, whether it's engaging in conversations, financially contributing to social issues, looking for opportunities to volunteer.

 

Speaker1: [00:01:17] I on you mentioned about financially contributing or even volunteering, but most of these first originate online, as well as through social media and different online avenues and resources. You think that social media has a great impact in how movements and causes kind of gain traction?

 

Speaker2: [00:01:41] Well, to be honest, the answer to that would be very subjective. It depends on a case by case basis, but many times, depending on events that take place around the world, different people come across it even if they don't live in that country because of online activism and this globalized world that we are a part of. And many times, although those issues don't really affect them directly, it still sparks communication all around the globe because humans tend to draw out different connections from it. For example, when the George Floyd incident triggered protests, although the case was very specific to the United States, the rest of the world still took that as an opportunity to carry out conversation around race. That's true on

 

Speaker1: [00:02:28] The truth is, no matter where we are in the world, we as humans have shared conflicts, have shared experiences, and that really resonates when an issue comes up from a different place. Even though we might not be directly affected by it, or it might not be in our immediate social circle or bubbles, there's this sense of putting on a united front.

 

Speaker2: [00:02:53] Yeah, exactly, that's so true, it's one of the biggest advantages of globalization and the internet. Well, another thing with online activism and advantage is it's not just that people who live outside the area where an incident may have taken place get involved in the conversation and providing support. But even apart from that, differently abled people who would not be otherwise able to attend a physical protest, they can still contribute online by joining in the conversation there and with the current world looking for more ways to make technology and conversations inclusive. That just becomes even more reinforced.

 

Speaker1: [00:03:34] That's true demand because online activism is pretty accessible. So even if you have no idea in terms of how to get involved, you can just hop online and kind of share your voice as well. So I think that's one strong advantage to online activism, the ability to be accessible to everybody so that everybody can get involved.

 

Speaker2: [00:03:56] Exactly. And even in the stage of this pandemic, we've seen how the online sphere is helpful. So we don't have to physically travel to places. If you want to run a campaign, whether it's mental health or improving political literacy or educating people about a specific cause, we don't have to go to this to several different localities distribute pamphlets. A social media campaign pretty much reaches out to a large enough audience, for starters.

 

Speaker1: [00:04:24] Yeah, I'm happy that you mentioned educating yourself as well online because for me personally, I feel like during this pandemic with a lot of movements and policies that have gained traction, I've been educated a lot in things that I may not have had any idea with previously. And like even these casual posts on Instagram and Twitter have kind of sparked this insight into things that are happening outside of my own sphere and have pushed me into maybe educating myself a bit better. And yeah, so I agree with what you're mentioning that online activism does help educate people as well.

 

Speaker2: [00:05:04] You mentioned a very interesting thing. All the different posts on Instagram and especially Twitter, while a lot of them can be helpful. I found a very large diversity in the approaches those posts take, and I feel like a lot of them. They're not the best resource for educating yourself, nor are they a good or productive resource for activism. I see it's kind of performative and even at times is irrationally aggressive. What do you think?

 

Speaker1: [00:05:36] That's interesting that you bring up the term performative activism. Do you want to give us a definition for our audience and listeners? What exactly is performative activism?

 

Speaker2: [00:05:48] Right, yeah, for sure. So when it comes to performative activism, I associate doing things to it. The first one would be people conveniently voicing their concerns about different topics just so that the people who follow them can develop a good impression about them. And the second one is a little bit more unconscious. It would just be people conveniently reposting things or being a part of movements that are more convenience based instead of looking into different nuances and probably understanding the issue that kind of associated with cancel culture as well, because it's a part of it, also leads to people voicing, not because they're genuinely concerned, but because they fall victim to groupthink and confirmation biases.

 

Speaker1: [00:06:37] That's interesting. So it sounds like performative activism is it has to deal with the intention behind what you do. Maybe it's not a genuine concern for the movement or the cost, but it's just a way to gain some social points and make yourself appear like you care. Am I getting that correctly?

 

Speaker2: [00:06:58] Well, you've got the first part, correct? Absolutely. But as I said in the second part, which which is a bit more unconscious, people wouldn't necessarily go out there and get political because they want social points. It's just that different parts of psychology has led them down the wrong path, but they don't realize it because at the end of the day, it makes it makes them feel good, and that's what they end up caring about most.

