Performative Activism

As our world sinks further and further into an age of social media, our need for attention becomes more and more shallow. The unfortunate truth of activism in the modern day is that it’s done much more for the benefit of the activists than the victim: as a way to garner attention and praise rather than selfless charity. Influencers and students alike share never ending streams of support for social issues, such as Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, school shootings, climate change, or local news. Their anguish, sadness, anger, and pain are filtered and funneled into a colorful burst of posts on Instagram. Two weeks later, they prepare to dispense a new batch of posts while never quite elaborating on or continuing to support the issues they so passionately defend. I wanted this work to show that, as dolled up and innocent as it may seem, behind the scenes, all that activism is simply a mass of grey, lifeless apathy. Made solely to for the user to pat themselves on the back for being a good person, this kind of activism stays just like a mask, turned on and off at the user’s convenience.