Exploring the impacts of activism through platforms like Instagram
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Initially, Junior Gabi Morali did not register the gravity of George Floyd’s murder when she heard about it on the news. Although his murder struck fear in her and she recognized it was a tragic event, she was not actively involved in the advocacy aspect — that is, until the protests started. With millions of people participating in hundreds of Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in every state across the country, the surge of advocacy and activism on social media also began to erupt. Morali began to see her peers posting petitions and infographics and spreading awareness about police brutality. Despite initially questioning if posting on her Instagram story would be considered performative, she eventually started using it as an activist platform.
“Because of the virus, I decided to try to make some sort of change online and extend my knowledge into things such as signing petitions.” Morali said. “Reading about the history of systemic racism in the U.S. triggered something in me that continually made me so mad that our country has let it happen for nearly 400 years, so I knew that I had to share this knowledge with other people, even if some of them knew about it before.”
Sophomore Annika Lee had a more personal connection with her inspiration to begin advocating on social media: her older brother. Seeing her brother encourage others to make a change by signing petitions and donating, Lee wanted to make a similar same impact.
Lee believes that one of the benefits of activism on social media platforms is that people are signing many helpful petitions that highlight solutions to important issues and discovering smaller, grassroots organizations to donate to.
Similarly to Morali, junior Siddhartha Mishra believes that posting Instagram stories can shed light on issues. He also points out that because of social media activism, more people are hearing about important issues, encouraging them to protest. Despite acknowledging the many positive effects of social media advocacy, Mishra believes there are several of negative aspects as well.
“A lot of the stuff you'll see will be political, and a lot of Instagram accounts are skewed to one viewpoint, one view of the world, one ideology,” Mishra said. “When you keep promoting that [ideology], you basically try to force this view on other people. So don't believe everything on face value; it is still a social media site and not many people are putting thought into what they're spreading.”
Morali agrees that most people reshare posts mindlessly and don’t take the time to fact- check their information, leading to the spread of fake news. For example, she saw a post about Autism Awareness Month posted in June, though this takes place in April. Doubting the reliability of the post, Morali looked it up and informed her followers that it wasn’t accurate and encouraged them to not repost it.
Even though advocating on social media can appear to be as easy as clicking a button, being open about one’s political views can lead to complications. According to Lee, it takes courage to speak up against societal issues, and social media activists can often face backlash.
She recounts a specific instance when someone responded negatively to a repost from @pinkmantaray on Instagram that she had shared on her story. The commenter had responded that Schuyler Bailar, like all other transgender athletes, should not be able to compete in the gender they identify with.
This was one of Lee’s first experiences dealing with a disrespectful comment regarding something she cared about, and she decided to respond to the situation by blocking the account.
“I just blocked her because it's not worth my time to argue with her,” Lee said. “Because just dealing with that hate is awful — it puts you in a terrible headspace and just removing yourself from the situation is honestly the best thing you can do.”
While Morali has experienced similar comments and responses, she has a different way of approaching the situation.
“Sometimes when I criticize the government or President Trump, other people try to refute that and send me articles and try to say those are just allegations and ask me how I know if they're real,” Morali said. “I like to look at other people's perspectives because it's disrespectful to have someone talk to you and to ignore their opinion when they have to listen to yours. I think it's very important to listen to what other people have to say.”
Though a number of people choose social media activism as a way to express their beliefs and opinions, many decide it is not something they want to pursue. According to Morali, from the 200 people who view her story daily, only about 20 of them actually advocate online.
“I think [people who don’t post] are either afraid of getting backlash, which is mainly just rooted from fear or maybe they just don't care enough to repost it,” Morali said. “They don't exactly recognize their privilege — when they see a lot of people reposting about global issues and they don't do anything about it, that is ignoring your privilege.”
Like Morali, Lee believes that posting about social issues on your story is a great way to show your involvement. She mentions that posting is not necessarily something you need to do to be involved in activism. However, she also believes that people doing nothing to support an important cause are not recognizing their privilege.
Mishra believes a downside of posting on stories is when activists guilt people who choose not to post, and he believes that is where it becomes a “slippery slope.”
“You shouldn't be trying to guilt people or force them into doing specific things for specific political agendas or specific ideologies that they may not believe in,” Mishra said. “You have to respect other people and say ‘I've given you the information, now it's your responsibility to do something.’ That's why I think a lot of people on Instagram and social media believe that it's their responsibility to make sure that everyone is doing this, but it's not. It's not your responsibility to make other people do anything.”
On the Tuesday after Floyd’s death, the BLM movement on the rise, a hashtag on Instagram, #blackouttuesday went viral. This hashtag was an initiative started by those in the entertainment industry who wouldn’t be performing or releasing content in order to honor black lives. To participate, an individual would post a black screen on their Instagram account along with “#BlackoutTuesday” in their caption. While the hashtag was started with good intentions, Morali says she thought it was a prime example of performative activism, since most people were uninformed of the real message behind it.
“My opinion is when people who are very performative are doing things like [posting a black square], it gives other people on social media a false image of who they are,” Morali said. “I know some people that are performative, but behind social media, they still make sexist or racist jokes, and that is just not good.”
Similarly, Mishra points out that people who post just to boost their own morale are not doing anything to actually help and that social activism is not something that should be done to seem like a better person.
“[Performative activists] almost want to be morally superior to everyone else, so they post all of these things to say, ‘Oh, I'm so much better than all of you guys because I post these things and I help people’ when really, they don't care,” Mishra said. “That's not their main incentive for doing such things, and it's just selfish at the end of the day.”
While Mishra believes that advocating on social media is vital for spreading important information and educating people, he doesn’t think it will cause significant social change. He mentions how activism has been happening for so long, yet no monumental results have been seen, and for real change to occur, Mishra states that it must happen through legislation.
Mishra says that an alternative to activism on social media would be to discuss your opinions with people, including your parents, grandparents and friends. He stresses the importance of having the information and posts we see online reach those who don’t often access social media.
“I think your responsibility is A) to educate people around you and B) to call your legislators, and I know it's been overdone, but it actually has an impact,” Mishra said. “You can see that since we've had a lot more legislation in the House of Representatives even on state level. I think that's the way it was intended to happen, because the political body was designed where you tell your representative and the representatives vote for you.”
Morali also has other ideas on how we can further activism, specifically through the creation of active participation in clubs or organizations. In fact, she hopes to start a club in her senior year that focuses on Jewish culture to explain her perspective of the Israeli- Palestine conflict.
“I guess what made me so passionate about [advocating] was wanting to make a change in the future to things like end systemic racism, anti-Semitism and other topics I’m passionate about,” Morali said. “I really hope that one day I’ll have the power to do that."