 

Speaker1: [00:07:24] Now you're saying that maybe posting one story can make yourself feel like a better person and that falls under the category of performative activism.

 

Speaker2: [00:07:35] Well, not necessarily, it depends on what the contents of the story are, of course, and what's being said. This is something that depends on a case by case basis. For example, there's a lot of people out there who constantly police the internet and post about how you shouldn't use words like crazy and how differently evil is a better choice. These are all correct, and the ideas behind replacing these words also make sense. But when these are the same kind of people who have never searched for a volunteering or community service opportunity in their lives, then I don't know. I think it becomes a bit interesting behind the engagement and activity

 

Speaker1: [00:08:22] That makes sense. I'm curious, do you think that there's any positive outcome to performative activism?

 

Speaker2: [00:08:30] Well, yes, sure. Actually, the example I just described since there wasn't any negative outcome in the example of people using policing the internet and replacing certain words. And since that also wasn't an extreme case, the only thing that made it performative was the lack of was a lack of willingness to actually volunteer or participate in community service. I feel like that's something that isn't inherently negative. However, in some cases, I do feel like performative activism does not have any benefits at all. There are times when performative activists go out there and engage in an aggressive manner, and the content they share hits on people who are on the other side and calls them names. And some of these stories even start with something like If you're not a supporter of so-and-so issue, please unfollow me right now. Now that's the kind of performative activism I think has no benefits at all, because at the end of the day, people who agree with them, they're going to reinforce their echo chamber. They're going to stay together, they're going to reinforce each other's confirmation bias. Whereas people on the other side, because this content is not psychologically appealing, it is not something that's going to make them want to listen or feel like the other side is going to remain civil. It's actually pushing people away and increasing the dichotomies in our society.

 

Speaker1: [00:10:02] This is actually difficult to comment on, because I feel like we have very different understandings of performative activism in my in my mind before we've gone into this call. I was just thinking that it was, as you mentioned earlier, the first definition of unsubstantiated kind of showy actions to show that you support a community or a movement, but without any real kind of actions taken. I do have a question in mind. Do you think that when it comes to seeing performative activism done online, do you think that we should take action or do you think we need to do anything to rectify it? Do we need to call it out or do you think it would just waste breath from a movement?

 

Speaker2: [00:10:52] Well, I definitely think you need to read the room first, and depending on how severe the case of performative activism is, you can choose to call it out or not call it out, depending on the ultimate impact of you calling it out. Well, this isn't the short term regarding if you come across one specific post itself. However, in the long term, I definitely think it is beneficial to make sure people aren't being performative. For example. There are many issues which people just blindly share posts about, and they rant on their stories and express how sad they are, and as much as we don't want to impede on people's emotional spaces. I feel like if those same things were reframed and different aspects of it were taken into account, we could accomplish a lot more. For example, several people have shared several posts about the Afghanistan crisis, calling out different stakeholders, but the manner in which these posts were done. I don't feel like those stakeholders will ever come across these posts or do anything about it. Instead, there are several different groups people could have taken. For example, they could have educated people on means they can contact their local authorities for refugee rights. Or if someone's living in America, they could post about how they can contact their local representatives to. Well, hold the stakeholders, they're responsible for whatever happened, so we can definitely call for the alignment of different voices, if that's ever necessary.

 

Speaker1: [00:12:26] I'm on you and I. I believe that you and I both agree that performative activism has no use being normalized and that as a whole, we need to strive towards a more proactive form of activism where we actually do take action. But I kind of have some hesitations in terms of calling out these so-called performative activism because I feel that it takes breath away from worthy causes. My main gripe is that fight by kind of feeding into this, you know, spending time calling out and fighting people that we think are just performing, we ironically dilute the conversation further. I feel like it's difficult. It's just difficult for us to kind of read into people's intentions through a screen. You know, everything that we come up with is just pure conjecture. We don't know if people have educated themselves or have taken action. Aside from maybe a post that we see them share in their story. So for me, that's kind of the difficulty in terms of labeling things as just performative, because what we're essentially saying is that you're not adhering into my narrow version of activism when I say that somewhat, it's just, I don't know, performing or trying to act like they care. What I'm saying is that they're not doing enough to my standard. And so for me, that's kind of my difficulty in terms of. A kind of labeling things is performance in almost.

