Someone yelled out that conservative activist Charlie Kirk had been assassinated when I was in my digital photography class Sept. 10. Upon leaving class and during that evening, my Instagram was flooded with stories honoring Kirk. It was the same post from “@theconservateur” reposted again and again. The next day, when talking with my classmates and peers, I felt frustrated because the whole outpouring on social media felt performative. The people posting didn’t speak out when elected official Melissa Hortman and her husband were shot in their home, or when innocent kids were killed at the Annunciation shooting that occurred in Minnesota, or even about the school shooting that happened that same day in Colorado.
While some people may feel like this performative social media activism is harmless, I think it’s a detrimental habit for society.
The one phrase I heard in classroom conversation that kept coming up was “selective empathy,” which is one of the most frustrating parts of this phenomenon. The idea is that while what happened to Kirk is undoubtedly devastating, why would people not outstretch that same anger and empathy to other victims of gun and political violence? It doesn’t invalidate what happened to Kirk, but it asks people why it is only something that prompts outrage when it happens to him. This “selective empathy” is extremely amplified when something becomes “trendy” or “popular” about which to post. People posting don’t actually care about the things for which they claim to advocate. They care when it is convenient and popular, thus, their empathy is selective.
Another thing that troubles me about the mass posting we tend to see on social media is people feel it creates an illusion that makes them seem politically active or educated. In reality, it takes no knowledge to regenerate the same post. But all this attention also creates no actual change. Last spring, an ice-bucket challenge called “SpeakYourMIND” went viral to promote mental health awareness. While it did spread widely and get attention on the platform, it morphed into a fun and silly challenge that didn’t push people to share their mental health experiences or prompt any actual reform.
Along with performative activism failing to enact any real change, I also think it doesn’t create any motivation for people to educate themselves on topics and ideas. If they’ve already posted on social media for people to see, what is the point of actually learning contrasting perspectives? The circulation of the same exact posts also heightens the problem, because when teens see the same redundant posts regenerated, very few go out of their way to question their accuracy or authenticity. This continues the spread of misinformation because, in the haste to be a part of the conversation, people don’t ensure what they are adding and sharing is accurate.
The issue is not people deciding to use their voices and platform to speak out for things in which they believe. The problem I see is only posting when something is popular and trendy, and boosting the exact same ideas without putting in the time and effort to educate yourself before doing so. As a generation, I think it’s important we recognize awareness is not action, and as Americans, we have a right to free speech, which also means the right to not speak if we can’t add anything that is meaningful or educated to the discourse.
Josie Wettan is a junior at Burlingame High School. Student News appears in the weekend edition. You can email Student News at news@smdailyjournal.com.
(1) comment
Josie while all sides do performative activism on social media (black squares for BLM, various flags in bios etc.) your piece loses credibility when you start with talking about support for Charlie Kirk after his murder. Melissa Hortman was a random state legislator that no one outside of Minnesota had heard of prior to her tragic killing. Charlie Kirk on the other hand was a beloved and important influencer who particularly impacted young people, and his murder on a college campus was witnessed by millions on film. It should be pretty easy to understand why one incident generated an outpouring of support on SM and the other did not.
Also, while conservatives all condemned the Hortman murder, many on the left justified and even supported the murder of Kirk. Maybe your next column can reflect on why the reactions were so different.
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