Performative Activism Always Comes Back.

Social media is a great thing. Every time there is a major issue in the world, so many people try to educate their friends, family, and followers and bring awareness to the situation. But sometimes this just causes more harm than good. Not everyone is posting about the issue with the right intention. And people are starting to get annoyed with it.

The issue is with performative activism. This is defined as “activism that is done to increase one's social capital rather than because of one's devotion to a cause.“ (Boston Medical Center, 2021) People are starting to realize that just because someone posts about a cause doesn’t mean they are actually doing anything to help. People have been trying to bring awareness to this for years for those who don’t realize the harm they are doing, but the cycle continues.

We have seen performative activism many times just throughout the last five years. The two most notable times were with the Black Lives Matter movement, and with the ‘Watermelon’ movement in support of Israel. Now, we are already seeing it again with the ‘Cute Winter Boots’ movement.

The real-world examples

With the Black Lives Matter movement, many people participated in online protests showing support for George Floyd. But among these people, others were trying to explain how their voices were drowning out the things that needed to be heard. On Tuesday, June 2nd, 2020, #BlackOutTuesday took place. Almost every person you knew posted black squares on Instagram to show their support for BLM and Floyd, with captions sharing their stances and feelings towards what had been going on at the time. But, many also included the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter alongside their post. Without noticing, they were drowning out information, donation links, and petitions that were very important to the cause they were trying to support. While people did try to share the harm of this, it was too late. When a petition for justice for George Floyd only had 19 million signatures, there were 29 million posts in support of him. (Ashe, 2020) I am sure many people had no idea about the petition, but that itself is the problem. Those who start these performative trends disregard any thought about what they could actually do to help, and those who want to support a cause but don’t know how to follow blindly with what the crowd is doing. Very few are trying to educate themselves and others on the right ways to help, and the ones who do are drowned out by everyone putting on an act. Kelley’s thoughts hold with this issue, as she stated “Put simply performative activism on social media and real life also equates to silence. It is you trying to be an activist and an ally when you quite frankly don't even care to begin with. Why is this detrimental? Because you will not take active actions in real life, you will not challenge people on the issues of race in order to change them, you will not open up dialogues. You will not hold yourself and others accountable for their actions, therefore you will continue to be silent and nothing will be done. Yet your so-called posts of solidarity prove otherwise.”

But you may think this is less of an issue of purposeful acting and more of an issue of ignorance, but that is not always the case. Some people want you to believe they are doing more than they are. While I agree with exposing those who I don’t feel comfortable with sharing a specific person’s story of direct performative activism, so we will stick to companies for this example. I am sure you have seen many companies change their logos for Pride month to rainbows. Chick-Fil-A may not be one of these companies, but they have claimed to support everyone regardless. It didn’t take long for people to realize that they may not stand by this, as they donated millions to anti-LGBTQ+ charities. They stated they would stop doing so after this came out, but that doesn’t make a difference now that people know they once did. They also still don’t allow LGBTQ+ members to stay on their campground sites. (Winfrey, 2022) Chick-Fil-A never directly claimed to be in support of Pride movements though. Anthropologie, however, claimed in 2020 they supported the BLM movement, and had shared a Maya Angelou quote on their social media that stated “We should all know that diversity makes a rich tapestry and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter their color.” However, the managers they had running their stores would use a code word over their headsets to let employees know when a black person had entered the store and to be on the lookout for them to ensure they weren’t stealing. (Winfrey, 2022) It isn’t just people who want you to believe they stand for certain causes, companies will lie to you as well.

Kelley, once again, said it best in her piece, stating “In my opinion, a good actor consists of three things: A. An understanding of tactics and given circumstances, B. An ability to command an audience, and C. A believable performance of the material. It isn't a surprise that performative activism also encompasses all of these things because it is just that, a performance.”

The #cutewinterboots Movement of 2025

These past couple of weeks there has been a surge of videos popping up on Tiktok since Trump’s inauguration using the hashtag #cutewinterboots to share how you can protest against the government. These include discussion about Ben & Jerry’s posts supporting the left side’s stances, how to dress when protesting to hide your identity, including makeup you can do to avoid AI detection, what you should be writing on every dollar bill, and a bunch more. People are mad about what is happening in the world right now, and they want a way to show it. But, some of these things are just causing more harm than good.