 

Speaker2: [00:13:55] Oh, yeah, for sure, I get what you mean. But when we talk about calling out performative activism, we definitely don't mean going to people and telling them, Hey, this isn't the right way to do activism. You have to do these other things instead. That's not what we're going after. So based on the discussion we've had so far, I think it's pretty obvious that there are symptoms to performative activism that can be classified as a lack of productivity and real change. It is just something that. Ultimately puts them in good light, and I think instead of calling people out for performative activism by seeing that they're being performative, we should rather question the means they're using not aggressively, but inquisitively rather. So again, the way to combat performative activism, if we were to do it by calling them out, gatekeeping different measures, I think that also makes it performative turn, but not if we approach it via conversation and seeking more productive means of doing it.

 

Speaker1: [00:14:59] That makes sense. And actually. And I actually want to circle back on what you mentioned about performative activism most of the times not yielding results or outcomes that are kind of fruitful or advance the conversation further. I actually kind of have to disagree in that regard. I think that is some extent. Performative, almost performative versions of activism do have some outcome. And I understand that, you know, speech has different purposes. Some are actually mentioned to instigate change and to build meaningful discussions. And I don't know, maybe broker world peace, but not every dialogue has to lead to that. I think that there are different stages and that not everybody can be a champion for movement on day one. So I think that in terms of measuring the outcome, we would have to temper it down because in my opinion, you know, speech that incites emotions or reactions or that just motivates people to research more. That also has some weight. So even if that's in the form of a zingy one liner on Twitter, if it causes you to feel something and to research more about it, I think that even though it may be labeled as performative, it's done its job.

 

Speaker2: [00:16:27] Well, yeah, of course, again, it depends on what content exactly is being said, some things which are performative, we might not even see it as performative and we shouldn't put energy in deliberately finding out whether something is performative or not. But sometimes you can like the instant you see it. You can tell that this is either performative, like they're trying to be like their superior or it's their unconscious psychological factors leading them to do something like, as I said before, if someone's out there posting, why is no one talking about this? Or if you don't support this cause and follow me right now, I think that's the kind of obvious stuff that isn't. Leading to good, but when it comes to other forms of performative activism, even if they don't have immediate negative causes, they do bear a high opportunity cost. And again, since we are not calling for people to give up measures or attack, quote unquote performative activists for what they're doing, I still think it's valid to have a discussion and disagreement with those measures.

 

Speaker1: [00:17:35] That's true, and I know you mentioned this as well, that it's it's good that we don't keep people in terms of movements and causes because the truth is, you know, even myself, I've gone into a conversation with someone where I know nothing about and I'm still in the early stages of trying to understand what's happening and the issues. And if you are already greeted with kind of a list of things that you need to do in order to support the costs, more often than not, what it does is push people away as well. And so we want to be able to make sure that we are welcoming and at the same time that we focus on the issues that do matter.

 

Speaker2: [00:18:21] Oh, yeah, of course, I totally understand that. And I just also want to clarify that a lot of people who make it very specific as to how you can support a cause, for example, having hashtags in your bio and stuff. In fact, that's also something that can be considered performative or at least unsustainably enthusiastic. But again, that's different topics, so we won't get too much into that. But when it comes to opposing performative activism, it's more like here's a list of things not to do so that you don't divide our society further instead of. Here's a list of things you have to do. So I still feel like it's not something that ends up being unwelcoming. Mm hmm.

 

Speaker1: [00:19:06] Thank you, Martin, for joining me today, I think this was a productive and fruitful conversation, especially something that us as students and as youth relate to being very vocal in the online space, and it's important for us to be mindful and reflective of what exactly we're doing and why we're doing the things that we are. So when it comes to joining causes or movements, it is imperative that we kind of take a step back and really understand if we're doing things for the right reasons. Why do you have anything that you'd like to add before we close?

 

Speaker2: [00:19:45] Well, not really, I really enjoyed the discussion with you, and I love the diversity in our opinions and the different approaches. And I'd love to hear what our listeners think about as well regarding this topic and how their reflections have gone.

 

Speaker1: [00:19:59] That's true. With that, we wrap up today's episode, thank you for joining us, Amon and everybody. We'll be seeing you at our next episode of Tea with Gen Z. Bye bye, everyone.