The crappy parts about internet outrage:

- it lacks nuance and pretends that all offenses are created equal. They’re not.

And pretending they do for a viral tweet doesn’t help the cause.

- it encourages virtue signaling. If you can quote tweet a thing, you can show you’re a “good person,” that you care about the right things, that you know better than that racist or homophobe who said that one thing that one time.

Helpful? In itself, no. That’s just about you

- where’s the fucking action, though? Internet outrage doesn’t *do* anything to address the systematic causes of the thing you’re outraged about.

Sharing that article on FB with three paragraphs of your thoughts isn’t activism. It just gives the impression of it.

- it pretends the world can be a binary of good and bad people.

This is the bullshittiest of all. Outrage demands your purity. You have to be all good or you’re cancelled.

Everyone, even YOU, are part of the machinery of oppression. First stone, and all.

- it pretends we shouldn’t hold contradictory things in our hands at once. Or at least attempt to do that.

The world is messy. Stop trying to order it with your outrage tweet. It won’t work. People will continue to be awesome and horrible all at once.

So what should we do? Fuck if I know. The best you can, I guess.

Teach when the moment allows. Engage in work that actually addresses oppression. Promote the opposite of the thing you hate. Make what want to see. Raise people up.
Construct a world that’s better than this one.