Starting off, you may have seen videos of anti-facial recognition makeup users are sharing, and some are suggesting to wear to protests. This is very harmful advice. First, it makes you a target. Wearing those blobs on your face immediately identifies you as a protester, and makes it easier for cops to notice you in person, and leads to you getting arrested a lot faster. Second, any kind of spray or gas sticks a lot better to your face with makeup on. Wearing this makeup instead of any kind of face protection during a protest can lead to pepper spray or tear gas sticking to your face and causing you more harm than good. Protesting is about standing up for a cause safely. If things were to get violent for any reason, you should be prepared to protect yourself in the moment, not from what the cameras might see.

Even worse, giving cute names to important movements is harmful. I understand many are trying to avoid being censored online while still sharing the ideas that are important to them. But, there is now a misconception about the #cutewinterboots movement that the left is buying guns with a plan to “gather all immigrants” and overthrow the government. This is far from the truth. These videos strictly discuss protest actions. Avoiding direct language in fear of possible censorship allows others to make huge assumptions about these secret movements, which then puts a lot of people in danger. Every day, we start to become more and more divided. Our actions online are not helping anyone. And people are already annoyed with this new hashtag.

Maybe we can learn from our mistakes

Teens and young adults are now calling each other out online for these posts, trying to bring awareness to the fact that they are not giving out good advice on how to protest, they are not actively doing anything to change what we dislike about the government, and they are just making ourselves look silly. Activism has become a huge part of Gen Z, and many are always searching for a way to make a difference and improve the way things are in our world. The youth are starting conversations that are super important to have. But, when we put pressure on one another to stay informed and look like we are doing something, we only lead to more arguments, a spread of misinformation and propaganda, or performative activism. Harrison (I highly recommend reading his piece) shared a point I really agreed with, stating “When teens are spoon fed infographics and news solely from other activists, their views are never challenged, leading to little room for discussion and a less nuanced understanding of major issues. People have their own opinions echoed back to them tenfold, and those with opposing perspectives are alienated, even when their overarching views are largely the same. Yelling at people with differing views is an easy way for someone to feel like they’re making a change without putting in any work or questioning their own actions.” We want to take a stand for something, but we aren’t informing ourselves on how to.

A lot of articles discussing performative activism are outdated now, even though they were written just a couple of years ago. People have been trying to stay on top of sharing the helpful information you need alongside every new major issue, but social media has allowed us to see more than ever and in a much faster way than before, and writers almost can’t keep up. Even when trying to do my own research for this article, most of what I saw was heavily based on the BLM movement of 2020. While all those points are still valid, they don’t help me or you combat the newest flow of misinformation, propaganda, and fake activism being spread. This makes it even harder to try to make the right decisions when discussing these issues. I wish I could tell you the right way to be an activist, but I know I still have a lot more to learn on the subject. And our opinions may differ from one another, so I couldn’t give perfect, overarching advice for every reader. But what I can tell you is the best first step is to become informed in what you believe in. Figure out ways you can help and make a difference before you start posting anything online. Arguing with those who disagree with you won’t help, but you can try to educate anyone willing to listen. And most importantly, learn how to spot performative activism, so you don’t become a contributor to it.

Sources

Office of Equity, Vitality, and Inclusion, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, Boston Medical Center, and Boston University Medical Group. Glossary for Culture Transformation. 2021, https://www.bmc.org/glossary-culture-transformation/performative-activism#:~:text=Defined%20as%20activism%20that%20is,sexist%2C%20homophobic%2C%20etc.)

L. Ashe, “THE DANGERS OF PERFORMATIVE ACTIVISM” Vox Atl, 2020, https://voxatl.org/the-dangers-of-performative-activism/

M. Kelley, “Performative Activism is Basically Silence. Here’s Why.” Swaay, 2020, https://swaay.com/performative-activism-silence-protest-allyship.

T. Harrison, “Performative Activism isn’t enough”, The Lowell, 2023, https://thelowell.org/14627/opinions/performative-activism-isnt-enough/

E. Winfrey, “Performing for Praise”, the harbinger, 2022, https://smeharbinger.net/performing-for-praise-three-well-known-businesses-who-consistently-participate-in-performative-activism-in-the-media/