If someone had shown my current Instagram feed to me last January, I would have been confused: not only because I didn’t know the word coronavirus, or the names George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, or that Joe Biden would be the Democratic nominee, much less the president-elect, but also because I wasn’t accustomed to opening the app to brightly colored infographics and reposts of viral political clapbacks. I would have been happy to see that more of my peers had added pronouns to their bios and that others (including several who had previously cared little about politics) were spreading awareness posts about Uyghur genocide and the crisis in Yemen. Now, my feelings are more complicated.
My social media feed is different because my life is different. School let out in March, and a month-long break morphed into weeks of online learning. Summer brought public outcry against police brutality and systemic racism in the biggest movement I’ve seen in my lifetime. COVID-19 rages on, and polarization seems more rampant than ever in this presidential election year. Even public health guidelines are politically charged. Navigating all of this is difficult, even for someone coming from a place of immense privilege. Both my parents have their jobs. I had the ability to stay home during the quarantine of March, April, and May. I have nearly all day reserved for attending my online classes; I don’t have a job or a responsibility to care for siblings. When I protested this summer, I did so as an ally, not as a person asking for my worth as a human being to be recognized.
The problem with this means of awareness activism? The answer lies within the blurry line on social media between raising awareness and performative activism. On June 2, 2020, over 28 million people posted a black square on Instagram with the caption #blackouttuesday. Many of these posts were also accompanied by the hashtag #blacklivesmatter, undermining the usefulness of a hashtag that had previously been linked mainly to protest and education resources. After June 2, searching #blacklivesmatter led mostly to a flood of black boxes. Others pointed out that more people posted black boxes than signed the most popular Justice for George Floyd petition. Even more widely criticized was the trend of tagging ten friends in an Instagram story post with a request to tag more friends who support the BLM movement, often without any resource links or awareness boosting. These simple, seemingly harmless trends can show sweeping support for a movement as important as BLM, but they also reveal that many are willing to let their activism begin and end with a few taps on a screen. Trends like these create a dangerous norm in which many people, especially white people and youth new to the world of online advocacy, scan posts and share them in order to earn social justice brownie points and shield themselves from scrutiny. How can a person be racist if they share three informational infographics relating to BIPOC every day?
These simple, seemingly harmless trends can show sweeping support for a movement as important as BLM, but they also reveal that many are willing to let their activism begin and end with a few taps on a screen.
Another concern is the spread of misinformation and problematically-framed information by students, most with good intentions. The internet literacy strategies taught in schools often have little relevance to fact-checking a social media post. Despite the fact that over half of teens get weekly news from social media, students have few guidelines for fact-checking a post that contains blatant misinformation, much less an ability to scrutinize posts that may not have outright lies, but are still harmful. A Jewish sophomore spoke to me about the frustration she felt when she saw many of her friends spreading a viral post like this one comparing Uyghur genocide to the Holocaust: “I know they were well-intentioned, and I was happy to see them spreading awareness about a human right violation, but the use of the Holocaust [as] a measuring stick…and tool for emotional manipulation disturbs me.” In addition, social media activism built on pressure and performance can increase polarization and isolate students at schools where a majority of their peers disagree with their views. This can especially be the case for students who don’t witness or participate in any activism or discussions outside of social media, due to a belief that their peers’ ideals are antithetical to their own identities. This leads to the loss of one of the core values of school: being around people different from yourself, whom you can continuously learn with and from.
None of this is to say that social media activism is wrong, or even more bad than good. I participate in it for a multitude of reasons. Without it, I may not know Breonna Taylor’s name or have any complex understanding of the historic racism of American law enforcement. Moreover, social media activism has become a way to reimagine justice safely during a pandemic. It provides an easy opportunity for teens who cannot vote to practice using their voice in their democracy, and to learn about issues that will compel them to vote when eligible. Many of my friends have posted polls asking followers to vote for Biden or Trump — a simulation of voting for those who are not of legal age. Social media is also one of the most direct ways to hold celebrities and brands accountable for using their massive platforms for change, and it has been invaluable to young organizers spreading information about protests and movements. It can also offer marginalized students opportunities to identify people in their community with similar experiences.
But advocacy requires introspection and self-education. At best, schools do not adequately prepare students for the nuance needed to enter the activism world. At worst, they instill ideas students will have to unlearn when they prepare for advocacy. The same schools whose advocacy education consists mostly of catchphrases should also provide more complex understandings of those sayings. This can be done through facilitation of discussions on student roles in advocacy, communication about real-time activism-related opportunities (like events, clubs, and mentorships), anti-racist education, de-colonization of curriculum, and information on social media fact-checking and detecting red lights for performative posts.
At best, schools do not adequately prepare students for the nuance needed to enter the activism world. At worst, they instill ideas students will have to unlearn when they prepare for advocacy.
Peers pointed out, however, that the most critical tool for fostering thoughtful and helpful advocacy is early education on the history and issues that affect their daily lives. A transgender student indicated the challenge of spreading nuanced information on LGBTQ+ rights when basic education often falls on his and his fellow LGBTQ+ students’ shoulders. He spoke about one example: “I remember once someone in science class told me a joke that had a homophobic slur in it, and I had to explain to both him and the teacher the history of the word, and why it was not okay to say it.” Auri Mitchell, an African American sophomore, echoed this point, saying, “I think that if we had better education on non-white history and voices, everything on social media could be better. More people would support us if there weren’t so many things being taught against us.” When students are provided with early, inclusive education on historic oppression, social media can be a more effective tool. More cisgender students might add pronouns to their bios if they learned early on from a teacher about about gender’s existence outside of one’s assigned sex at birth. White students might think twice before sharing a graphic or violent post that could be triggering for their Black peers in the name of awareness if their history teachers taught them about historic anti-Black violence. More broadly, highly-publicized movements like BLM this summer might become more common, as more people would feel less overwhelmed by the amount of social justice information they never learned.
Students who have been educated on social justice by their parents and community have an advantage when it comes to navigating online activism, but schools can bridge the gap for students who aren’t so fortunate. Schools should teach that social media activism ought to be balanced with more tangible forms of advocacy (discussions, organizing, attendance at protests, donations, etc.). They should also educate us on how to stand up for our peers in ways that reflect knowledge of oppressive histories, rather than just preaching “treat others how you want to be treated.” By taking steps to better prepare students to navigate and understand a world of online advocacy, schools can play a key role in bringing out the best in social media activism and preventing the worst of it.
