a thread on performative activism - i’m sick and tired of seeing it

performative activism is in simple terms - only “caring” about an issue to benefit yourself

there are a few twitter trends that are extremely performative so let me run through some and why they are not helping.

firstly we have the newest, chainmail
why is it performative?
well this is the easiest to see for sure chainmail does absolutely nothing and the kind you see is just people getting tagged. It’s also extremely guiltrippy, if one of your oomfs tags you saying “i want justice-

for _____ and i hope you do too tag as many as you can” so many people feel like a peice of shit for not responding so it creates this long line of people unintentionally guiltriping their oomfs into participating in something that does nothing but clog up # and drown out info.

second, “fuck it i have to see rt/reply if you support _____”
why is it performative?
much like the other it does nothing for whatever movement it’s claiming to support. it’s also very guiltrippy and an easy way to get clout. most of the time the people tweeting it are not part-

of the group there asking you if you support. this is awful because it’s using other people’s pain for clout. if you see a lot of biphobia on your tl the answer is not to ask who supports bisexuals for clout. it’s to either check up on your bi oomfs or to tweet out something-

reminding them that their valid. again it’s very guiltrippy and creates the same chain reaction that the chainmail does, that’s why there so often hit tweets.

the last one i’m gonna talk about for now is the clickbait threads.
why is it performative?
this is definitely the hardest to understand but the reason it’s performative is because it seems like it’s doing something good. stay with me and think about it for a second-

these clickbait threads started as a simple twitter trend (ex. “____ click here!!” and then it’s a wikihow on how to be taller or smth) like most other twitter trends it was a joke. now you have people using this trend which is widely known as a joke to talk about serious issues

you see the problem? it makes them into a joke, and it’s very performative because under almost every single one they’re comments like “omg this is so smart” and there also very easy ways to get clout.

this is a short thread and i may add more as it’s needed but these are the most common tweets that i see as blowing up on my tl. please stop using these trends, even if you have good intentions it’s doing more for you then for whatever movement your tweeting about.

this!! https://twitter.com/cashew_cream/status/1293514057912205312

please stop being selective https://twitter.com/seahawq/status/1293346468905078789

i want to add another thing that’s performative, telling someone that is directly effected by a big issue that they should care more about that then an argument your having. (ex. me as a black person have been told by non black people that i should care more about blm)

why is it performative?
simple, you don’t care about it. it’s just a way to get under their skin to you, but to them? they could be movements that directly effect them and their family or tragedies that just happened in their home. you have to be the shittiest person-

alive if you really think it’s ok to do that. your telling people that they don’t care enough about movements and tragedies that directly effect them. also before someone comes for me i never said you had to be white to do this.